"Meat is an inefficient way to eat. An acre of land can yield 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but that same acre would only graze enough cows to get 165 pounds of meat"
About this Quote
The specific intent is persuasion through proportional shock. “20,000” versus “165” isn’t just a comparison; it’s a rhetorical trap. Once the numbers are in your head, it becomes harder to defend meat consumption as neutral or “just preference,” because the implied costs expand outward: land use, water, feed, and the opportunity cost of what that acreage could have fed. She’s also quietly reframing the moral center of the debate. Instead of leading with animal suffering (a trigger point for many audiences), she foregrounds scarcity and efficiency, inviting even the indifferent or defensive to consider the broader consequences.
Context matters: Paul’s celebrity gives her reach but not automatic authority, so she borrows legitimacy from quantification. It’s a savvy tactic for a pop-culture figure entering policy-adjacent terrain; numbers function like a passport into serious discourse. The subtext is political without naming politics: in a world of climate stress and food insecurity, meat isn’t merely a dietary choice, it’s a land-use decision with winners and losers. By making the acre the unit of measure, she turns dinner into infrastructure.
Quote Details
| Topic | Food |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Paul, Alexandra. (2026, January 16). Meat is an inefficient way to eat. An acre of land can yield 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but that same acre would only graze enough cows to get 165 pounds of meat. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/meat-is-an-inefficient-way-to-eat-an-acre-of-land-100482/
Chicago Style
Paul, Alexandra. "Meat is an inefficient way to eat. An acre of land can yield 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but that same acre would only graze enough cows to get 165 pounds of meat." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/meat-is-an-inefficient-way-to-eat-an-acre-of-land-100482/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Meat is an inefficient way to eat. An acre of land can yield 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but that same acre would only graze enough cows to get 165 pounds of meat." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/meat-is-an-inefficient-way-to-eat-an-acre-of-land-100482/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
