What’s Your Fuel Economy?

Curious to know how your body’s “fuel economy” compares to that of a modern motor car? Let’s do the math . . .

One kilogram of body fat contains about 7,700 Calories.

One liter of gasoline contains about 8,325 Calories.

That means that in terms of energy, each 10kg of body fat is the equivalent of about 9.25 liters of gasoline.

The table below shows a comparison of the fuel economy of various cars, bikes and humans – if humans burned gasoline instead of body fat for fuel:

Pretty interesting right? Our bodies are actually very economical with energy expenditure.

That’s actually pretty unfortunate, because it means that we don’t need to eat so much for the amount of work we do. What a shame!