[DesuMaiden]

How much calories of fossil fuel energy is required to produce the following types of food? According to some people, it takes 7 to 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce every calorie of food in an industrialized country. I wonder what kind of foods they surveyed to arrive at that statistic. Not all foods require the same amount of fossil fuel energy to create. For example, meat will require more fossil fuel energy to create than fruits or vegetables because meat requires you to feed an animal food (which is either corn or barely grown by fossil fuel-powered vehicles and fossil-fuel based fertilizers and etc) and then transport the animal to slaughter. All of this animal feed and transportation of animal to and out of slaughter requires fossil fuel energy. Yes, it requires fossil fuel energy to grow fruits, vegetables, bread and other plant-based foods, but it will obviously require less energy than meat because animals has to be first feed food to grow meat for food. It typically requires 5 to 10 lbs of grain and other animal feed to produce a 1 lb of meat for various animals.

How many calories of fossil fuel energy does it take to produce a calorie of the following foods?

Meat from terrestrial vertebrates (like chicken, pigs, cows, goats, duck and etc).
Meat from sea food (like crabs, fish, shrimp and etc)
Vegetables (like cucumbers, peppers, pumpkins and etc)
Fruits (like apples, watermelons, pears and etc)
Grain Food (like bread and breakfast cereal)
Milk and Dairy Products (i.e. milk from cow, goat and whatever animal; yogurt; and ice cream).

I believe animal products will require the most calories of fossil fuel energy to produce because you need to feed the animals grain (which requires fossil fuel to be produced in the first place). And you need to use 5 to 10 lbs of grain just to produce 1 lb of meat. So the fossil fuel energy usage for producing meat must be very high.

Grain products will require less energy to produce than meat, but more energy than vegetables and fruits because grain is harvested via fossil-fuel powered vehicles and uses fossil-fuel based fertilizers.

Vegetables and fruits use the least about of fossil fuel energy because they don't require machinery to harvest and plant. Plus, they use limited fossil-fuel based fertilizers. The main fossil fuel usage of these foods comes from distributing the food via our transport system, which is all fossil fuel based energy.

[AgentR11]

You're right about meat, but not veg/fruits. Veg & fruits have very few calories; we eat them for taste, variety, supposedly odd nutrients. Vegans don't get their calories from vegetables. They get them from grains and nuts.

Grain is and always will be the most efficient converter of energy (labor or fossil) into food calories. Beef cattle (and vegetables with no calories to speak of) will probably always be the least efficient.

As to direct numbers, good luck; if you want to tie the two most explosive religions on the Internet together, put "sustainability" studies along side "food calorie" studies, and you have the nuclear weapon of internet forum bro-science.

[sparky]

.
Meat production used to be done on hard to plow land ,ranges and such ,
in Australia it didn't use much farming land or fossil fuel at all ,
the animals spent their own energy getting to the solar grown grass
this is now changing with widespread use of feeding lots where the cattle is kept in overcrowded yards
the feed energy is brought to them from grain growers sometimes far away

[Shaved Monkey]

In Australia free range, grass fed beef/kangaroo is making protein on land that is not suitable for any other agriculture.
Low input protein dense
With Kangaroos they dont fart and have increased in population since white man got here,because of more cleared grass and dams to drink at.
Low fat, low methane,totally adapted to the conditions

Most cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture.
This is usually rangelands, which constitute about 70% of the continent.

Grazing occurs on primarily native ecosystems.
These have and maintain far higher levels of native biodiversity than croplands. The rangelands can’t be used to produce crops, so production of meat here doesn’t limit production of plant foods.
Grazing is the only way humans can get substantial nutrients from 70% of the continent.
In Australia we can also meet part of our protein needs using sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo meat. Unlike introduced meat animals, they don’t damage native biodiversity. They are soft-footed, low methane-producing and have relatively low water requirements. They also produce an exceptionally healthy low-fat meat.
So they are low fat low methane protein dense with soft feet (to not destroy the environment)and perfectly adapted to the conditions.

In Australia 70% of the beef produced for human consumption comes from animals raised on grazing lands with very little or no grain supplements.
At any time, only 2% of Australia’s national herd of cattle are eating grains in feed lots; the other 98% are raised on and feeding on grass.
Two-thirds of cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture.

