# Petrol instead of food?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 4, 2006, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305 "2006-08-04T09:55:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jeffr062](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeffr062)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/1 "2006-08-04T09:55:43Z")
Someone asked this question on another board and I had no idea how to caculate the answer. Anyone want to make a rough guess? ~ If my body used petrol for energy and not food, how much would I need per day to keep me running?
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/2 "2006-08-04T10:09:05Z")
Petrol has about 16,000 calories per gallon, so you’d need a few pints.
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### Author:  [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/3 "2006-08-04T10:09:49Z")
This may be way too simple for your purposes, but a gallon of gasoline = about thirty-two thousand kcal, if I haven’t screwed up the math, so if you estimate your normal caloric intake you can get there from here. Here’s a source for the conversion: [http://www.pa.uky.edu/~sciworks/heat/preview/theq4.htm](http://www.pa.uky.edu/~sciworks/heat/preview/theq4.htm)
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/4 "2006-08-04T10:11:41Z")
Oops, that’s wrong; diesel has 16,000 calories _per pound_. Petrol has about 15,000 per pound. So you’d need about a quarter of a pound. I’ll see if I can find this expressed in fluid volume somewhere (the folkloric pint/pound conversions won’t work for fuel, as they are designed for water)
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### Author:  [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/5 "2006-08-04T10:19:08Z")
I asked a similar [question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=237034) once.
The consensus? “Don’t drink gasoline”
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petrol-instead-of-food/367305/6 "2006-08-04T13:10:30Z")
> [@Eleusis](#):
>
> I asked a similar [question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=237034) once.
>
> The consensus? “Don’t drink gasoline”
I’m with the consensus.
hh