# How many cows have I eaten in my lifetime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 5, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667 "2007-07-05T23:19:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/1 "2007-07-05T23:19:11Z")
I do like my beef and we’ll say I eat, on average, one meal a day involving cow meat. It could be a pastrami sandwich, a cheeseburger, or the occasional steak filet. So whatever a reasonable average serving size among those items might be, once a day. I’m 22 years old, though I probably didn’t eat much if any beef during the early years of life. Let’s say I started my current habits around 7, so 15 years of daily beef-eating. How many whole cows does that amount to? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/2 "2007-07-05T23:20:45Z")
We did this exact question very recently. I like to remember that I gave a good answer. I will see if I can find it. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/3 "2007-07-05T23:24:38Z")
Ah, I didn’t notice it. I did see a rash of meat-related threads though and that’s what has me wondering. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/4 "2007-07-05T23:51:10Z")
Isn’t a cow about 1000 lbs? And a typical serving perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 of a lb? ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/5 "2007-07-05T23:56:24Z")
Let’s assume you eat about a quarter pound per day, or roughly two pounds per week. 50ish weeks a year gives us 100 pounds per year, times 18 assuming you were beef-free until age 4. So our rough estimate is 1,800lbs consumed. (or 1500 given the 15 years stipulated in your OP.) A commonly-cited figure for “beef-per-cow” is 500-600 pounds, so this would put you at somewhere between three and four cows. Not too bad, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/6 "2007-07-06T05:15:29Z")
Well, Kharmically there must be a measure for the true mean. You have eaten a couple of cows, but how may cows have you eaten? That is a much different average. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/7 "2007-07-06T06:06:09Z")
[QUOTE=devilsknew] Well, Kharmically there must be a measure for the true mean. You have eaten a couple of cows, but how may cows have you eaten? That is a much different average. [/QUOTE] Grumble…Grumble, add an “N” in there somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/8 "2007-07-06T06:24:37Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] Isn’t a cow about 1000 lbs? [/QUOTE] Yes, but not all of a cow is edible meat. Typical is 50-60% meat, so awldune’s estimate of 500-600 pounds of meat is accurate. (The remaining 40-50% is made into leather, glue, bone meal, etc. Hardly anything goes unused!) ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/9 "2007-07-06T07:48:41Z")
Thanks guys. I had a date tonight and I casually mentioned to her that I recently calculated I had eaten about 3 cows in my life. She was impressed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-cows-have-i-eaten-in-my-lifetime/410667/10 "2007-07-06T13:30:45Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] Thanks guys. I had a date tonight and I casually mentioned to her that I recently calculated I had eaten about 3 cows in my life. She was impressed. 🙂 [/QUOTE] It’s a good thing she was impressed, because you are actually just about average, at 100 lbs/yr: [http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626#2](http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626#2) As a fine point some of your beef was likely from steers as well.