We wrote last week about the state of emergency that California has declared because of its drought conditions. In connection with that declaration, the Los Angeles Times has written about our water footprint, which is, as is stated in the article, “the amount of fresh water we use plus the amount used for the goods and services we consume every day.”

The noted article details the amount of water that goes into growing and processing certain common food items. Here are just a couple of examples, which are from National Geographic:
• A 1/3-pound burger requires 660 gallons of water. Most of this water is for producing beef.
• 1 gallon of wine requires 1,008 gallons of water (mostly for growing the grapes), or 63.4 gallons of water for 1 cup. 
• 1 apple requires 18 gallons of water. It takes 59.4 gallons of water to produce 1 cup of apple juice.
• 1 pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water.

This serve as a great reminder as to how valuable water is to us and our daily lives. We should always be mindful of that so we aren’t wasteful with our water and the food that it helps to produce.