The Oil Drum: How the Energy Crisis Will Help My Diet

Like many Americans I am a bit overweight and this is true even after living a year in China eating indigenous food and shedding 15% of my body mass. Coming back to the fattest city in the land of the big helping, I am concerned about regaining that weight given the fact that Americans eat 920 kg of food annually (3,800 kcal per person per day). But never fear, the energy crisis will eventually help me maintain my desired weight. Many are going to wonder what does the energy crisis have to do with being fat. Well, the modern agricultural system is nothing but a system which turns petroleum and natural gas into food. Thirteen kilocalories of energy is used to produce each kilocalorie of food we eat.

When energy becomes scarce, the quantity of food will decline.
Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.