On Thursday evening, millions of Americans will enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving turkey for dinner.

Today, turkeys are produced in 47 states across the country. However, the production of turkeys soared by more than 60 percent in the 1980's due to a concerted advertising campaign, according to research collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service Turkey.

"We were doing direct mailing, contests and advertising, trying to strengthen the industry," foundation spokeswoman Kimmon Williams said, reports WXYZ Detroit. "This was also coupled with the health movement of the '80s. More and more people were thinking about what they were eating. Turkey is incredibly healthy and a turkey sandwich after aerobics was a better decision than a burger."

Last year, Americans consumed about 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day, reports the National Turkey Federation.

While the turkey tradition continues to grow among consumers, Theo Weening, the global meat buyer for Whole Foods, says that more people find it important to eat organic foods and feel good about the food they ingest.

"They want to know where it came from, who grew it and how it was grown," he said, according to CNN Money.

One way Whole Foods offers customers healthy turkeys is through their contract for turkeys with Koch's Turkey Farm, a family-run farm based in rural Pennsylvania that uses humane tactics to raise organic, free-range birds.

However, the owner of the farm, Duane Koch, said that Thanksgiving sales determine how well their business will do.

"We live or die by the holiday. The last two years our profits were meaningless," he said in reference to his profit margin, which was 0.5 percent.

"Every year it scares me to death because I might be short this size or that size and I'll have to figure out how to survive," Koch said.