Supposedly it takes upward of 650 gallons of water to make a hamburger. How many gallons for that salad I replace it with? What about a good vegan dish?

How about in litres?

^^next you will want me to calculate the weight of the burger in tonnes^^

I just heard an NPR interview with a farmer who said it takes 40 gallons of water to make 1 pound of blueberries. I do not know if that is more or less water intensive than salad fixin’s.

@hominid ‘s link is interesting. One egg takes 196 liters, 52 gallons. Really?

I’d like to see the numbers listed as calories per water usage. That would be a better comparison.

One of the news stories I read describes how someone did the calculations for implementing all of the suggestions California has put out there for water conservation and came up with the fact that the most he could save would be 45 gallons per day (I think per household but not positive).

So, just not eating a pound of blueberries a day would do just as good (as long as you did not flush every time).

In the same interview they mentioned the per capita usage in Beverly Hills (A very expensive area) is 160 gallons per day.

I just noticed something frightening in @hominid ‘s link!

Foodstuff…..Quantity…..Water consumption, litres
Chocolate…...1 kg…..........17,196
Beef…...........1 kg…..........15,415

Does that mean we should avoid chocolate? Hah!

@LuckyGuy Stay calm. The water consumed by most of the world’s cocoa trees isn’t water that’s diverted from other uses. It’s just that cocoa trees grow in areas with high natural rainfall, like tropical rainforests.

Save the rainforests!!

Lord knows I’ve done my part.

There’s a lot of good information here, but I’m not crazy about the format.

Why not just give ounce for ounce?

Edit, this is more what I had in mind, and should help @rojo reduce his water footprint.

Here you can learn about more than food, and water resource.

Interesting!

Horses drink 5–10 gallons of water a day, but we aren’t eating our horses. lol
I would think cattle are about the same.
Factoring in what it costs to either irrigate pastureland or grow hay, lots of water, lots and lots.
Hay prices have tipped the charts at up to $20 a bale the last few years. Between fuel prices and water it costs an astronomical amount to keep horses anymore, let alone raise beef for consumption. We have ditch water irrigation canals in my county and a lot of the ranchers/farmers use the ditch water for irrigation.

@Coloma Horses drink 5–10 gallons of water a day, but we aren’t eating our horses. lol That’s what you think.

@Pied_Pfeffer Soylent Green is next ;)

@jerv That movie sounds soo like something I would appreciate. It’s been added to my IMDB watchlist.

Are these farmers using the tree teepee? Great Shark Tank spot! It’s a little long but see it through. Warms your heart and saves water. There was also a follow up episode, and he of course is making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As far as chocolate. I agree that we don’t have to worry about that. It grows in the jungle. Do they actually irrigate the cocoa farms??

@LuckyGuy . . . They will have to pry my chocolate steak fajita from my cold, dead hand.