What If Humans Ran on Petrol?

How fuel efficient are we humans? Take a 10 km run. For someone weighing 70 kg, that burns about 700 calories, which is 2.93 million joules of energy. Sounds powerful, right?

Now imagine fuelling yourself with petrol instead of food. To run 10 km you would need just 85.7 millilitres of petrol, less than half a glass. That works out to a "fuel efficiency" of around 117 km per litre for a human, against about 15 km per litre for a car.

Maybe we should stick to bananas and smoothies, though. The human body is amazing. What is your "fuel efficiency"? Tag a friend who needs to hear this.