Eating Locally - How Does Energy Consumption Compare?

Assignment #5 is all about making a difference! I will find a way to save energy in my personal life. After collecting data, I will create a presentation for my students detailing my energy savings. Playing the "what-if" game will help us see how much energy could be saved if more people bought into these changes! Ultimately this project will culminate in a video critique of my teaching style. This project will be detailed in several installments.

This assignment can also be implemented as a project within my own classroom, getting students involved with technology for data collection, analysis, and presentation purposes.


Having drawn a sheep hunting tag for the last half of October, my boyfriend and I are planning to shoot a ewe and substitute the meat for our beef consumption. This started me thinking: how do the energy (gasoline) consumption rates compare for harvesting the two types of meat? Is it environmentally friendly to harvest locally?

To calculate the amount of gasoline needed to harvest a local sheep I will collect or calculate the following numbers:

• Trip distances (to and from the mountain, to and from the shooting range to sight the rifle, trips for needed supplies [bullets, haul bags, etc.]) - obtain from odometer


• Average miles per gallon for each trip - obtain from car computer


• Pounds of edible, salvaged sheep meat - weigh after carving


• Gallons of gas used per pound of sheep meat - calculate in Excel


• Comparable energy consumption figures for one pound of beef (average, high and low figures if applicable) - Internet sources

I found several online reports breaking down the amount of energy (gallons of gas) required to produce one pound of edible beef. At least one of these reports offers numbers that include gallons of gas used in food production for steers. I aim to use figures based on this method of calculation, which do not include gas consumed in the process of slaughtering and processing the cows. I do not know of a way to measure the gasoline used in processing the sheep meat, nor how to calculate the energy costs associated with importing beef. By using information from the earliest stage of beef production, I believe my analysis will be more comparable than using energy numbers encompassing the entire process.

By the end of this project I hope to be a more informed consumer with first-hand knowledge of the costs involved in eating locally.