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))
They count all the rain that falls on the grazing area which makes a large portion of that figure. Most grazing land is not useful for farming. They also use an average, so if a dairy cow lives for several years before becoming beef, they count its whole life. Then they count all the rain and irrigation for the alfalfa and whatnot the cow eats to produce the milk.
The cattle aren’t drinking all that water, it’s basically a bullshit number. Always look at the primary sources. If the real numbers looked like the anti meat people claim, a hamburger would cost 70 dollars
When people are concerned about water, water scarcity, etc. they are always talking about immediately potable (drinkable) water. All water gets recycled eventually but there isn’t enough drinkable water around for the number of people and things on the planet.
Actually it’s kind of a myth, 1kg of beef uses around 550 liters. The 15.000 liters are calculated through a method that takes into account « green water », which is basically water raining on the space the cow needs, and it makes up for about 95% of the 15.000 liters.
[Source](https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/water-use-and-beef-what-we-know/).
What u gon do with 15k litres of cow piss buddy?
Adding to other good answers, when water is recycled back into system, it spreads instead of being localized into a place to easily harvest.
When it’s spread it’s much difficult to get it back and takes a lot of energy and we don’t have that much cheap energy.
That’s interesting, my cattle in the feedlot gain a kilogram and a half per day and consume maybe 13-15 gallons per day on the hottest days. If you want to get technical, of that kilogram and a half of gain about 64 percent is lean muscle. If you want to get even more technical you could go back to jr high school and learn all about the water cycle….
Just like there is a lot of water in the ocean, but it’s is still expensive to get fresh water.
Water using in feeding the cows ends up in a useless state. It come back to the water life cycle eventually, but it took us money and effort to make it fresh and usable again.
You can’t drink cow pee. Well I guess you can but I wouldn’t want to.
Eventually it does go back into the water cycle. Then from there it probably ends up in one of many water sources full of bacteria, heavy metals, and other bad stuff. So it has to go through treatment to be safely consumed. The treatment and transportation process takes up resources. Resources are limited.
Slightly off-topic, sorry but… It takes around 12 pints of water to make one pint of beer. And thats just in the brewery, not including watering the barley and hops. I mean, its worth it, obviously, but tremendously inefficient.
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