Water (Part 1)

Harvest cafe’s mission is not only to take care of our bodies but also to take care of the earth.

We all know that California has been in a horrible drought for years. We were fortunate to make up some ground with last year’s rain but the worst is still to come. On the other side of the world, in Sweden, they are about to hit their biggest drought in 100 years.  We all know it constantly rains in Sweden right?! What is happening?

We all try to make small changes in our daily habits like taking shorter showers, not doing dishes under running water, using rainwater catches and recycling grey water.  But what about making changes to our eating habits?  Many people don’t realize that we can make a big change in our water footprint by changing our eating habits. By eating less animal products or no animal products we can exponentially reduce our water consumption.

The meat industry is responsible for the consumption of insane amounts of water. To produce one hamburger it takes  about 660 gallons of water. To produce 1 gallon of milk it takes about 1000 gallons of water.  This is because it takes a large amount of water to grow the grains used to feed the animals, it also takes a lot of water to slaughter and process the animals. Yes, it takes a lot of water to grow nuts, but not nearly as much as it takes to produce meat or milk. To produce 1 almond it takes about 1 gallon of water. That is 660 almonds to one hamburger. One head of broccoli takes 5.4 gallons of water, one tomato takes 3.3 gallons of water, 83 gallons of water = 1 cup of garbanzo beans.  I can go on…

Almond milk latte =12 gallons of water

Whole milk latte = 62 gallons of water

Veggie burger = about 100 gallons of water

Hamburger = 660 gallons of water