Cowculations

I was thinking the other day, if I ate hamburgers for 20 years…exactly how many cows did I eat? I did some research, and this question turned out a lot more complicated than I expected. It turns out that the average big cow is around 1200 lbs. However, a lot of the cow doesn’t get used for meat. First there is the “dressing percentage,” the percentage of the animal that actually ends up as a carcass. Then there is the “carcass cutting yield,” which is the percentage of the carcass that actually ends up as meat. The average dressing percentage for beef is 61% and the average carcass yield is 62% -- this is for deboned steaks and roasts and regular ground beef. (A special thanks to Duane M. Wulf, Ph.D., Department of Animal and Range Sciences, South Dakota State University, http://ars.sdstate.edu/MeatSci/May99-1.htm).

So here is the math:

(0.61 X 0.62) X 1200 = 38% X 1200 = 456 lbs of meat

The average cow produces about 450 lbs of meat. I probably ate 2 hamburgers a week for twenty years. So,

2 burgers per week x 52 weeks = 104 burgers a year

104 burgers x 1/4lb each = 26 lbs of hamburger per year

We continue and divide 465lbs of meat per cow by 26 lbs per year = 17.88 years to eat one cow. But, we have to remember that this is just hamburgers. Or another way to put it is I ate 0.056 of a cow per year in hamburgers.

Let’s also add in a couple ½ pound steaks a month along with either hamburger helper meals or beef tacos each week. The hamburger helper or beef tacos probably added in another 26 lbs per year and the steaks another 12 pounds.

Sooooo, that is 38 lbs of hamburger helper, beef tacos, and steaks per year. Which,when we divide 465 lbs per animal by 38 lbs per year, equals 12.23 years to eat one cow. Again, this means I ate 0.082 of a cow per year in the helper, tacos, and steaks.

If I ate beef for twenty years, that is 0.056 x 20 years = 1.12 and 0.082 x 20 years = 1.64

Then I ate 1.12 + 1.64 = 2.76 cows in twenty years!

I wonder how many chickens I ate?