How America’s Diet Is Feeding the Groundwater Crisis
www.nytimes.com
As dinner tables and snack menus feature far more chicken and cheese, farms are expanding where water is scarce.

These transformations are tied to the changing American diet. Since the early 1980s, America’s per-person cheese consumption has doubled, largely in the form of mozzarella-covered pizza pies. And last year, for the first time, the average American ate 100 pounds of chicken, twice the amount 40 years ago.

  • @[email protected]
    21•6 months ago

    This is a farming/regulation problem. Not a consumption problem. Almonds are a similar food grown where they shouldn’t be.

    • Bakkoda
      3•6 months ago

      Yeah chicken consumption is going up because it’s almost always the cheapest option in the shelves (here anyway). People aren’t magically all deciding to eat it. It’s what they can afford.

    • @[email protected]
      2•6 months ago

      I think the problem with almonds in california is more of a problem of water rights which were granted generations ago. They have to use the water so they literally just flood fields. Almonds can and are grown with much less wasteful techniques all over the world.