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The Hidden Cost of Burgers: Your Quarter Pounder Needs 450 Gallons of Water

Americans eat an average of 3 burgers a week. If we eliminated meat just one day a week, it would be like taking 7.6 million cars off the road.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3URdEzlKQ

Americans eat an average of three burgers a week. That's 156 burgers per person, every year. Maybe even more burgers are getting gobbled in the midst of this Chick-fil-A storm?


The folks who made The Hidden Cost of Gas last year, now bring us The Hidden Cost of Burgers with a cascade of daunting figures around our consumption of that all-American favorite. Here's a doozy: It takes 1,800 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef (ten times the amount required to produce a pound of wheat).

So what can be done? Well, if all Americans cut out meat completely just one day a week, it would be like taking 7.6 million cars off the road for an entire year.

Full transcript and sourcing info at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

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