What would happen if I ate the food for just 15 minutes? Blog: Humans convert approximately 6.4% of the energy stored in food to useful work. In other words, you have to eat 3.4 x 10−5 of what you’re eating to provide the same amount of energy as you burn off. This means that it will take you 3.5 years to burn off the energy stored in your food.
It is difficult to conceive of a more versatile and creative source of food than plants. They can grow in any number of conditions and they can be harvested in any quantity. The result? An abundance of food that can be used to keep the body alive. We are beginning to see this kind of food replacing animal products as it becomes more affordable. However, as the world of food becomes more developed, the demand for animal-based food products is likely to grow.
Scientists and engineers have been developing technologies that will let us harvest and transform the available energy in food into more useful forms such as fertilizer. In fact, some food is so abundant that it’s worth harvesting and converting into valuable energy for the global economy. For example, corn, sugar, and soybean meal are all valuable and can be used to produce fuels.
Scientists have recently created a machine that will convert as much as ________ of the energy stored in food to useful work. The machine is created by scientists from MIT at the Energy Technologies Institute and is called a Protein Engineered Microbial Fuel Cell (PEMFC). This device is so simple to use and makes it possible to convert from food to fuel. It is a very small device that operates on the principle of bacteria growing on a glucose-based medium creating bioenergy from food.
Humans have the ability to convert food energy into usable work because of their specialized metabolism. This process is called the energy harvest. It’s what enables humans to move, run, jump, lift, carry, and just about anything else we can do.
So why are humans so bad at converting food energy to work energy? We all know that our genes are a big part of the answer here! But what exactly causes gene to gene difference? Scientists are getting better at understanding what makes humans so different. Now they have discovered a genetic element that is responsible for these differences.
It may come as a surprise, but humans convert approximately 40% of the energy stored in food into usable work. The same energy you use to warm your house with a stove or to cook a meal could be utilized to power a machine or to help power a device.
Many of us spend an average of ________ of our energy, and at a minimum, consume ________ of the food that we eat. And, while this may seem like a great way to gain a great deal of energy from food, the reality is that many of us have not been taking care of our body enough. But, that’s about to change. The food industry is creating new foods and beverages that work the body in an entirely different way.
