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Loading...How Much Water is Used to Make Your Food?
- Greennii
- March 29, 2011
- 8:00 am
- 96 comments
World Water Day was March 22 and since then I’ve been seeing water statistics everywhere. I knew that one pound of beef took a lot of water to produce, but I didn’t know the exact figure and my wildest guess was 500 gallons. Could it possibly take that much? If you grew up in a household anything like mine, we had gallon milk containers and my mom would reuse them in the house or garden for various projects. One was used for watering the houseplants and it seemed I could water several plants with one of those. So as I tried to imagine hundreds of those filled up waiting to water my mom’s plants, I came up with my magical 500 gallons. I was off. Way off. It takes 1,799 gallons [1] to produce a pound of beef. One pound! I have a hard time getting my head around that.
Some of the other products we consume take quite a bit of water, some surprised me in their water-conservancy, but none surprised me more than chocolate. On gallons to make a pound, here’s how the other foods fare:
Goat – 127
Sheep – 731
Pork – 576
Chicken – 468
Milk – 880
Wine – 1,008
Beer – 689
Coffee – 880
Tea – 128
Rice – 449
Potato – 119
Leather – 1,096 – For a Half Pound!
Apple – 18 – For one Apple
Egg – 53 – For one Egg
Chocolate – 3,170
Bread – 11
Now, I’m probably not going to stop drinking wine and coffee, or stop eating chocolate (do I get extra coffee and chocolate credit for not eating beef?), but I am likely to think about how my eating actions affect our planet and steps I can take to conserve more water. Just to be safe for the moment, I think I’ll go snack on some bread and tea.
[1] All water consumption statistics from National Geographic’s “The Hidden Water We Use“, sourced form Waterfootprint.org.
Read more: Conscious Consumer, Conservation, Do Good, Food, how much water, how much water to make, water conservation, water consumption, water reduction, water reuse, water statistics, water usage
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people are talking
Very cute!
Looks good, only I'm going to put Vegan Cheese on mine!
Cute, as everytime.
Amazing! The child was comforted and felt safe and not alone any longer. Sweet!
Cute annd funny. *kittyhug1*
96 comments
+ add your own70% of our fresh water consumption goes to meat "farming"
Good to know. One would like to see data about nuts, fruits and vegetables as well as some of the processes foods
And about certain other products like eg an automobile
wow, suddenly wine is not looking so great but all the wild game in my freezer does!
Wow! What a comeupance! Thank you! :/
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Great in-your-face info!
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
thanks for sharing
Thanks for the article.
Thank you!
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