yes. but pork beer and chicken taste GOOOOOOOD!

This would make much more sense, if the appropriate substitute would be shown in comparison (soy-fillet, and the like). How much water is used in generating tap-water, btw. (transport losses etc.)?

This begs the question: how many litres of water does it take to make a human?

And then the physics of the matter also happens to come up. There is no way you can store 1440 litres of water in one 300g pork cutlet. So where does all that water go? It doesn't go into the pig, never to be seen again. It goes *through* the pig, to be recycled into the environment.

Embodied water is not a useful meter unless we're talking about groundwater aquifers being exclusively used or something along those lines.

An old tree would be worth millions of gallons.

But also consider all the water used in the farm trucks to transport live pigs/dead pigs/pig food/pig farm hands/etc. Then water to process pig meat, package it, etc.
Any product will include use of water, but the realistic calculation of it may leave something to be desired. In point- the beer bottle itself, the glass melting/blowing/cooling/washing/label process surely takes more than 3L of water! Imagine the power consumption of the glass plant to start. The beer food itself may only use 3L per beer but other factors could increase it.

Sorry i did not read beer correctly, the little water drops distracted me from the number.

If anyone is interested, I just did some math, based on calorie-count.com:
Wheat has 3.4x the calories per liter of water than beef.

I love the bias of only reporting meat and alcohol. How many glasses of water does it take to grow a carrot!?

Go Vegan!

Having grown up on a relatively small (hundreds at a cycle) chicken operation, that let our family and many others, survive the lean years of rationing of the second world war, I take that as something Snopes should de'bunk.
BTW we grew the grain that fed the chickens. I think that everyone should go through those years of 'subsistance' farming. Only then can everyone comment inteligently. I and my family "Walked the Walk". Start Walkin' John Q Public. I just put my 'kid years' story on 'DaFlikkers' Goog it.

I think veganism is a noble ideal in many respects, but doing it because animals drink too much water is a horrible trap.

I think it's terrible that wildlife is being/has been erradicated by our space needs, and the biggest connection to that is our growth. It's chicken and egg thing - we were able to remove wilderness both because of, and in order to remove animals.

The same link exists with agricultural animals. At this stage, freeing up water from animals to let humans expand more is distracting us from the disease so that we can treat the symptom.

If we continue to try to remove water from natural systems, we continue to lose hope of restoring any natual systems. I don't see much point in eliminating the ramaining animals in the world if it means we just replace them with water-efficient humans - that's not a world worth saving any more.

With respect to food preparation, like beer, coffee, and wheat... the same principle applies. If people consider the technology "traditional", or "natural", then maybe we need to consider that it's not "consumption" at fault as much as the *Number of People* doing the consuming.

That is not to say that I disagree about reducing "Natural" consumption. We are well beyond the point of living in harmony within nature - if we can find a technological way to isolate ourselves from nature - well, I say bring on the Dune-like water-recycling suits!

Bit of a problem here. The majority of people still prefer a good piece of steak. And you might be able to convince a few in the west. But we in Africa still like meat and won't give that up without a fight. It is one of many ways how we judge wealth. More on my blog - We eat meat - get used to it. http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/we-eat-meat-get-used-to-it/

And don't forget that it takes

365 * 2 * 50 ~ 36.5 tons of water

just to keep the average human alive for some 50 years. Luckily the water just comes out at the other end(s) again.

By this meter, an old tree would be the equivalent of millions of gallons of water.

Anonymous, so do dogs, probably, but you're not going to eat your neighbors border collie, are you? The pleasing taste of a handful of foods is a ridiculous reason to ignore hard evidence that through diet alone you can make a huge environmental difference.

Brennan and Ragnar Roeck, several studies have shown that it takes far less land and water resources to raise foods for a plant-based diet than it does to raise animals who are slaughtered for meat.

Ernie, a. you don't eat humans, b. the water goes "through" plants to be "recycled into the environment" far more efficiently, as well. In addition, the material construct of all these foods goes through us. The physics of how the animal or plant processes these resources is not in question here, at least not in the way you're implying.

Chris, good point

Robert Jones, yes please! XD

Blogengeezer, I grew up on a hog farm. Just pointing that out.

tre4, it's not like that's the only reason for veganism, it is one on a list of dozens, if not hundreds of individual reasons why, ranging from scientific to spiritual, someone would choose to practice a vegan diet/lifestyle even in part. Your chicken/egg comparison didn't really make sense to me, though, I think you might have meant it differently than you worded it. Actually your whole post seems going downhill. What are you talking about when you refer to "eliminating the remaining animals in the world"? Who mentioned anything like that? The only thing I can gather from the rest of that is that you're talking about consumption rates versus numbers, which is a standard consideration.

Angry African, you make a good point but it's the same pretty much everywhere. Meat consumption is higher in America than in most cultures throughout history because it evolved from a status symbol. Meat became affordable very quickly, and so it was originally toted as something healthy and good for you that only the rich could afford until then, and those false ideas about nutrition and status are still perpetuated today, as are many things.

Treehugger, I appreciate how much due attention you're always giving to veganism as a viable choice towards making an environmental difference, but these replyers get on my nerves (^_^)"