How Much Water Does the Average American Use Per Day How Much Water Goes Into a Typical Beef Steak

The term "water footprint" is used to betoken the amount of fresh h2o that any given process or action uses. Growing and processing crops and livestock consumes large quantities of water; therefore, the water footprint of food is high. Brute products, especially, like meat, dairy and eggs (all of which tend to require more water than fruits, vegetables and beans) have an even higher water footprint. Individually speaking, one's nutrition makes up the largest part of one's personal h2o footprint. This is why preventing food waste individually matters: because discarded nutrient not only wastes the h2o that went into producing it, but all other resources involved, equally well.

Three Components of Water Footprints

Water footprints were adult past the Water Footprint Network to assess the corporeality of water (in different types) that is consumed in producing food and other products. Water footprints are composed of three divide calculations: ¹

• Blue Water Footprint: The corporeality of surface water and groundwater required (evaporated or used directly) to produce an item. For food, this refers mainly to ingather irrigation.
• Green Water Footprint: The amount of rainwater required (evaporated or used directly) to make an item. For food, this refers to dry farming where crops receive only rainwater.
• Grey Water Footprint: The amount of fresh water required to dilute pollutants and make water pure plenty to meet EPA water quality standards. For food, the h2o would have become polluted from agronomical runoff or leaching from the soil.

H2o, Food and Agriculture

In the United States, agriculture is responsible for 80 percent of all h2o consumed (through evaporation or other means that remove information technology from a watershed). ⁱⁱ Information technology takes a surprising amount of water to grow and process nutrient, because crops cannot abound without water, especially non without irrigation water. In fact, one's diet accounts for more than two thirds of ane's own total h2o footprint, mostly because of all the "virtual h2o" needed to produce one's food. Virtual water is the "hidden" component in a production process, which contributes to the total water footprint.

A typical luncheon-time repast reveals how apace virtual water adds upwardly, according to data from the Water Footprint Network. ³   One loaf of breadstuff takes near 240 gallons of water to produce, while ane pound of cheese takes nearly 382 gallons. A simple cheese sandwich adds up to about 56 gallons of h2o. Add some sliced turkey, and the water footprint jumps to 148 gallons. Throw in a small-scale bag of potato chips at 12 gallons and yous're up to 160. Include an ice-common cold soda at 46, and this typical lunch took 206 gallons of h2o to produce.

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The Water Footprint of Beef and Other Meat

Pound for pound, meat has a much higher h2o footprint than vegetables, grains or beans. ⁴ A single pound of beef takes, on average, 1,800 gallons of h2o to produce. Ninety-eight per centum goes to watering the grass, forage and feed that cattle consume over their lifetime. ⁵ Where cattle diet consists mainly of grain-based feed, such as in industrial livestock production, the bluish water footprint is high; where their nutrition consists mainly of grass and forage, the green water footprint is loftier.

Industrial Beefiness vs. Pastured Beefiness

In the Us, at least 80 pct of beef cattle are "conventionally" raised, meaning that they typically spend six months grazing on pasture, and then they go to a feedlot for four to six months where they swallow feed made from corn, soy and other grains. ⁶ While this type of diet speeds up the cattle's growth — a beefiness steer or heifer can swallow 1,000 pounds or more of feed over a few months — it is not without costs. ⁷ With near 29 million head of beef cattle produced in the United states (as of 2012), grain is consumed in vast amounts. ⁸

Raising thousands of cattle on confining feedlots has ecological consequences. ^nine First, in that location is increased land use to grow the grain required. Besides, all those animals collectively generate enormous piles of waste, which must be managed and which ofttimes end up polluting waterways. Much of the grain that cattle eat is from irrigated crops. For example, in 2012, corn production accounted for roughly 25 percent of total U.s.a.-irrigated acreage harvested, ¹⁰ while hay and other provender production fabricated up 18 pct. In improver, most irrigated acreage is located in the American plains and western states – regions that feel frequent droughts and water scarcity, placing additional burdens on already stressed water supplies. All of this figures into the water footprint of conventional beef. ¹¹

Pasture-raised cattle, by comparison, spend their entire life eating grass. They typically take 24 to 28 months to reach market weight, considering it takes longer for them to gain weight. ¹² Considering they rely on grass that is predominantly pelting-fed, grass-fed cattle have a higher green water footprint, which isn't a problem unless there is a drought that impacts availability of grass. In add-on, manure from grass-fed cattle production is typically used as land fertilizer and is function of regenerative agricultural practices in well-managed pasture operations.

The US and Global H2o Footprint of Beef

Given that the boilerplate American eats around 181 pounds of meat annually, information technology is easy to see how meat consumption might account for so much of an American'southward h2o footprint. ^thirteen In fact, American meat consumption is virtually three times that of the global average. ^xiv Worldwide consumption of meat and animal products makes upward 27 percent of humanity's total water footprint. ^fifteen Of that total, 98 pct is due to the water required to produce animal feed, while water for drinking, cleaning and feed mixing constitutes only 1.ane percentage, 0.8 percent and 0.03 percentage, respectively. ¹⁶

How and Where Food Comes from Impacts a Person's Water Footprint

Diets made up of highly processed foods — like packaged snacks and ready-made meals – besides apply a lot of water. ¹⁷ For example, ounce for ounce, potato chips have a higher water footprint than whole potatoes. ¹⁸ After growing the potatoes (which uses the about h2o), it takes more h2o to clean the potatoes and the processing mechanism, plus even more water for producing cooking oil for deep frying, producing fuel for commitment and packaging the product. This quantity of water — that incorporates growing, processing, cooking, packaging and transport — is known equally "virtual water."

Where food is grown can besides impact a person'southward water footprint. California, for example, produces more food than any other US state, supplying a large part of the country's milk, beefiness, produce and nuts. ^{19 xx} It is also one of the nation's driest states and recently experienced a drought of celebrated proportions. As a consequence, California's agricultural sector puts enormous strain on the h2o supplies of the unabridged southwest, mainly through its allotments from the Colorado River, which it shares with other states. A significant portion of that limited water supply is then "shipped" as virtual water when they consign almonds or alfalfa (for fauna feed) to other states or countries, like Japan and China. ^{21 22} Likewise, when food is shipped from other states and countries, information technology taps into afar water supplies. As global merchandise increases the amount of nutrient that is moved effectually the planet, these calculations become important indicators of the actual corporeality of water used to get these foods to peoples' plates.

Transporting food over long distances likewise requires large quantities of fuel, which pollutes the air, contributes to climate alter and uses huge volumes of water. Producing gasoline and other transportation fuels requires water: about 3/4 gallon of water is needed to produce plenty gasoline to drive one mile. ²³

In short, agronomics has a significant touch on water resources; and while people'south private h2o footprints volition never approach zero, the more meat, dairy and processed foods each of us consumes, the more than water we use and the college our water footprints. That is why information technology is important to sympathize how the diverse components of water footprints for a particular food item are calculated.

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Source: https://foodprint.org/issues/the-water-footprint-of-food/

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