7 replies to this topic

[camay2327]

Who would have thought???

 

The Shocking Amount of Water That Goes Into an 8-oz. Steak

With California facing a drought that’s sparked unprecedented restrictions on water usage across the state, a new Buzzfeed video asks an important question: how much water actually go into one 8-oz. steak?

 

The answer will alarm you. The video starts broadly — a single beef cattle eats 451 gallons worth of water in its feed each day. Then there’s 5 gallons a day of drinking and cleaning water.

 

That ads up to 499,021 gallons over the course of its lifetime. Divide that by the average number of pieces of 8-ounce steak that come from the average cattle, and you have a very startling figure that might make you think twice before ordering another steak.

 

 

https://www.yahoo.co...9294019621.html

 

 

http://gov.ca.gov/do...utive_Order.pdf

[supermom]

I hate this kind of article. You take in the entire useage of water on a pasture and assign it to 1 cow and leave readers to assume every cow uses separate acreage. This is entirely incorrect. Further, this article assumes ranchers industrially water their pastures in order to use that much water. Most do not. 

cows who are strictly fed baled hay cost more to raise. There arent many ranchers who are willing to year round feed their cattle that way. However, the costs of feeding them is easier to add up. The cost of watering ag hay is richly exploited by anti ranchers. They are quick to point out the amount of water that is wasted in farming methods and yet when they are criticized about their pool water jumping the pool and going into their gardens or drains they state it is merely water that goes back into the river systems or table water. Well, so does farm water. Except farm crops on the same acreage are not usually restricted to only one crop a year. So that water is reused in that drought year.

Please give farmers a break and remember that they are feeding your family!

[ducky]

I hate this kind of article. You take in the entire useage of water on a pasture and assign it to 1 cow and leave readers to assume every cow uses separate acreage. This is entirely incorrect. Further, this article assumes ranchers industrially water their pastures in order to use that much water. Most do not. 

cows who are strictly fed baled hay cost more to raise. There arent many ranchers who are willing to year round feed their cattle that way. However, the costs of feeding them is easier to add up. The cost of watering ag hay is richly exploited by anti ranchers. They are quick to point out the amount of water that is wasted in farming methods and yet when they are criticized about their pool water jumping the pool and going into their gardens or drains they state it is merely water that goes back into the river systems or table water. Well, so does farm water. Except farm crops on the same acreage are not usually restricted to only one crop a year. So that water is reused in that drought year.

Please give farmers a break and remember that they are feeding your family!

 

I agree the numbers are questionable and does that water really all go to steaks?  The inventory of cattle in California in January 2015 was 5.2 million  That is all cattle, including dairy cattle.  Multiply that by the 456 gallons they say cows use a day and it comes out to something like 2,371,200,000 gallons which converts to 7,276.95 acre feet a day, which multiplied by 365 comes to 2,656,086.7 acre feet a year.  Don't almonds take 3.3 million acre feet?

 

Are there not dairy cattle as well as beef cattle?  Unless those anti-ranchers are all vegans and don't eat yogurt or cheese, it's kind of hypocritical to point only to steaks.

Most ranchers do let their cattle graze, but in a drought there isn't much grass to graze on.  Dairy farmers are having a tough because there isn't water to plant corn they would feed their cattle so they have to import from other places.

California is the largest producer of alfalfa and it is 100 percent irrigated; whereas Montana produces less because of weather conditions, but has less irrigated.

Also, as I mentioned before, a lot of California's alfalfa is exported to China for steaks and dairy that aren't consumed here.  Same with almonds.  

All of this is going to cost Californians more at the supermarket, whether vegan or omnivore.

[2 Aces]

Sorry, but I won't be giving up steak. That is just not going to happen.

[TruthSeeker]

I'll keep on drinking almond milk.

 

Not really that into beef and steaks anyways so you all can have my share.

[ducky]

I'll keep on drinking almond milk.

 

Not really that into beef and steaks anyways so you all can have my share.

 

I wonder where almonds would fall on that graph?

[caligirlz]

MMMMmmm....steak, and almonds

[The Average Joe]

How do you milk an almond?

BS interpretation of article anyways. Many cows graze on pasture, which is watered naturally whether cows are there or not. There are approximately 360 million trillion gallons of fresh water on Earth. Or, another way to look at it would be 50 billion gallons each for every man woman and child.  See, I can make stupid statistics work for any argument. This "article" is no more than anti beef propaganda disguised as news you need to know.

 

Context people, context.