New video challenges myth about water use in beef production
The newest videoin the Meat Mythcrusher series addresses one of the most commonly seen myths in the media: how much water it takes to produce a pound of beef. While one often cited statistic suggested it could take as much as 2,400 gallons of water, sustainability researcher Jude Capper, Ph.D., explains that the real data shows the amount is much smaller, it requires 441 gallons to make a pound of boneless beef – a fraction of what is often claimed and far less than many other popular consumer products.
“While higher numbers cited may have been accurate 30 to 40 years ago,” Capper says, “the modern beef industry is so efficient in the way it feeds, breeds and cares for the animals that it is able to use far fewer resources today than ever before”
Capper notes that many common items take significantly more water to produce including cotton t-shirts which take more than 700 gallons of water to produce or a car which can take 39,000 gallons to produce. Capper says consumers who want to buy the most sustainable beef should focus on corn finished as opposed to grass finished beef.
The Meat MythCrusher video series is produced by the North American Meat Institutein conjunction with the American Meat Science Association(AMSA), and seeks to bust some of the most common myths surrounding meat and poultry production and processing.
The series is now in its fifth year and the new video is the 41st in the series. Altogether the videos have been viewed nearly 100,000 times. Other video topics include myths surrounding meat nutrition, antibiotic use in livestock, “Superbugs” in meat, Meatless Monday, hormone use in animals, ammonia in ground beef, grass-fed beefand more.
All of the videos and more are available at http://www.meatmythcrushers.com/.
Source: NAMI
Looking for a reprint of this article?
From high-res PDFs to custom plaques, order your copy today!
