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Originally Posted by cellophanedeity
He suggests that it costs at least twice as much for beef for the same amount of soy. First, you need to feed the cow. You'll likely feed the cow soy. Lots and lots of soy. Perhaps, a cow's weight in soy? Then the cost of the land to grow this cows weight of soy on. Then the workers for the soy. Then the workers for the cow.
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This is a sound argument; energy conversions result in energy loss so if we want to get the most efficient sunlight-to-food ratio we need to start with something that derives energy directly from sunlight, e.g. a plant. Of course I can quote directly from a Steak 'n Shake commercial that asks "When was the last time you said "Mmm, that tastes 'efficient'?"."
Additionally while plants might be energy efficient it might be a significant pain to have a balanced diet from nothing but plants; humans are omnivores so our bodies are designed to take nutrition from both meat and plants so cutting meat out completely requires a carefully controlled diet to replace their nutritional value. While it is possible for plants to replace meat it is probably more convenient to just eat a chunk of cow every so often rather than worry about your legume intake. It turns into a tradeoff between your time and the cow's time, which is most easily measured in money in our capitalist society. Which diet type is the cheapest?