Health, Taken Seriously

My husband has a t-shirt he got in college that says “Save Water, Drink Beer.”  If only it were that easy…

We try to conserve water around our house by watering the grass less, using a high efficiency washing machine, running our dishwashers on the light cycle, and using low flow shower heads.  But I recently learned of an even better way to save even more water–eat less meat.

It’s hard to think about the resources that go into the products we buy when we just don’t know.  How much petroleum did it take to grow that vegetable conventionally?  How many acres of virgin forests were cut down to provide the resources for the toilet paper your family uses?  How much water was used to produce that steak you’re going to have for dinner?

It turns out that the answer to that last question is quite a bit.  There are now 20 billion livestock on Earth.  Most of these livestock are raised in huge feedlots, where it takes 441 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef (at least in the U.S.).  That figure alone is pretty staggering when you consider that showering for 50 minutes per week with 2 gallon/minute shower head uses 100 gallons.  However, 441 gallons is the amount of water that the National Cattleman’s Beef Association claims is used.  According to the chairman of Food Science and Human Nutrition Department of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State, the amount of water used to produce 1 pound of U.S. beef is actually 2,500 gallons.  According to the Water Education Foundation, 1 pound of California beef uses 2,464 gallons.  That is the amount of water you would use to shower for 6 months. . . in 1 pound of beef!

I find these numbers mind-boggling, especially when you consider that 1 pound of potatoes takes 24 gallons of water to grow, or that 1 pound of wheat takes 25 gallons of water.  Even chicken and pork take hundreds more gallons of water than vegetables or grains.  The book The Food Revolution, which is where I got this information from, also claims that half of the water consumed in the U.S. is used for livestock, mostly cattle.

So if you really want to save water, don’t eat animal products, especially not beef.  The next time someone tells me I’m wasting water by using cloth diapers, I’ll mention meat.

Filed under: Environment, Water on October 3rd, 2009