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Your Diet is Causing the Drought in California

By Steven Rouk

California is running dry. I know this, you know this, anyone who’s turned on the news sometime in the last year knows this.

But for some reason, people don’t seem to actually care about the root of the problem.

If you go to the official California Drought Website, you’ll see the most recent efforts California is making to slow their death by dehydration. On the right hand side of the screen, I see that today’s water-saving tip is to “Water your lawn only when it needs it.” Beside that, I see another tip that says to “Time your shower to keep it under 5 minutes.” In a mandate from the governor, residents have to cut their water usage by 25%, and he also proposed increasing the fine for wasting water from $500 to as much as $10,000. This makes it seem like lawn watering and showers are turning the Golden State brown.

What’s lost in all of this is the fact that residential water usage accounts for only 12% of water used in the state.

Even if every single person in California were to completely stop taking showers, never water their lawns, and literally cut out every other use of water, California would only save 12% of their water. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not enough. And that’s assuming the impossible situation of everyone going totally dry with their usage. What’s more realistic is that these residential water restrictions will save no more than 3% of the water that California uses.

So where is the rest of the water going?

Agriculture. Specifically, meat and dairy.

Almonds have been getting crap for being a water-intensive crop – which they are – but the much bigger culprits of California’s water consumption are the meat and dairy industries. Infographic time! Combined, meat and dairy account for a whopping 47% of the water used in California. Regarding meat consumption, Oxfam states that “By making one meal a week with lentils instead of beef, a family of four can save the equivalent of 17 bathtubs of water.” Seventeen bathtubs of water! But sure, take shorter showers. And check out these other quotes.

The governor is encouraging people to take shorter showers when he should be encouraging people to abandon meat and dairy products.

Why is no one talking about this? Why hasn’t the governor acted more strongly to encourage people to alter their lifestyles in ways that will actually make a difference, instead of promoting almost-trivial changes like taking shorter showers? Simply put, this willful ignorance can probably be traced back to the industries themselves.

The meat and dairy industries have had a long history of stifling any sort of facts that would be bad for business, as well as strong-arming politicians into doing their bidding. Another great example of this right now is the meat industry’s strong negative reaction to the vastly improved dietary guideline recommendations, which if implemented would have immensely positive effects on our nation’s health and environmental impact.

People need to eat – but that doesn’t mean they need to eat water-wasting foods in the middle of a 1000-year drought.

If people were to eliminate meat and dairy products from their diets and switch to plant-based foods, California could save 30% of the water they currently use. The alfalfa that’s fed to cows uses up a whopping 15% of the water in California – that 15% could easily be saved just by a simple change in diet, yet the conversation doesn’t even appear to be on the table. California could take the vast amount of water used by these industries and instead use it to grow food for humans.

How can we be ignoring one of the main contributors to water use? How can we not even talk about what could be the solution to this problem and others?

Our choices to consume resource-intensive meat and dairy products truly have no legitimate rationale. The only reason these products remain on the shelves is because we believe we have the choice to consume whatever we like, regardless of the impact of those decisions. And now, in California, we can really see the impact that those decisions have had.

If you care about what’s happening in California, make the decision to leave meat and dairy off your plates. You can forsake almonds as well if you want, and of course it’s good to look at how much water you use around the house – every little bit counts. But know the impact of your choices, and know that what you put on your plate matters much more than most of the other decisions you make.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-california.html?_r=0

http://ca.gov/drought/

http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ftprint_full_report3.pdf

http://www.viciousvegan.com/yup-its-vegans-who-have-caused-the-california-drought/

http://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic

http://www.truthordrought.com/#!quotesstats/c1iqk

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/us/taping-of-farm-cruelty-is-becoming-the-crime.html

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/aeta-passes-house-recap/142/

http://thehill.com/regulation/237767-vegan-diet-best-for-planet-federal-report-says

http://www.vice.com/read/its-time-to-be-a-vegan-if-you-care-about-this-drought-932

http://www.peta.org/features/vegan-california-drought/

This article represents the opinions of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Food Rescue nor the Food Rescue Alliance.

By Allison Blakeney

  We often get asked questions like, “Are there really hungry      people in Boulder?” and “Does poverty really exist in        Boulder?” This is typically followed by a lot of questions and statements based on stereotypes of hunger and poverty. These comments range from things about a person someone perceives as  “homeless”, who is or isn’t hungry, and finally comments about who (and who doesn’t) deserve help.

I would be willing to bet most people have similar perceptions as these questions and comments let on; hunger only takes the face of someone who might look malnourished: someone who seems jobless and houseless or a starving child in a country far away. While these populations are definitely affected by food insecurity, hunger comes in many other forms.

As Hana Dansky, the Executive Director of Boulder Food Rescue has put it:

“Before we started Boulder Food Rescue, I too assumed that hunger would be found primarily in the homeless population. Although it is true that this population faces significant food security issues, what I didn’t realize is that there are many faces of hunger that have not yet been indoctrinated into mainstream perceptions.”[1]

Some populations affected by hunger that are typically hidden from mainstream perceptions are children, elderly communities, families, low income communities, working poor individuals, etc.

One in Six people in this country is food insecure. This means they do not know where their next meal is coming from. For children, the numbers are worse- one in five children are living in a food insecure household, and for latinx children- one in four lives in a food insecure household. Furthermore, 35.1% of female-headed households with children are food insecure. [2]

Hunger in America looks many different ways. We cannot simply assume that because someone has a job, a family, and a house that they are not struggling with hunger. Similarly, we cannot assume that because someone is “homeless” or struggling with hunger that it is their fault and they are solely responsible for their situation. Often families and individuals are systematically oppressed in many ways including but not limited to the food system which significantly contributes to their struggles, especially that of food security.

While BFR is amazing and has been able to pick up tremendous amounts of food (more than 800,000 lbs to date!), this is not enough. Simply minimizing the gap of hungry people and food wasted does not address the root cause of hunger that severely affects populations already marginalized by certain biases including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, and more. In order to reach this root cause and really affect a change in the amount of food insecure people in this country, we have to address the many facets of food insecurity and the ways these other forms of marginalization affect food security. This involves addressing the food system as a whole as well as the forms of oppression affecting access to food and especially fresh and nutritional food.

There will continue to be hungry people unless we address the root problems of this hunger and the prejudices that severely affect who does and does not have access to food. Minimizing the gap of food wasted and hungry people is extremely important especially while the food system remains in the current condition. However, it is pertinent to address the systematic reasons why there are so many people in this country who do not know where their next meal will come from or worse, know they won’t get their “next” meal.

It is important we do not assume that someone is or isn’t food insecure simply by how they look. They are so many systematic and individual factors and we will not get anywhere by making assumptions about this. Boulder Food Rescue hopes to continue engaging the community about food security and food justice in order to continue conversations and affect change in this extremely broken food system.

Photography by One thousand Design

As Boulder Food Rescue strives to fulfill our mission to educate communities about food waste, we’ve decided to start up one of our projects again: our BFR blog!

We’re very excited about the opportunity to create a media platform to catalyze conversations about food security and justice in Boulder. Apart from pedaling food around, we’re excited to continue our collective learning around food and social change online.

With this blog, Boulder Food Rescues hopes to connect our local efforts addressing food security with global movements and celebrate this brilliant work.

Please stay tuned for articles exploring issues of food and its link to social justice.

Want to Get Involved?

Whether it takes the form of interviewing recipients and sharing their stories to writing pieces that critically analyze the U.S.’ food system, we would love to have you join the crew.

If you’re a media whiz or just like writing, photography, graphic design, or videography, please reach out! For more information about the blog and future meetings, please contact [email protected].