Water requirements of different foods

[Cooking Goddess]

With all of the discussions about the scary drought in CA, and the latest drought map I saw I thought I would share two articles from the LA Times. The first article has an interactive chart of food items you can click on to see how much water was used to produce your plate of food. I'm so glad we rarely eat beef, since it seems to demand the most water per ounce. On the other hand, it surprised me to find out that it takes less water per ounce of chicken than things like lentils, chickpeas or a soyburger! I only wish this chart let you pick two veggies and no starch.

How Much Water Goes into Your Meal?

The second article is a bubble graph showing which foods take more water to produce an ounce of food, and which take less. Something likes this makes me consider the importance of more veggies/less meat on our plates. I don't plan on going all vegetarian, but we have been reducing our meat intake...mostly because I'm cheap.

From Steak to Mangoes, here are some water-hogging foods.

 

[Whiskadoodle]

For now I think I read agriculture/ farming is exempt from Ca water restrictions. I think it was quite a long list of regulations California implemented.

Doesn't mean that food will still be as readily available or as cheap in the future. It's not just cattle for beef to be concerned about, California is also a leading milk producing state.

There is a case for / and against "water water everywhere and not a drop to drink." Why hasn't California invested in desalination plants. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm curious.

Here's two articles I simply eye scanned, am much too tired at this late/ early hour to study very closely. ( And how was I able to accomplish clearer thinking when I used to pull all nighters when in college.

Last resort: Drought prompts California city to consider firing up desalination plant | Fox News

Cheap Water from the World's Largest Modern Seawater Desalination Plant | MIT Technology Review

In many places around the country, we sometimes experience summer water restrictions/ short term droughts. Water your golf course perfect lawns only on odd/even days, no spending hours washing the car in your driveway and letting the hose run off the parking pad into the street while you soap up gas guzzling SUV's. Then we whine. In many ways we all have it too easy.