california drought What will Governor do to beef

[flabingo]

Ending Water Waste Starts With You

California families are concerned and ready to take action. Responsible citizens will be taking shorter showers, shutting off the water while brushing their teeth, and only washing clothes with a full load. But what most people don’t know is the much greater impact of their diet.

Each of us has an opportunity to take action that could cut our water waste far more than any household use by reducing or eliminating animal products from our diet. It takes less water to produce one year’s worth of food for a completely plant-based diet than it does to produce one month’s worth of food for a diet with animal products.
2500 gallons one pound of beef
As Californians, we know it’s healthy to eat more veggies, whole grains, beans, and fruits. We also know that animals are suffering — living miserable, short lives in filthy, confined conditions, being cruelly treated, and brutally slaughtered. Now, we have a statewide crisis and could run out of one of life’s absolute necessities: fresh, clean water.

It may be more abstract than just turning off the tap, but the foods we choose impact our water supply. Eating more veggies, fruits and grains, and reducing or eliminating our consumption of meat, milk, and eggs will help your family decrease their environmental footprint, get healthy, help animals, and preserve enough fresh water for generations of Californians to come.

[Demosthenes]

The governor just announced that 25% water use cutbacks are now mandatory. How that will play out on your utility bill is anyone's guess at this time. Agriculture/industry isn't being touched- just us consumers. Too bad I can't count the water I cut eating wfpb. I don't have a dish washer or washing machine so I guess I'll have to cut back on luxuries like showers and hand washing.

[colonyofcells]

I don't know how many desalination plants are needed for overpopulated California. I heard current desalination technology uses up lots of fossil fuels so it will be a vicious cycle. I heard people are still researching on desalination methods that require less energy input altho we do need the water right now. For those who are religious, maybe praying for rain will help.

[bbq]

Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change
https://orionmagazine.org/article/forget-shorter-showers/

The Hidden Water We Use
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/embedded-water/

To make a burger, first you need 660 gallons of water ...
http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-gallons-of-water-to-make-a-burger-20140124-story.html

A 1/3-pound burger requires 660 gallons of water. Most of this water is for producing beef (see below).

1 pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water, which includes irrigation of the grains and grasses in feed, plus water for drinking and processing.

1 slice of bread requires 11 gallons of water. Most of this water is for producing wheat (see below).

1 pound of wheat requires 132 gallons of water.

1 gallon of beer requires 68 gallons of water, or 19.8 gallons of water for 1 cup. Most of that water is for growing barley (see below).

1 pound of barley requires 198 gallons of water.

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 orange requires 13 gallons of water. It takes 53.1 gallons of water for 1 cup of orange juice.

1 pound of chicken requires 468 gallons of water.

1 pound of pork requires 576 gallons of water.

1 pound of sheep requires 731 gallons of water.

1 pound of goat requires 127 gallons of water.

1 pound of rice requires 449 gallons of water.

1 pound of corn requires 108 gallons of water.

1 pound of soybeans requires 216 gallons of water.

1 pound of potatoes requires 119 gallons of water.

1 egg requires 53 gallons of water.

1 gallon of milk requires 880 gallons of water, or 54.9 gallons of water for 1 cup. That includes water for raising and grazing cattle, and bottling and processing.

1 pound of cheese requires 600 gallons of water. On average it requires 1.2 gallons of milk to make 1 pound of cheese.

1 pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water.

1 pound of refined sugar requires 198 gallons of water.

1 gallon of tea requires 128 gallons of water, or 7.9 gallons of water for 1 cup.

1 gallon of coffee requires 880 gallons of water, or 37 gallons of water for 1 cup. "If everyone in the world drank a cup of coffee each morning, it would 'cost' about 32 trillion gallons of water a year," National Geographic notes.

[flabingo]

Now is the time for somebody to suggest how much water would be saved if people in California decided to keep the golf courses open, or reduced their consumption of meat. I would not want to be a politician in California that loved to play golf. Or the members of the fancy health clubs who were asked to take a navy shower -TWO MINUTES. Seriously this drought could cause the public to become educated about the water they consume by their behavior. Food choices being a big one. The number on grass fed beef was over 2500 gallons per pound. John Mackey of Whole foods has a big microphone, and is in a position to be heard. And hopefully an investigative reporter could take the time to explain the reality of meat consumption on our enviroment including methene gas. It would not take a lot of time and money to find out where the trucks that leave California with beef and Nestle bottled water are going. Living in California, I would boycott Nestle's plants in California until the drought is over, so that my friends could play golf. The water company in Santa Clara offered FREE shower heads, Aerators, and toilet flappers. The people in the apartments did not care since they do not have individual water meters.
Bottom line is the concept patriotism in the conversation, or are we all Opera singers -MEMEME

[Jumpstart]

Control would be easy. Since everyone is on a water meter simply assign so many gallons of water per person per day in each household. Anyone that goes over is fined big time. The same goes for industry. The water problem will be solved in quick order. It would also work well to stop all Fracking which uses water big time.

