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Been researching water usage a lot lately. Truly eye opening the amount of indirect water we consume through food products. We "eat" 3496 litres of water everyd

Been researching water usage a lot lately. Truly eye opening the amount of indirect water we consume through food products. We "eat" 3496 litres of water everyday. Check out https://thewaterweeat.com/ https://thewaterweeat.com/ for a great infographic.

thesausageking 5y ago
This infographic is very misleading. All water isn't created equally. A liter in a very wet place like Florida used to grow strawberries doesn't have much of an impact, while a liter taken from depleted aquifers in dry, northern Texas makes a bad situation worse.
- dsalzman 5y ago
  that is true, but just like oil water can be transported via pipelines.
  - CapitalistCartr 5y ago
    And, just as oil, it costs money, adding to the price.
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    And, with enough electricity, taken right from the ocean.
  - Retric 5y ago
    In theory sure, but not so much in practice. The east coast of the US dumps a lot of fresh water into the ocean, but trying to transport it to the Midwest is pardon the pun a herculean task.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      We transfer millions of dollars of fresh Florida water all over the world every day at a profit margin of ~1600x. It comes in little plastic bottles.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Now make it competitive with desalination at around 1/2 a cent a gallon and realize even that is far to expensive for agricultural use. That’s the difference between theory and practice.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Water and land isn’t fungible. US policy made it possible to grow produce in the desert for free. When climate changes reduce Colorado flow and groundwater in the Midwest runs out, you can’t just grow tomatoes in New Jersey and Long Island anymore. It’s converted to millions of homes and businesses.
bradleyjg 5y ago
Which is why water theater was so rediculous in California during the drought. San Diego banned restaurants giving people water unless they asked for it, but they didn’t ban putting a scoop of California grown rice on the plate unless people asked for it. Water essentially all goes to agriculture, a small amount to industrial, and even smaller amount to decorative irrigation. Toilets are not even a rounding error but here we all are plunging to “save the planet”.
NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago
So help me understand this... I eat far less than 3496 liters of food every day, and only a fraction of it is water. So where are the other 3490-something liters of water? Or to put it differently, the link says "3091000 liters of water for producing 200 kilos of boneless beef". Clearly only a tiny fraction of that water is tied up in the animal at any given point. Where is the rest? My point being: even if we all stopped eating meat because it takes too much water to produce, would this actually make a difference in the amount of water available? Or would it just change the rate at which the water is cycled from environment through plants and animals and back into the environment? And in the larger context of the water cycle, does it make any difference? That infographic doesn't seem to touch on any of this, instead handwaving about the water being "virtual" or "hidden in the food you eat". It's not as though 3091000 liters of water just disappear, never to be seen again when those 200 kilos of beef spring into existence.
- Veserv 5y ago
  Generally speaking, the rest is in the ocean or air. Before it can be reused it must either be in the natural water cycle and rained back down or it can be artificially reclaimed via desalination and the like. Ignoring artificial reclamation, we can view the natural water cycle as producing some amount of fresh water per unit time and underground water stores as containing some amount of fresh water. When we use fresh water in places faster than the water is replenished in those places we must either draw upon water from another place or upon water stores. What "consuming" some quantity of fresh water means is that quantity of fresh water must be "produced" either naturally or artificially otherwise the net stores of water decrease. If we reach zero stores of water then we can no longer "consume" more than is "produced" and thus have no choice but to reduce production of things that "consume" water. If this is sudden and unexpected then we will have a food crisis as we will not be able to produce as much food as we expected.
  - NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. So is there good evidence that agriculture is causing these stores to run dry? Or is it more a matter of climate change causing droughts, and we're all supposed to "tighten our belts" to mitigate it? (As an aside, thanks also for the interesting info on desalination you shared in other threads. Do you have any pointers to good resources on this topic that are both up-to-date and freely available? I'm very interested in this topic but have found in the past that a lot of the open academic literature is out of date while the up-to-date industry sources are usually paywalled.)
ibeckermayer 5y ago
Misleading -- 94% of the water that's "used" to produce beef is just rainwater, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g

thesausageking 5y ago

This infographic is very misleading. All water isn't created equally. A liter in a very wet place like Florida used to grow strawberries doesn't have much of an impact, while a liter taken from depleted aquifers in dry, northern Texas makes a bad situation worse.

