You’ll Be Veg(etari)an Before You Know It
It’s just a matter of economy
This is actually scary.
The energy crisis in Europe is drastically elevating food prices those numbers are not likely to go down. In fact, they might stay up. It is just a matter of numbers.
Fossil fuels are the absolute foundation of our civilisation and especially food production. Many processing facilities get power from coal plants, all field machinery (like tractors and harvesters) runs on oil derivates, and so do the trucks that distribute food. The efficiency can be assessed with EROI value (energy return on investment), which is simply an elaborate cost/benefit equation.
I was desperately trying to find an EROI chart for different foods (especially plant based), but couldn’t find any. If you have it, please let me know in the comments. For now, this will have to do:
While milk and eggs still return about 20–25% of energy invested into their production, beef returns 2% at best. 98% of energy is lost along the way.
This is extremely inefficient. The only way to “sustain” it for so long was with excessive government subsidies.