[flabingo]

the drought in California is the effect, it is more important to understand the cause. Some scientists suggest it is caused by global warming. They point out that a major reason is the amount of greenhouse gas created by the cows in the world, and that we cut down trees to create pastures, and projection of meat consumption in the world will only exacerbate the problem.They suggest cattle create more heat than all the petrol used in the world.
The governor is a small player in the game, but his action could be a wake up call for the leaders of the world to address this reality.
Regarding water meters, I do not think most apartment complexes are required to have individual meters, at this time.
How does a golf course reduce water by 25% This seems to be a very important problem to adddress, and cattle may be much more important that most people think.

[bbq]

Maybe it's worth taking a look at how influential the cattlemen are? Could the stuff they sell with Escherichia coli O157:H7 (thrown right in as freebies) be as clean some politicians?

http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/national-cattlemens-beef-assn/a30c391b761f4e98a8aa714617cfd8f3
CAMPAIGN FINANCE $4,179,495 GIVEN
LOBBYING $5,862,671 SPENT

http://facultypages.morris.umn.edu/~cholledl/anth%203204/Class%20Presentations.08/Politics%20versus%20Science.ppt

http://books.google.com/books?id=39oVBbtt6IEC&pg=PA57

Saturday, April 13
Washington Post reporter Malcolm Gladwell noticed the Orange County Register story on the wire services and thought it worth pursuing; his editor advised him to expand it with interviews. His April 13 account featured the remarks of Dr. Joan Gussow, a professor of nutrition education at Columbia University. Praising the Pyramid, she said, "[T]here is no question that the basic food groups ... gave the impression that the most important things were meats and dairy products. This is a real mark of progress." Mr. Gladwell also quoted William Castelli, the director of the Framingham Heart Study, saying that he thought it was great that USDA "is going to suggest that we pig out on cereals and legumes and use the other foods as a complement. The societies that do that now live healthier lives." The story appeared with an illustration of the Pyramid on the front page. In yet another improbable coincidence, the National Cattlemen's Association (a lobbying group for beef products) happened to be holding its annual meeting in Washington, DC, that very weekend. Its members could hardly miss the Washington Post story or its significance.

Monday, April 15
The final stroke of bad luck was this: the Cattlemen's meeting agenda included a scheduled visit the Secretary Madigan two days after the story appeared. According to one account, the secretary had "also learned of the Pyramid for the first time in Saturday's paprt. 'I bet a lot of you were surprised,' he said to the ranchers when he walked into their April 15 meeting.... 'I'm the Secretary of Agriculture, and I was surprised too.'" The cattlemen complained that the Pyramid would cause people to eat less meat and that meat should not be displayed so close to fats and sugars. They joined the National Milk Producers Federation in demanding that USDA withdraw the Pyramid. During the next ten days, other trade associations also protested. The head of the American Meat Institute, for example, was said to have written a letter to Secretary Madigan explaining that although he had "neither seen the Pyramid nor been consulted about it," he thought that to clear up confusion USDA should reject its adoption.

Saturday, April 27
The Washington Post story containing my quote appeared two weeks later. It contained Secretary Madigan's statement about withdrawing the guide so it could be tested on schoolchildren and low-income adults. It also quoted a USDA spokeswoman who confirmed that the Pyramid had been 'killed' but denied that industry complaints were the reason; instead, she said that it might confuse children. The article, however, led off with the phrase "Yielding to pressure from the meat and dairy industries," and it quoted a lobbyist for the National Milk Producers Federation claiming that "her group's concerns were one of the reasons the proposal was pulled." It and the article in the New York Times used comments from interviews to highlight USDA's conflicts of interest related to dietary advice and the department's consistent history of responding to the interests of agricultural producers at the expense of public health.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q_GrDI9wVy4C&pg=PA142

LEGISLATING COOPERATION: "CHECK-OFFS"

A second example of the friendlier forms of influence exerted by food companies occurs through "check-off" programs that can only be interpreted as federally sanctioned and administered public relations enterprises to benefit certain food commodities. To promote sales, food companies induced Congress to pass a collection of laws that require the producers of certain commodities—among them beef, dairy products, milk, eggs, and peanuts—to deduct, or "check-off," a fee from sales to be used for generic advertising and promotion. By 1986, U.S. food producers were contributing more than $530 million annually to promote farm commodities through such programs. The three largest check-off funds are for dairy, beef, and soybeans; in 1994 these generated $228 million, $81 million, and $48 million, respectively, for national and state promotional activities. The dairy check-off, for example, funds the $100 million or greater annual cost of the milk campaign illustrated in Figure 12.