dsalzman 5y ago
that is true, but just like oil water can be transported via pipelines.
- CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  And, just as oil, it costs money, adding to the price.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  And, with enough electricity, taken right from the ocean.
- Retric 5y ago
  In theory sure, but not so much in practice. The east coast of the US dumps a lot of fresh water into the ocean, but trying to transport it to the Midwest is pardon the pun a herculean task.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    We transfer millions of dollars of fresh Florida water all over the world every day at a profit margin of ~1600x. It comes in little plastic bottles.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Now make it competitive with desalination at around 1/2 a cent a gallon and realize even that is far to expensive for agricultural use. That’s the difference between theory and practice.
Spooky23 5y ago
Water and land isn’t fungible. US policy made it possible to grow produce in the desert for free. When climate changes reduce Colorado flow and groundwater in the Midwest runs out, you can’t just grow tomatoes in New Jersey and Long Island anymore. It’s converted to millions of homes and businesses.

bradleyjg 5y ago

Which is why water theater was so rediculous in California during the drought. San Diego banned restaurants giving people water unless they asked for it, but they didn’t ban putting a scoop of California grown rice on the plate unless people asked for it. Water essentially all goes to agriculture, a small amount to industrial, and even smaller amount to decorative irrigation. Toilets are not even a rounding error but here we all are plunging to “save the planet”.

NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago

So help me understand this... I eat far less than 3496 liters of food every day, and only a fraction of it is water. So where are the other 3490-something liters of water? Or to put it differently, the link says "3091000 liters of water for producing 200 kilos of boneless beef". Clearly only a tiny fraction of that water is tied up in the animal at any given point. Where is the rest? My point being: even if we all stopped eating meat because it takes too much water to produce, would this actually make a difference in the amount of water available? Or would it just change the rate at which the water is cycled from environment through plants and animals and back into the environment? And in the larger context of the water cycle, does it make any difference? That infographic doesn't seem to touch on any of this, instead handwaving about the water being "virtual" or "hidden in the food you eat". It's not as though 3091000 liters of water just disappear, never to be seen again when those 200 kilos of beef spring into existence.

Veserv 5y ago
Generally speaking, the rest is in the ocean or air. Before it can be reused it must either be in the natural water cycle and rained back down or it can be artificially reclaimed via desalination and the like. Ignoring artificial reclamation, we can view the natural water cycle as producing some amount of fresh water per unit time and underground water stores as containing some amount of fresh water. When we use fresh water in places faster than the water is replenished in those places we must either draw upon water from another place or upon water stores. What "consuming" some quantity of fresh water means is that quantity of fresh water must be "produced" either naturally or artificially otherwise the net stores of water decrease. If we reach zero stores of water then we can no longer "consume" more than is "produced" and thus have no choice but to reduce production of things that "consume" water. If this is sudden and unexpected then we will have a food crisis as we will not be able to produce as much food as we expected.
- NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the explanation. So is there good evidence that agriculture is causing these stores to run dry? Or is it more a matter of climate change causing droughts, and we're all supposed to "tighten our belts" to mitigate it? (As an aside, thanks also for the interesting info on desalination you shared in other threads. Do you have any pointers to good resources on this topic that are both up-to-date and freely available? I'm very interested in this topic but have found in the past that a lot of the open academic literature is out of date while the up-to-date industry sources are usually paywalled.)

ibeckermayer 5y ago

Misleading -- 94% of the water that's "used" to produce beef is just rainwater, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g