“Where’s the Beef?” Water as Currency.

Posted on | March 1, 2019 | 3 Comments

Mike Magee

“They want to take your pickup truck. They want to rebuild your home. They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved”, screeched former White House aide Sebastian Gorka at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week.

His widely discredited remarks were called out by a range of environmental scientists who laid out the role of American’s dietary habits as contributors to carbon dioxide production and global warming. For me, it recalled the slide above, part of a year long speaking tour I conducted in 2006 in support of the publication of Healthy Waters. The slide demonstrates the relative consumption of water resources to produce 1 kg of grain, versus 1 kg of chicken or beef as food.

Remarkably, we Americans require approximately 3 liters of water a day for survival, but the average America diet (heavy in beef) requires an investment of 3000 liters of water a day.

As the slide above from the same presentation illustrated, 70% of our water consumption is in support of our dependence on meat-heavy agriculture in this country.

It’s easy to make the case, for human health reasons alone, to shift in the direction of a plant based diet. What is more easily overlooked is that Americans obsession with meat has threatened in equal measures the planetary patient through its contributions to global warming and water consumption.

Comments

3 Responses to ““Where’s the Beef?” Water as Currency.”

“Where’s the Beef?” Water as Currency. – Site Title
March 1st, 2019 @ 11:53 am

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Ellie Taylor
March 2nd, 2019 @ 7:46 am

Thanks Mike. I’m teaching a class on eating for the health of our planet and the aging process. How are you? Ellie
Mike Magee
March 2nd, 2019 @ 12:17 pm

Doing well, Ellie. Great to hear from you. Your students might benefit from “Code Blue: Inside the Medical Industrial Complex”, due out from Grove Atlantic Press on May 7, 2019. More here: http://www.codeblue.online. Best, Mike