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by plorkyeran 4114 days ago
Some completely arbitrary choices for comparison that may or may not be representative:

90% Lean Beef: 798 calories per pound

80% Lean Beef: 1152 calories per pound

Carrots: 186 calories per pound

Potatoes: 354 calories per pound

Using GP's numbers for gallons/pound:

90% Lean Beef: .994 calories per gallon

80% Lean Beef: 1.435 calories per gallon

Carrots: .990 calories per gallon

Potatoes: 1.883 calories per gallon

Much closer than I was expecting. I was also not expecting numbers on the order of magnitude of one calorie per gallon...

1 comments

"Vegetables" are the wrong thing too look at.

Soybeans have about 2000 calories / lb, based on the number Google gives me of 446 calories / 100g. A random website claims soybeans take 200 gallons of water to produce 1 lb, which comes out to about 10 calories / gallon.

That said, you can make huge gains just by switching from beef to pork or chicken. Pork uses about half the resources of beef, per pound, and chicken about a third. Eat your beefs for special occasions, eat chicken and pork if you want every-day meats.