Our groups purpose was to reduce our overall food footprint by reducing/eliminating foods we regularly consume that require the most water to produce. For me this has not been going over too well. In week one of the project I wrote down all the dishes and snacks I ate and what food products were used to make them. With the help of the “Water Footprint Networks” Product gallery page (has the average amount of water that goes into producing certain food products), I was able to detect which foods I have been eating that use the most water to produce, these foods being: firstly, ground beef (uses 15400 Litre/Kg); secondly, cashews (uses 2780 Litre/Kg; thirdly, Pasta (1827 Litre/Kilogram); fourthly, Eggs (1 egg = 200 litres); lastly, cheese (940 Litre/Kg).
Once I had identified my top five foods, I had to figure out how I would decrease my consumption of these by substituting them with other products, or just lowering my consumption. I first cut down my cheese consumption, I did this by removing the cheese I put in my scrambled eggs, and in my sandwiches. This went over fairly easy but there are some times when I do take a slice or two off the block as a snack. By removing my famous pasta dish out of my diet I have completely removed pasta, ground beef, sausages and partly cheese out of my diet. This basically has removed most of my major water footprint.
On thanksgiving weekend however, I was a bit naughty. My family cooked two chickens a truckload of vegetables and some bread. Sure chicken has a smaller water footprint than beef but that doesn’t mean it takes a little water to produce a chicken. The amount of water that went into producing these foods was excessively high. To fix this problem so that it doesn’t happen again, I’ll look into alternative food options (Mainly vegetable dishes) that use up less water the next time my parents come into town.
Reducing Our Food's Water Footprint 