{"id":248,"date":"2007-07-31T16:57:59","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T16:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/beef-and-energy-use\/"},"modified":"2017-09-05T17:54:57","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T21:54:57","slug":"beef-and-energy-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/beef-and-energy-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Beef and Energy Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beefI recently read where there is a Japanese study about the resources needed to grow beef. It is located here<\/a>. And being all science-y it talks about the energy needed to get a kilo of beef.<\/p>\n

I do not usually eat a kilo of beef at a time. I go for either a quarter pounder with cheese or a nice 10 ounce New York Strip (and sometime I go for the 14 ounce.) But I have never ordered the 2.2 pound hunk of beef.<\/p>\n

So how much energy does it take to create my quarter pounder with cheese?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Being an American I can not think in the metric system and have to translate everything into pounds and miles. A quarter pound is about a tenth of a kilo, so doing a little math for every quarter pounder with cheese I do not eat I save the following amount of energy: 10 miles of driving or so in an American SUV (or 20 or more miles in a compact car) and 2 hours of a 100-watt light bulb (or 9 hours of a 22-watt fluorescent bulb).<\/p>\n

Is my 15 seconds of eating and the calories consumed worth the energy? That is a call that each of us has to make. And I would not call on everyone to become a vegan or even a vegetarian (I have tried myself and cannot do it. I like eating meat.) But even I can cut down on how often I eat beef or any other animal. I am assuming that there is a sliding scale from beef to other animals. <\/p>\n

So does this mean that if we all became vegetarians gas prices would fall? Probably. Energy use would fall with all of the environmental and pocketbook advantages that brings.<\/p>\n

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