The water we eat

How much water do we actually eat? To produce our favorite foods we need to grow and water plants. Then we can eat these plants or feed them to farm animals which we also happen to eat in the end. Water that is required to produce our food is called virtual water. In fact we eat more water than we drink, by a factor you can’t even imagine. The water consumption of all daily activities together (showering, flushing the toilet, watering the garden, etc.) doesn’t even get close to amount of water we virtually eat.

“One quarter pounder equals 237 times flushing the toilet”

Let’s do some simple math together! During my research in the world wide web I found some interesting numbers and tables (see tables below) that I want to use to give you a feeling of the dimensions we are talking about. We calculate the amount of water the US could save by reducing their meat consumption by 10% wondering how many people would be able to drink, cook and shower with the saved water. What’s your guess? There are approx. 310 Million people living in the US and each US citizen consumes 355,727 liters of virtual water caused by meat. 10% saving would equal to 35,572 liters. This saving is per capita and needs to be multiplied by 310 M inhabitants, which gives total water saving of 11,027,537,000,000 liters per year and 30,212,430,137 liters per day. 397,531,975 people could have enough water to drink, eat and shower every day only by using the water that has been saved by reducing the meat consumption in the US by 10%. Again, how many people live in the US?

“400 Million people could cook, drink and shower every day with the water that could be saved, if the US meat consumption can be reduced by 10%!”

Water Consumption Liters per day Produkt Consumption Drink 3 l Cook 3 l Shower 70 l Bath 200 l Toilet 40 l Washing 7 l Dishwasher 14 l Gardening 150 l WVSB

Virtual Water required to produce 1kg of Product Consumtion Beef 16,726 l Pork 5,469 l Poultry 3,809 l Eggs 3,519 l Milk 738 l Rice 2,552 l Corn 1,020 l Potatoes 133 l waterfootprint.org (2003)

Meat Consumption per capita per year Country Beef Pork Poultry USA 42.1 kg 30.3 kg 51.8 kg Australia 43.5 kg 23.0 kg 39.3 kg Germany 13.2 kg 55.6 kg 15.5 kg Brasil 37.2 kg 11.0 kg 31.7 kg China 4.7 kg 33.3 kg 12.0 kg World 9.5 kg 14.9 kg 12.5 kg Egypt 11.9 kg 0.0 kg 8.6 kg India 1.5 kg 0.4 kg 0.6 kg UN Food and Agriculture Organisation(2007)

I am sure you have to admit that these numbers are pretty awesome, but in our little example there is still a valid question unanswered: “How do we get the saved water to the people in need?”. Do you know who these people in need are? If you’re saying that the lack of water is only a third world problem, then you are making a terrible mistake. The US government has been spending extremely large amounts of money to find ways how future water supply in the US can be guaranteed, and yet they didn’t come up with an applicable solution, that doesn’t involve drinking your own toilet water. The biggest and hardest working water pipe in the US is about to die (see video below), and no one ever thought this could ever happen.

“The people in need might be closer than you think, you might even be one of them.”

Please take another look at the tables and numbers, do the math for other scenarios yourself. Consider to enrich your daily meals with fresh locally grown veggies and less meat. The web is full of fantastic meat free recipes and people willing to share everything there is to know about a healthy and cruelty-free cuisine. Realize the difference an individual can make by calculating the amount of water you can save by changing your diet. You still might be far away from being a climate expert or scientist, but you just made a big step towards an environmental aware human being.

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” – Benjamin Franklin

PS: The only reason I set up my example scenario with the US meat consumption numbers is because they appear to be comprehensive as well as impressive. Any other country with high meat consumption leads to more or less the same numbers. – Think globally, act locally!