Uganda - Part 2

In conversations about energy policy, I don’t ever recall talking about energy in terms of nutrition and food, perhaps because most of us don’t intuitively draw a correlation between the two. Of course we know that it’s those precious calories and kcals that add up to provide the human body the energy it needs to get through the day. But what about the parallels between nutrition and our energy systems? On a recent mission trip in Uganda, working with kids who are challenged to get the daily calories needed for basic survival, I couldn’t help but think about the important role that energy density plays in nutrition and the corollary to our energy systems.

Energy density of food is defined as the amount of energy (or calories) contained in a particular weight of food. High-energy dense food has a large amount of energy for a given weight while low-energy-dense food contains far less energy for the same weight. Thus high-energy dense food provides better quality energy that lasts longer.

Energy density is a significant consideration, especially in places where malnutrition is prevalent. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that around the world approximately 795 million people - one in nine - suffer from chronic undernourishment. According to the UN Development Program, Africa still suffers from a tremendous burden of under-nutrition. Roughly 25% of children in Africa under the age of five are underweight as compared to other regions of the world.

Mealtime for the children that attend the small Ugandan school sponsored by our church is highly anticipated. The vast majority of these children are orphans – 230 to be exact. They line up patiently and wait for their small allotment of porridge for lunch.

Uganda has a population of 41 million. Of that, almost 2 million are orphaned children. It’s hard to imagine in a setting like this that anyone would ever advocate reducing the energy density of the food provided to these children.

But isn’t that exactly what some are doing in the West by advocating for energy policies that reduce the energy density of our fuel supply? Through the Renewable Fuel Standard, the US government is requiring America’s fuel providers to blend lower energy density fuels such as ethanol into our fuel mix.

On average 1.5 gallons of ethanol has the same energy content as 1.0 gallon of gasoline. So policy makers believe they are doing something good for the environment. But isn’t the result that a gallon in the tank just doesn’t go quite as far?

I don’t purport to have the answers – but coming face to face with malnutrition in little children certainly does give me a deeper appreciation of the importance of energy density. Now, if we could just get our policymakers to also take that into consideration.