How Much Water is Needed to Make Your Favourite Foods

When we think of saving water, the think of our immediate water footprint. We will cut our shower-time, avoid watering the plants and not boil the kettle so often. We don’t really stand back and look at how much water is used to make the foods we consume. To our surprise, it’s a lot.

Coffee

It takes almost 4000 litres on average to make 3.7l of brewed coffee. This is a staggering amount of water, and to put it in perspective, it takes 408l of water to make one gallon of brewed tea.

Beer

Sticking with our favourite brews, Beer is next on our list. It takes between 61 and 180 litres of water to brew a pint. The amount of water used depends on the origin of the Hops and Barley. Roughly 89% of the water used to brew beer goes into the cultivation process.

Steak

Steak has one of the highest water footprints out of any foodstuff. Using 15 400 litres of water for every 1 Kg produced.

Peas

Delicious mushy peas to accompany your fish? Think again. It takes 168 litres to make produce just 30grmas of peas.

Lentils 

Lentils are up there in terms of water footprint for fruits and veg. It takes 270 litres of water for a 30 gram serving of lentils.

The best way to combat your ‘virtual water’ footprint is to choose to eat meat which has been raised on grass and limit your food waste. If you would like to know more about saving water by installing a water cooler, chat to us on live chat, give us a call on 0845 500 4455.