To produce protein from grazing beef, cattle are killed.
One death delivers (on average, across Australia’s grazing lands) a carcass of about 288 kilograms.
This is approximately 68% boneless meat which, at 23% protein equals 45kg of protein per animal killed.
This means 2.2 animals killed for each 100kg of useable animal protein produced.

http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/scienc ... an-dilemma

[vtsnowedin]

Desu here is something you might find interesting.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/c ... /a1-20.pdf
If you read through it you'll find a machinery cost table that gets down to fuel cost per acre for everything from plow to combine.
Combine everything including fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides and it takes about a gallon of diesel fuel or equivalent to produce one bushel of corn. A gallon of diesel has about 139,600 BTUs and a bushel of corn yields about 31,300 calories so that comes to 4.5 BTUs used to produce one calorie.

[Shaved Monkey]

Fish feed off it ..ish

....the area off Bremer Bay in WA's South West is home to a natural phenomenon involving a leak from massive hydrocarbon pocket under the seabed, which fuses with the surrounding water to create an ice-like reef known as methane hydrate.

This in turn sparks a food chain involving crustaceans releasing billions of nutrient-rich eggs into the desolate waters.

And that food source brings with it the ocean's big boys.

"On one particular day, over a four nautical mile period, we saw in excess of 100 killer whales - it was ridiculous," Riggs says.

"That is a lot of mouths to feed, so what the hell are they doing?"

To try to work that out, Riggs reached out to oil and gas company Arcadia Petroleum, which holds tenements that cover nearly 19,000 square kilometres in the area.

And the company was happy to hand over its survey findings.

"They supplied me with all their observations, and the observations correlated exactly with what I had observed over the last eight years. They referred to it as the 'hotspot'," Riggs revealed.

"So it definitely seems there is a link between these pressurised deep sea systems leaking, creating methane hydrate reef systems which creatures life."

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weste ... 2wdo8.html

[Pops]

Obviously production is not the largest part of the problem even taking the entire range of foods into account.
--

VT, even Pimentel found that corn production was about a 1:1 deal, usda thought about 19k btu

http://are.berkeley.edu/~zilber11/Conway.pdf

[vtsnowedin]

Obviously production is not the largest part of the problem even taking the entire range of foods into account.
--

VT, even Pimentel found that corn production was about a 1:1 deal, usda thought about 19k btu

http://are.berkeley.edu/~zilber11/Conway.pdf

Well are we going to add in the figures for the energy to chew it too? how about pumping the septic tank? It is interesting that it takes more fuel to refrigerate and then cook your food then the farmer spent growing it. That means if you grew all your own food with hand tools and no chemical fertilizer you would only reduce the energy requirement by half.

[Shaved Monkey]

I spend about $ 650 a year on electricity,running 4 fridge/freezers (and the tv, computer, lights, fan and water pump)
About $100 on gas to cook
and $300 a year on petrol to shop.
even though I grow most of my veg.

[vtsnowedin]

I spend about $ 650 a year on electricity,running 4 fridge/freezers (and the tv, computer, lights, fan and water pump)
About $100 on gas to cook
and $300 a year on petrol to shop.
even though I grow most of my veg.

Do you can any of your veggies? A lot of energy there. My folks used to can on the wood stove. It made the kitchen in August and September hot as Hades and kept a boy busy keeping the wood box filled with fine split wood.

[Pops]

It is so hard to imagine how things would be different post-peak / or in a low carbon world. Much of the energy in the "food chain" is for convenience: because we can. (no not as in glass jar "can" LOL)

Post-peak, convenience will be a luxury. Incomes will be much lower, so we'll eat much lower on the scale of out of season, precooked, prepackaged, frozen-then-nuked meals. But even if you cook everything from scratch you still have the bill for that which may not be any better - again, there is a huge incentive for industrial food to be efficient, just like there is for ag to be efficient.

We sometimes forget and think they pay no attention to energy, but energy is just another cost to be reduced to increase the bottom line.

[vtsnowedin]

It is so hard to imagine how things would be different post-peak / or in a low carbon world. Much of the energy in the "food chain" is for convenience: because we can. (no not as in glass jar "can" LOL)

Post-peak, convenience will be a luxury. Incomes will be much lower, so we'll eat much lower on the scale of out of season, precooked, prepackaged, frozen-then-nuked meals. But even if you cook everything from scratch you still have the bill for that which may not be any better - again, there is a huge incentive for industrial food to be efficient, just like there is for ag to be efficient.

We sometimes forget and think they pay no attention to energy, but energy is just another cost to be reduced to increase the bottom line.

Some here predict population crash to considerably less then the 70 million that are in the top one percent of wealth holders. I'm sure that would be quite a surprise to those one percenters that need to go. They with their power and wealth will seize the renewable power and best farmland and do quite nicely. It's the rest of us now stripped of access to both fossil fuels and the renewable resources hogged by the one percenters that will have the problem. The government will exist only to protect the interest of the one percenters and your survival activities will have to be planned around them and your success kept from their notice.
I'd be more optimistic about our lower tier chances if the one percenters were not close to having robots that can do every menial and dangerous task from nurse maid to soldier. If they never need our help then we have very little to bargain with and become expendable.

