Facts
- "Water required to produce 1 pound of California beef: 2,464 gallons" ("Water Inputs in California Food Production," Water Education Foundation, Sacramento, CA ) [02.10.01.04]
- If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound.
- "In California, the single biggest consumer of water is not Los Angeles. It is not the oil and chemicals or defense industries. Nor is it the fields of grapes and tomatoes. It is irrigated pasture: grass grown in a near-desert climate for cows... The West's water crisis --- and many of its environmental problems as well --- can be summed up, implausible as this may seem, in a single word:livestock." ("Cadillac Desert", by Marc Reisner) [02.10.01.06]
- "Water required to produce one pound (lb.) of California foods:
- 1 lb. lettuce:
- 1 lb. tomatoes:
- 1 lb. wheat:
- 1 lb. carrots:
- 1 lb. apples:
- 1 lb. chicken:
- 1 lb. pork:
- 1 lb. beef:
(according to Soil and Water specialists, Univ. of Calif. Agricultural Extension, working with livestock farm advisors: Schulbach, Herb , et. al., in Soil and Water, No. 38, Fall 1978)
- Facts from "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins
- Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90
- Percentage of carbohydrate wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 99
- Percentage of dietary fibre wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 100
- Cost for pound of protein from beefsteak if U.S. taxpayers ceased subsidising meat industry's use of water: $89
- Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last if all human beings ate meat-centred diet: 13 years
- Production of excrement by total U.S. human population: 12,000 lbs./sec
- Production of excrement by U.S. Livestock: 250,000 pounds/second
- Sewage systems in U.S. cities: Common
- Sewage systems in U.S. feedlots: Nil
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