![]() ![]() sugar intake has also risen a 14 percent since 1960, equivalent to 2,010 gallons per year. That’s enough water to fill about 350 bathtubs! U.S. The average American eats 25,000 gallons worth of soybeans every year. Much of this is due to consumption of more processed foods. Highlighted in the interactive is the average American’s consumption of vegetable oil at more than twice the amount of 1960 levels. Meat and other animal products generally have larger water footprints per unit of weight or nutritional value than grains, vegetables, or beans because livestock and poultry eat large quantities of feed, often made of grain.Their total water footprint is determined by aggregating the water footprint of all the animal feed crops over the lifetime of the food animal, along with the relatively small fraction that goes toward drinking and cleaning. For instance, in the table above, chicken is the food with the biggest water footprint at 161 gallons/day. Americans are also opting for more water-intensive foods. agricultural water use has recently fallen). More food means more water (although U.S. Unauthorized use is prohibited.ĭigging into the “What the World Eats” interactive shows that from 1960 until 2011, the average American is eating more. While the deal was for pork, in effect, Smithfield traded all the water it takes to produce it for the manure that’s left behind. The deal allows Smithfield to sell pork to China while Shaunghui gets ready access to water (plus land and feed) for hog production at Smithfield’s Virginia facilities. One recent example is the giant 2013 pork merger between Smithfield and Shuanghui. While that water is not lost to the water cycle, it’s often lost from the watershed-and sometimes transferred virtually or directly to different locations-where it was used for food production or polluted from unsustainable agricultural practices. The volume of water that goes into making our food is astonishing. ♦ Numbers have been rounded for reporting purposes. canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, etc.) 4 6 2,137 Oranges 3 11 4,143 Sugar 3 39 14,360 Soybean oil (primarily for processed foods) 2 70 25,682 Water Footprint of Food Items, 2011 (gal/capita) ♦įood Weight consumed per capita per day (oz)* Water required per capita per day (gal)** Water required per capita per year (gal)** Wheat 8 105 38,374 Poultry (primarily chicken) 5 161 58,733 Milk 25 190 69,204 Tomatoes (incl. In the table below are the water footprints of some foods representative of an American diet (based on weight and per capita consumption). Because the United States is among the highest for a developed nation, it’s useful to look at the water footprint of a statistically average American. Consumption patterns vary greatly among countries. The interactive lets users explore how an average individual consumer’s diet has changed in terms of quantity and calories over time, across countries and in comparison to world averages.īy combining the interactive’s source data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization ( FAOSTAT) with water footprint data gathered by the Water Footprint Network (WFN), we can calculate general estimates for how the water requirements of a given diet have changed since 1960. National Geographic’s interactive tool What the World Eats tracks diets over the past 50 years around the globe. How do you get the water footprint of a person’s overall diet? First we need to know what-and how much-they’re eating. ![]() It is a total of all the water used to grow edible crops for humans and animals, to process food, and to clean up pollution caused by the food production system. The water footprint method provides a sense of how much water is used for a given product or process. Related: “Photographer Captures Drought Turning California Farms Into Kingdom of Dust” The hidden water, also called virtual water, behind food production makes up the majority of water that a person uses indirectly every day. ![]() Farmers know this all too well, but the average eater has no idea how much water goes into his or her diet. ![]() Without adequate supplies of clean water, agriculture is impossible. The California drought has brought the relationship between food production and water supplies into stark relief. One great accomplishment of the last 50 years is the ability to get more food to more people through improved agricultural yields, but along with that has come a huge increase in the amount of water used. ![]()
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