[Shaved Monkey]

It is so hard to imagine how things would be different post-peak / or in a low carbon world. Much of the energy in the "food chain" is for convenience: because we can. (no not as in glass jar "can" LOL)

Post-peak, convenience will be a luxury. Incomes will be much lower, so we'll eat much lower on the scale of out of season, precooked, prepackaged, frozen-then-nuked meals. But even if you cook everything from scratch you still have the bill for that which may not be any better - again, there is a huge incentive for industrial food to be efficient, just like there is for ag to be efficient.

We sometimes forget and think they pay no attention to energy, but energy is just another cost to be reduced to increase the bottom line.

The wine/chocolate/cheese fridge is my canary
The other freezers are full of meat
They get turned off one at a time as the supplies go down
I keep nuts, seeds and bread in the fridge for long life (sourdough rye can last a few months no probs)
Nearly everything in the sub tropics need to be kept in the fridge.
and I only shop 4 times a year so buy in bulk.(3 hour round trip)
The balancing act is petrol V electricity.
Obviously I like to keep a bit of fat in the system,because I can afford it (now) and it gives me something to trim when I have to.
If there was a lot less money the diet would change, at the moment why torture myself un-necessarily.

[joyfulbozo]

What about the milk and dairy products? I think they use least of fossil fuel energy.

[vtsnowedin]

A dairy farmer has considerable energy bills. One of the biggest is the electricity to cool the milk and run the milking machines. He uses diesel fuel in tractors to plant ,harvest and put up winter feed and haul and spread manure.
In a small operation these can be done by hand but it is a lot of work.
Growing up we still used horses and ran about ten head of cattle mostly young stock with from one to three cows milked for the house and to feed calves. Hand milking three cows twice a day is quite a chore as is cleaning the gutters with wheel barrow and shovel.
Grid power and a properly sized tractor would be the way I'd go as long as it was available.

[Pops]

What about the milk and dairy products? I think they use least of fossil fuel energy.

I remember a TOD article that said Corn is about 1:1 and dairy is about 2:1 by weight.

Corn is an awesome food, (don't forget to "slake" it) add some refritos and you have a diet. It gets a bad rap around here but there is a reason it is widely grown. A little corn patch can feed you, grain your pigs and chickens and the stover will put a big cow smile on old Bessy's long face. There was a reason little Boy Blue's cows were in the corn! Like anything else the problems come when you make it into a cash crop.

..
Here it is:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6252

These numbers came from Dave Mackay who it looks like has a book on his site "sustainable energy — without the hot air" looks like it is PDF and html as well.

Food . Calories/# . Energy Efficiency
Corn ........390 ..............102%
Milk..........291 ..............45%
Cheese.....1824..............31%
Eggs.........650 ..............19%
Apples .....216...............15%
Chicken ...573...............15%
Pork........480...............8.5%
Beef ......1176...............4.3%


--
But if corn on the cob slathered with butter and a big glass of milk seems too indulgent and you need to flog yourself for raping your mother [earth], here is a recipe for fermented burdock root. Yum
.

[Pops]

hmm, after looking through the MacKay site, this is the extent of the energy analysis:

Well, if a cow weighing 450 kg has similar energy requirements per kilogram to a human (whose 65 kg burns 3 kWh per day) then the cow must be using about 21 kWh/d.

Maybe not quite rigorous. LOL

OTOH, I guess it depends on how old Bessy is kept, in a freestall barn 1,500 miles from the corn field or is she out on grass with a TMR supliment.

[Subjectivist]

hmm, after looking through the MacKay site, this is the extent of the energy analysis:

Well, if a cow weighing 450 kg has similar energy requirements per kilogram to a human (whose 65 kg burns 3 kWh per day) then the cow must be using about 21 kWh/d.

Maybe not quite rigorous. LOL

OTOH, I guess it depends on how old Bessy is kept, in a freestall barn 1,500 miles from the corn field or is she out on grass with a TMR supliment.

Another factor to consider, modern Americans are goofy squeamish about food. Our ancestors ate "snout to tail" using every part of the animal. Modern Americans only consume the 35 to 40 percent that is red meat, the rest goes into pet food or gets disposed of. If you have a local butcher you can get organ meat pretty cheap, lung, heart, kidney, all are good for you to eat full of vitamins and protein. When is the last time you asked for some?