Generally, why do meats have more calories than plants?

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In school, I remembered learning that since plants directly gets their energy from the sun, they have the most energy and when they get eaten, the animal gets less energy, and so on. If this is the case, why is it that most meats have more calories than fruits and vegetables?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because fruits and vegetables are extremely low in fat. They are just about all carbs. Meats are a combination of fat and protein. Fat has 9 calories per gram. Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram. Fruits and veggies also have fiber, which means lower net calories. That’s it really.

Anonymous 0 Comments

That animal doesn’t get the full energy of the plant, just like you say, but to make up for that, the animal eats lots and lots of plants (or lots and lots of animals), so the end result is that animals have a higher energy input than plants. They *need* more energy because they move around. It doesn’t take as much energy to just sit there, like plants do.

Also we eat the parts of animals with energy concentrated in them. Other parts of the animal like bones and intestines have a lower concentration of nutrition.