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Let’s break this down step by step and estimate how many cows we’d need if everyone on Earth ate a carnivore diet with 80% beef, and then compare that to how many cows exist now.
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Step 1: World Population
As of 2024, Earth has about 8 billion people.
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Step 2: Diet Assumption – Carnivore Diet (80% Beef)
Let’s assume:
Each person eats 2,500 calories per day.
80% of those calories come from beef, so:
2,000 calories/day from beef per person.
That’s 730,000 beef calories per person per year.
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Step 3: Calories per Cow
A typical cow yields about 500 pounds of edible beef.
1 pound of beef has roughly 1,000–1,200 calories.
Let’s average that to 1,100 calories/pound.
So:
500 lbs x 1,100 cal = 550,000 calories per cow.
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Step 4: Cows Needed per Person per Year
Each person needs 730,000 beef calories/year.
One cow provides 550,000 calories.
So:
1.33 cows per person per year (730,000 ÷ 550,000).
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Step 5: Total Cows Needed
8 billion people × 1.33 cows = ~10.6 billion cows needed per year.
That’s over 10 billion cows annually just to keep everyone fed.
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Step 6: How Many Cows Are There Now?
Globally:
There are about 1.5 billion cattle (as of recent estimates).
Not all are beef cattle; some are dairy cows, oxen, or not slaughtered yearly.
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Conclusion:
Current cattle population: ~1.5 billion.
Required cattle for global carnivore diet (80% beef): ~10.6 billion cows/year.
So we'd need 7 times more cows than currently exist—and every single one would need to be slaughtered annually, which is extremely unsustainable in terms of land, feed, water, emissions, and ethics.
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Want me to calculate what kind of land or resources that would require too?
