Your Green Review

I recently had an ‘Aha!’ moment when I realized I could save more water by eating veggies than by retrofitting my home with water efficient appliances.  According to a study published by the International Water Management Institute, the average American meat-eater’s diet contains about 1,426 gallons of water per day.  That’s 520,490 gallons of water every year.  Vegetarian diets, on the other hand, consume only 686 gallons per day (or 250,390 gallons per year).  To give this statement a global perspective,  the study goes on to say, “If every person adopted a typical U.S. diet, approximately 75% more water would be needed for food production”.   This is nothing short of shocking considering that most of us only need 8-9 cups of water a day to stay well hydrated.

But water is only the beginning.  Here are two more staggering statistics for all of us omnivores…

David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell University:

“More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40% of world grain is being fed to livestock rater than being consumed directly by humans…If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 80 million.”

SustainableTable.org:

Roughly 25,000 square kilometers, or 6 million acres, of the Amazon rainforest is cut down every year for grazing cattle and growing soybeans that are used for animal feed.

As if water conservation and over production of grain weren’t enough, Science Daily reported:

Reduced consumption [of meat and milk] could decrease the future emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from agriculture to levels below those of 1995.

And because information without context is is useless, here’s a pound-for-pound comparison of the resources it takes to produce the food we love straight from National Geographic.  Here’s to more conscious consumption:

MEAT

Beef:

1,799 gallons of water

6.6 pounds of grain for feed

Pork:

576 gallons of water

4.2 pounds of grain for feed

Chicken:

468 gallons of water

2 pounds of grain for feed

VEGGIES

Corn:

108 gallons of water

Soy Beans:

216 gallons of water

FRUIT

Apple:

18 gallons of water

Orange:

13 gallons of water

OTHER

Chocolate:

3,170 gallons of water (WOW!)

Coffee:

880 gallons of water (or 37 gallons per cup)

Fast fact: “If everyone in the world drank a cup of coffee eac morning, it would ‘cost’ about 32 trillion gallons of water a year”

What You Can Do:

• Wherever possible, buy food, products and services locally.
• Eating out?  Find a local restaurant that sources it food from nearby farmers.  Ohio’s own Jenni’s Ice Cream and Portland’s Hot Lips Pizza are two sensational examples of sustainable dining done right!
• Avoid consuming so much of the resource-intensive red meats and consider becoming a weekday vegetarian to reduce your ecological footprint.
• See No Impact Man’s Sustainable Eating Plan for more great resources, tips and ideas!