why is it a problem that it takes so much water to produce 1kg of beef – something like 15,000 liters – if the cows just pee it all back out anyway?
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Most of the water isn’t drunk by the cow, it’s used to grow the cow’s food. But you’re right: it doesn’t just disappear and will eventually re-enter the water system.
Suppose you are given one large bucket of fresh water a day to use for everything. It’s enough for you to drink, wash, and grow a few plants to eat. Now you decide to raise a cow – that cow needs a *huge* amount of grass that you need to use your bucket of water to grow – by the time you eat the cow it has cost you much more of your water for every meal you get from it than the plants you were growing and eating.
That’s not a problem if you can refill your bucket as much as you like. However, if your access to fresh water is limited then you’ll end up going thirsty and your crops will start to wilt, because you’re investing so much of your one bucket of water in raising the cow.
That’s the problem: not that the water is vanishing from earth, but that you’re using up the limited amount of fresh water available to you where you are right now.
Edit: Nearly one quarter of America’s water supply is used to to grow crops just to feed to cows. That’s a lot of water. ([Non-ELI5 source](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0483-z.epdf?sharing_token=rO8PlDqNyzWZB3S1IwNHMdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NcRI4tUpSOob5OVmynl_awiKQ6ZrpST6zlAMJ4jILQ4mYfi1_M70ftkHRqBVaa0MBObQ8qQGD2EtPDVNY8MR1DTqgON8V5hAzWz8J56UeVMEsxm_y04EJz_lItNDpyNewnyQ8ooI9lDz1zlQYRaknGP7IXNVyE7o7gzXGxObRSJ9lupm1hjRxBvMhzE0jNXXnUMp9WcpKeegUCUrCCf-pPzgAt6gESnJNwGvODFvNBiGDF0xRRhrX28wdSChQZSUq43sQGDIDPRcOH_zVZoOg9xZ–Hy6oYxLsD193D3kY3GaTDRb_7w1ISyzY6AnsVy8%3D&tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com))
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