How Many Gallons of Water Are Required for 1 Pound of Beef
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You accept already wasted hundreds of gallons of water today, and you probably don't even realize it. Where is all this invisible water going, you ask? The answer is simple: our food. You will never see the majority of water you lot consume in your lifetime, and this is considering food comprises ⅔ of the average American's water footprint. Nothing that lands on your dinner plate gets in that location without the utilise of h2o: crops can't flourish without h2o; the grain we feed our livestock needs water to grow; and even the most processed, artificial foods utilize water during the manufacturing procedure. In fact, the agriculture industry is responsible for approximately 80% of the water used in the U.Due south. So—how to cutting down on your h2o footprint without starving yourself? It'south important to realize that when it comes to h2o, not all foods are created equal. In general, meat has a much larger water footprint than fruits, vegetables and grains. This is because of the massive amounts of virtual water that go into creating nutrient for livestock. Beef—which is the second most popular meat in the U.S.—has the largest water footprint out of all types of meat, taking a whopping 1,800 gallons of water per pound. Patently, cut meat out of your nutrition altogether would be a great way to curb your personal water footprint. Only if the idea of living a burger-costless existence is as well much to carry, not to worry—at that place are other ways to reduce your water footprint without giving up steak forever.
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For some tips on where to start, VICE Impact talked with Peter Hanlon, Deputy Managing director of Programs at GRACE Communications Foundation—a leading, national non-profit devoted to promoting sustainability in nutrient, h2o and energy systems—to get some answers. What goes into our water footprint, and how does food fit into that? When we talk nearly the water footprint, it's really about "virtual water" utilize versus "direct water" use. Nearly people are used to thinking near their directly h2o use—then, water that comes out of the tap, out of the shower, flushing the toilet, etc. Simply virtual water is the water that goes into producing the food nosotros eat, the energy we utilise, and all the products nosotros purchase. People never see their virtual water apply, so it'due south a harder concept to grasp. But it's actually a cardinal concept, because the largest part of our h2o footprint is the h2o that's used to grow the food that we swallow. Why does meat have a greater water footprint than fruits, vegetables or grains? There's something called a "feed conversion ratio," which tells us how quickly livestock can turn whatever grain or feed that they're eating into mass. Some animals are pretty efficient, only cows are not and then good at that. It takes a lot of grains or grasses to produce and grow these larger animals for meat. And all those grains and grasses take water to grow in plow. And then the water footprint of meat is greater, because y'all're using products from lower on the food chain to abound something larger. Are in that location differences between the water footprints of meat raised on a factory farm versus meat raised on a gratuitous-range farm? When we're talking near raising livestock, a key concept to empathise is that the h2o footprint is really made of iii parts: at that place's the dark-green water footprint, the blue water footprint and the grey water footprint. The green water footprint, when it comes downwardly to it, is essentially rainfall. The blue h2o footprint is the amount of h2o that'south extracted from reservoirs, surface h2o and groundwater to irrigate fields. And so the grey h2o footprint is an indicator of the corporeality of pollution yous're causing. For example, if you look at beef that is pasture raised, nosotros're talking about a greenish h2o footprint because the animals are eating grass that's beingness fed by rainwater. But if you look at a more industrial system, we're talking about a larger bluish water footprint; those cattle start on grass every bit well, but somewhen they are switched over to feedlots where they're fed grains which are much more intensive in their needs for irrigation. So there's too the pollution attribute, or gray h2o footprint. On a pasture-raised arrangement, the waste that the cattle are producing is really used equally fertilizer, so it'due south a benefit. Only if you're talking most an industrial system, you have 100,000 head of cattle all pooping in one identify. And all that waste is typically moved into a manure lagoon, which is a massive pond of waste matter that ofttimes tin leak. Waste can leak into the groundwater, information technology can leak into nearby bodies of water, so instead of that waste existence a benefit, it tin can really be a pollutant. On a personal level—if you don't want to go full vegetarian, how tin you reduce your water footprint and withal eat meat? Kickoff, eat less meat and better meat. In terms of "less meat," you can become "flexitarian," yous can exercise "Meatless Mondays," or yous can fifty-fifty just shrink the portion of meat that you lot're serving. Those are all positive things and you don't necessarily accept to "get vegetarian." And and so in terms of "better meat," if y'all choose pasture raised meat certified by a quality third political party group—something similar Animal Welfare Approved or Certified Humane—you tin trust that meat will have less bear upon on water resources than conventionally raised meat. The second method to reduce your water footprint, would be eating fewer candy foods. And then finally, the third method of reducing your water footprint is to waste matter less nutrient. Well-nigh 40 percentage of the food that'due south raised in the US is ultimately never eaten, and that accounts for about a quarter of the fresh water we consume in this state. All that waste material is just an abhorrent abuse of resource that we take. Even the simplest thing in the earth, like planning your meals before you lot go to the marketplace, tin salvage those resources. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Whole foods utilise less water than processed foods. Once you start processing foods, that takes additional water for many different services—anything from creating oils that are used to melt foods to powering the plants that are processing these foods. That all raises the water footprint.
Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3z8az/1800-gallons-of-water-goes-into-one-pound-of-meat
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