Calories: Food/Fossil Fuel

This article from the New York Times Magazine is framed as an open letter to the president-elect. It does an eye-opening job of illustrating the breadth of the relationship between our agricultural practices and fossil fuel use. A few facts to chew on:

- In 1940 it required one calorie of fossil fuel to produce 2.3 calories of food. Now we use 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food.
- World livestock account for 18% of all greenhouse gases; more than all transportation.
- Forty percent of grain production goes to feeding that livestock.

Among the authors many suggestions for strategies and solutions he includes:

- putting the American food system" back on a diet of contemporary sunshine."
- requiring the FDA to put a second calorie label pn food packages that indicates how many calories of fossil fuel went into its production.

It is an excellent article for prompting discussion about a complex issue.