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Food and Water
International water experts have made some interesting discoveries about how much water goes into making produce and products that we know and love.
They calculate this by accounting for the surface, ground, soil water and rainfall it takes to produce all that we consume.
Check out this table – we think you will be surprised. We certainly were! You'll never think about that cup of coffee in the same way ever again!
| An apple | = 70 litres |
| A glass of beer | = 75 litres |
| A glass of wine | = 120 litres |
| Bag of chips | = 185 litres |
| Slice of bread | = 40 litres |
| Cup of tea | = 35 litres |
| Cup of coffee | = 140 litres |
| A potato | = 25 litres |
| An egg | = 135 litres |
| Glass of milk | = 200 litres |
| Hamburger | = 2400 litres |
| Cotton t-shirt | = 2000 litres |
| Leather shoes | = 8000 litres |
| One kg of beef | = 16000 litres |
Click here for full report: The Water Footprint Assessment Manual
Vegetarians take a bow!
How can one kilogram of beef take 16,000 litres of water to produce? The report said that, on average, it takes three years for a cow to grow to slaughter size to produce 200kg of meat. During its rather short life, the cow will consume 1,300kg of grain, 7,200kg of hay and grass, guzzle 24,000 litres of water and require 7,000 litres for 'servicing' of the feedlots and slaughter.
On top of that, red meat is not actually that good for us. New Scientist recently reported that eating lots of red meat can shorten your life. Click here to read more.
And if that's not enough to turn you off (as you can discover on our Weird Science page) the moo cow is one big burping, farting and pooing machine that turns feed into beef. They just stand there looking, chewing, burping, farting and emitting methane until ... well ... the cows come home.
We reckon the solution here is to eat less beautiful, brown-eyed cows if you can. We asked the cows and they reckon that kangaroo tastes great, has no fat, doesn’t fart out the dreaded methane, is regarded as a pest in most areas and leaves a lighter footprint than a cow.
The kangaroos were invited to comment, but declined to speak on the grounds that they wish to keep their location a secret.
Click here to read article 'Skippy du jour as top tucker' in The AGE
Click here for Macro Meats - Cooking Kangaroo
