TEN YEARS Average Human Water Consumption in Just ONE POUND of Beef
Per Vegan Street: "Animal agribusiness is a massive drain on natural resources (and, no, the grass-fed, organic and "free-range" industries are not any less so), creating enormous waste for very little "product". Care about the viability of our planet? Then you must move away from consuming animals."
It takes 1,800 gallongs of water to produce on pound of beef. That is equal to ten years of the average water consumption for the average person. Source: GRACE Communications Foundation If you have only reduced rather than eliminated your beef consumption at this point, ask yourself if you'd be comfortable pouring years worth of water down the drain just a couple of times a week – as opposed to never. The power to stop this madness is in our hands.
More about this stat, as a few have questioned the number:
Source for this figure (and higher ones) other than the one noted in the lower left corner of the meme include the US EPA and renowned scientist Dr. Georg Borgstrom in his presentation “Impacts On Demand For And Quality Of Land And Water." The Municipal Water Districts of Orange County and San Diego just released a graphic this week with this same figure (1,800). The USGS Water Science School says it takes 4,000-18,000 gallons to produce ONE hamburger (!) because "It take a lot of water to grow grain, forage, and roughage to feed a cow, as well as water to drink and to service the cow." TIME reports that livestock production for meat, milk, and eggs uses 1/3 of the earth's freshwater, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest says it uses more than half of the entire US water supply. Leading water scientists actually say we will probably have no choice but to shift to vegetarianism due to the disproportionately large amount of water that goes into rearing animals for food vs. cultivating plant foods directly, and the UN has urged a global shift to veganism for years now in order to stave off the worst effects of world hunger and climate change. Multiple articles here talk about how much more water and other resources are used to produce animal foods vs. plant foods (and every source I've mentioned here is included) are here.