Energy is lost at each stage of food chain how if it is more efficent to eat wheat then meat why?

Answer 1

It's more energy efficient to eat a producer (plant) than a primary, secondary or tertiary consumer (herbivore or carnivore animal) because energy in each stage of the food chain is used in different ways: for growth (biomass - this is what becomes food, the rest of the energy usages are seen as waste), for movement, for homeostasis (keeping constant internal conditions e.g. core temperature) etc. A plant like wheat will use most of the energy it gets from photosynthesis to grow. This energy becomes biomass and this will move to the next stage of the food chain when it is eaten. The energy used for other processes is wasted, but as it is a plant not a lot of energy is wasted. So it is most efficient to eat plants. After this, the next most efficient thing to eat is herbivores, primary consumers. They eat the plants and use the energy they get from the plant biomass for their life processes, some goes on to become the animal's biomass (meat) and some is wasted, for example when they roam to find their food. So less and less of the original energy is biomass as you go further up the food chain. Secondary or tertiary consumers are carnivores, they eat herbivores or other carnivores. They use the energy from the biomass in the meat they eat for life processes, particularly movement to catch their prey. So even less of the original energy becomes biomass in the carnivore. This is why it is more energy efficient to eat wheat rather than meat, and the reason that the animals we raise for meat are herbivores, not carnivores. It's nothing to do with them being more dangerous!

Hope this helped answer your question (: