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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The water that the cows actually drink is a very small part of it. The water goes into stuff like land irrigation, producing feed, producing chemicals and medicines, all of that. Raising cows requires a lot of labour and equipment and all of that uses water. Not to mention that cow rearing is terrible for land – that’s a huge cause of rainforest destruction. We cut down rainforest to access the fertile soil, and grow grass on it for cows. Then after ten years of grass being grown under the hot sun, eaten and trampled by cows, that soil is dust. It totally screws up the water cycle.
These numbers are intended to be holistic, it’s all the aspects of growing a cow, not just the drinking water.
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