the Zombievore's Dilemma

I know that "zombievore" is not a word, so shut up about that.


What is the purpose of a zombie? They're a strange species, if you can call them that. We have no definitive answer as to whether they are a symbiotic monstrosity (like Voltron!) or merely a reanimated body. Regardless, their two primary goals seem to be those same first two goals all species have: to eat food (self-preservation), and to propagate.

The issue, of course, with zombies, is that their means of reproduction is accomplishable only by failing to thoroughly feed. Given that they are essentially brainless creatures, devoid of thought processes higher than instinct, and the fact that they tend to travel in large ravenous packs, how do they regulate? And each person they only take one bite out of then becomes one more hungry set of rotting teeth in the pack. There must be some rule as to how many people can be turned and how many must just be eaten.

Assuming that people are nutritionally comparable to pork (about 137 calories per 113 grams of flesh), and also assuming that the average zombie needs as many calories to keep going as a person who spends his or her days roaming around and tackling food (in the range of 2800 calories), a zombie needs in the neighborhood of 2300 grams (or five pounds) of human flesh per day.

That stated, if the average American is 191 lbs. in men and 164 lbs. in women (as it was in 2002), and if a zombie needs to be at least 3/4 present to remain functional after conversion, the average American could feed eight or nine zombies for a full day and still become a zombie him or herself. That's actually a lot better than I would have imagined. So then the only concern becomes what to do when there are only zombies left. Because cannibalism is uncivilized.


Also, I ought to acknowledge that I am talking, here, about Romero zombies, not voodoo zombies. I imagine voodoo zombies just ate (eat?) normal people foods and were (are?) not concerned with making new zombies.