Tweens and Water Conservation
The Water for Food Challenge
Sep 26, 2008 Christin Aitchison
As awareness of a threatening global water crisis increases, there are many things that the average person can do to conserve. It’s easy, eco-friendly and an important step toward protecting Earth.
The first and most important thing for parents to do is to involve children. It is never too early to raise children's consciousness and to make them aware of their own personal impact on the planet. They are, after all, the people who will inherit Earth.
Water Consumption in Food Production: Facts for Your Tween to Chew On
Tweens will probably be shocked to learn that one of the biggest places that they consume water doesn’t actually involve the physical use of water. The food that they eat is the culprit! The average person in the United States eats fifteen hundred pounds of food each year. That means that approximately one and a half million gallons of water are needed to process the food for just ONE person every year. That’s enough water to fill a football field four feet deep!
Take a few minutes to chew over these facts and to take the Water for Food Challenge. You and your tween will both be surprised at what you learn!
The Challenge
The next time you order a kid’s meal that has a burger, fries and soft drink in it, think about this amazing fact; it takes 1500 gallons of water to produce that meal. All of that water is used before the food even gets through the doors of the restaurant! It is used in every step of the food production process.
Animal food products use more water than plant food products to process. To produce food from animals, the livestock have to eat and drink. A cow producing milk can drink up to twenty-three gallons of water a day. Water is also necessary to grow the crops that the animals feed from before they can provide meat, eggs and dairy.
Water is also used to cool machinery down, for transportation and conditioning of raw materials, and for cooking and shipping the food. Water is even needed to clean out the barns and coups where the livestock live.
The chart below lists some popular foods. Guess how many gallons of water are needed to produce an average serving of each food.
- Lettuce
- Tomato
- Orange
- Watermelon
- 2 Slices of bread
- One glass of milk
- One gallon of bottled water
- Cheese
- One egg
- Rice
- French Fries
- Chicken
- Pork
- Beef steak
Answer Key
- 3
- 8
- 14
- 100
- 20
- 48
- 3
- 56
- 62
- 25
- 15
- 330
- 400
- 1200
As you can see, meat takes more water to produce than plant products. It takes up to 100 times more water to produce one pound of beef than it does one pound of wheat. So, the question is, can you come up with a healthy menu that uses less water to produce? By eliminating just one meat meal per week, you will have done your part! Two meals, even better!
Another great way to help conserve water is to stop drinking bottled water! It takes three times as much water than what you actually drink just to produce it! Tap water has more regulation by the EPA then bottled water does from the FDA. That means it is safer, cheaper and more eco-friendly to turn on the tap!
Hamburger
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Glass of Water
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