These programs have an especially interesting history. The beef check-off, for example, began as a voluntary program that generated $31,000 in 1922. In the 1970s, as beef consumption began to decline, the National Cattlemen's Association started lobbying for a compulsory program through a campaign that involved political action committees, letter writing, and personal visits to members of Congress by hundreds of beef producers. This lobbying was especially effective because cattlemen, who tend to be generous with campaign contributions, are distributed among a great many states—each, of course, with two senators and several representatives.

[flabingo]

bbq great response,
but maybe their success may be a phyrric victory

A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit (another term for this would be "hollow victory").[1]
Malcolm Gladwell is one of the great thinkers from North America (Canada)
Let us assume that they convince everybody that more meat is better, and tax Spinach like cigarettes.
But our health care costs go from 18% of GDP to 50%, and we do not have enough money to be the world's policeman. And China forces us through economic sanctions , like Iran, to give up our atomic weapons.
And Dr McDougall and Dr Campbell are indicted for perjury, Lying about the true benefits of a healthy plant based diet
Now we have no water and all golf courses are closed. People are issued close-pins for their noses, and showers are outlawed.
If your BMI is under 35 you are faced with incarceration at Pelican Bay prison, or since they opend Alcatraz again you may go there.
Elon Musk, is arrested for treason suggesting that electric cars run from lithium from Afghanistan are a security risk.
American are sneaking into Mexico since everybody is to sick to come to work at the hospitals.

[StarchHEFP]

Ending Water Waste Starts With You

California families are concerned and ready to take action. Responsible citizens will be taking shorter showers, shutting off the water while brushing their teeth, and only washing clothes with a full load. But what most people don’t know is the much greater impact of their diet.

Each of us has an opportunity to take action that could cut our water waste far more than any household use by reducing or eliminating animal products from our diet. It takes less water to produce one year’s worth of food for a completely plant-based diet than it does to produce one month’s worth of food for a diet with animal products.
2500 gallons one pound of beef
As Californians, we know it’s healthy to eat more veggies, whole grains, beans, and fruits. We also know that animals are suffering — living miserable, short lives in filthy, confined conditions, being cruelly treated, and brutally slaughtered. Now, we have a statewide crisis and could run out of one of life’s absolute necessities: fresh, clean water.

It may be more abstract than just turning off the tap, but the foods we choose impact our water supply. Eating more veggies, fruits and grains, and reducing or eliminating our consumption of meat, milk, and eggs will help your family decrease their environmental footprint, get healthy, help animals, and preserve enough fresh water for generations of Californians to come.

[colonyofcells]

I heard cash crops like almonds and pistachios are being blamed for the droughts. For those who will be alive for a few more decades, maybe moving to another state is a good idea.

[figlover]

I heard cash crops like almonds and pistachios are being blamed for the droughts. For those who will be alive for a few more decades, maybe moving to another state is a good idea.

That's a serious consideration. Long term outlook has little optimism from those who study this type of phenomena.
where to go......hmmm, where to go.

[VegMommy]

I heard cash crops like almonds and pistachios are being blamed for the droughts. For those who will be alive for a few more decades, maybe moving to another state is a good idea.

Almonds use 10% of the state's water, but that's still a drop in the bucket compared to beef and dairy.

[VegMommy]

California Bans All Meat, Dairy and Egg Production

http://www.mfablog.org/breaking-california-bans-all-meat-dairy-and

BREAKING! California Bans All Meat, Dairy, and Egg Production to Save Water

by Ari Solomon - Apr 1, 2015
Citing the enormous strain animal agriculture has on its dwindling water supply, the state of California announced it would close all meat, dairy, and egg operations and provide assistance in transforming these businesses into water-saving vegan food production facilities.

“Animal agriculture wastes nearly half of California’s available water. Turning factory farms into sustainable plant-based farms and facilities will not only avert a major water crisis, it’ll be better for public health and alleviate horrendous animal suffering,” said the California Water Conservation League in a press release this morning.

Indeed, animal advocates and environmentalists have been pointing this out for years. It takes a staggering 2,500 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef and 660 gallons of water to produce one hamburger. That’s enough water for two months worth of showers!

Additionally, 477 gallons are required to produce one pound of eggs and a whopping 62 gallons of water are needed for just one glass of milk.

We’ve been told that plant-based meat companies such as Gardein, Beyond Meat, and Field Roast are getting ready to retrain workers and amp up production. So Delicious and Coconut Bliss, makers of dairy-free ice cream, milk, and yogurt, have also been tapped.

All animals currently exploited for meat, dairy, and eggs in the state will be released to sanctuaries where they will live out the remainder of their lives in peace.

We’re thrilled California is taking this amazing step to help save one of Earth’s most valuable resources.

Don’t live in California but want to do your part? Visit ChooseVeg.com today and learn how you can easily transition to a humane, healthy, and environmentally friendly vegan diet.

*April Fools... unfortunately. But in all seriousness, the facts and figures regarding water usage in this blog post are accurate.

[bbq]

What kinda world we've living in? April Fools that actually made perfect sense, while the other 364 days turned out to be non-sense.