25,000 liters per 8 ounces, or 12,000 gallons per pound of meat is FIVE TIMES MORE than the 2500 gallons per pound in your retarded screed of a web page, which also lists a figure of 900 gallons per pound.

WHICH MEANS NOBODY HAS A FUCKING CLUE.

You know how much water is needed to make a pound of beef? ZERO

It rains. Cows, on good, kind organic farms, eat the grass. DONE. They have no swimming pool sized camel humps on their backs. SORRY. Don't let REALITY hit you on the ass, chillun...

a few points:

1) Please adjust your math. A liter is not equivalent to a gallon. It is a little bit more than a quart.

1 gallon = 3.785 liters.

2) Most cattle- even free range cattle- get supplemental feed in the form of alfalfa, perhaps the most water-intensive agricultural crop grown, with the possible exception of cotton.

3) Free range cattle typically get much of their water from water holes, impounded ponds, artesian wells, or stream watercourses- not simply from munching grass.

4) Agricultural documents on the water needs of cattle do not include the water used to grow alfalfa feed- which has almost no other use, except as livestock feed. (Alfalfa seedling sprouts used as a human food source simply don't comprise a significant percentage of the total.)

I'm not the one challenging the figures, and I don't have the time to do the legwork. But for anyone who seeks to challenge- or try to confirm- the figures, I have little doubt that an Internet search will provide the necessary resources and references to make a roughly accurate estimate, as long as the most significant bases are covered in figuring the total.

"Consider the water footprint of beef. In an industrial beef production system, it takes on average three years before the animal is slaughtered to produce about 200 kg of boneless beef. The animal consumes nearly 1,300 kg of grains (wheat, oats, barley, corn, dry peas, soybean meal and other small grains), 7,200 kg of roughages (pasture, dry hay, silage and other roughages), 24 cubic metres of water for drinking and 7 cubic metres of water for servicing. This means that to produce one kilogram of boneless beef, we use about 6.5 kg of grain, 36 kg of roughages, and 155 litres of water (only for drinking and servicing). Producing the volume of feed requires about 15,300 litres of water on average. The water footprint of 1 kg of beef thus adds up to 15,500 litres of water. This still excludes the volume of polluted water that may result from leaching of fertilisers in the feed crop field or from surplus manure reaching the water system. The numbers provided are estimated global averages; the water footprint of beef will strongly vary depending on the production region, feed composition and origin of the feed ingredients."

Source: http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Hoekstra-2008-WaterfootprintFood.pdf

so I decided to calculate what I could - what a person drinks every day. maybe two quarts in all? that's 4 pounds or 1500 pounds a year. if we were dressed meat how much would we be? 30 pounds? that's 50:1, not 2500 to 1. so it is on the high side - but a lot more water than I would have guessed without the calculation.

Hey Brightstar, you know, Lewis Black's screaming occurs on a stage, where people pay to see him do a monologue. This is a place where doing a monologue is nonsensical. If you think that nobody's listening to what you're saying, you're an idiot for writing here. If you think that someone's listening, then they'll take what you're saying a lot more seriously, and may change their minds to adopt some of what you're saying, BUT THEY WON'T DO SO IF YOU'RE USING UPPER CASE LETTERS all the time to YELL AT THEM THAT THEY'RE A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS and that YOU'RE GOD and KNOW EVERYTHING!!!! If you don't want people who disagree with you to yell FUCK FUCK FUCKING IDIOT! in your face, then have an intelligent conversation without doing that. If you consider it impossible to have an intelligent conversation with the people here, then you're an idiot for having any conversation at all.

(I am, of course, telling you this on the assumption that you are not an idiot, and that it is possible to have an intelligent conversation with you. If you are an idiot, and it is not possible, then I'm happy not to try. Just let me know.)

1 gallon = 3.785 liters.

Off by a factor of two.

That still leaves a range of between 900 and 7000 gallons of water, meaning they haven't a clue.

Which still does not negate that the article did not describe how they got to the figures in the first place.

NOW, a later post DOES describe the math.

But, that post only proves that factory farming is bad, not all farming, and not farming of meat per se.

and AGAIN, cows excrete both water and dung, with water in it, which feeds the fields.

I know this defies your imaginations, but there is just no room inside the cow to stow 25,000 liters of water and deprive you people of it.

ALSO, I am not a farming expert, but the so called need for alfalfa in a cow's diet? Again, cows survived for millions of years PRIOR to us humans growing pesticide ridden GMOed nutritionally bereft alfalfa that we personally pitchfork into the mouths of the cows.

Look at the buffalo pastures in the West. Grazing livestock just does not eat up or waste nature.

Monsanto does. Cargill does. All the evil factory farms DO destroy nature and life and poison resources. That is their GAME. To be EVIL. But of course, they would have you lump ALL farming together, because they benefit from you punishing the good farmers along with the wicked, the good being the ones who often cannot afford the legal bills the wicked conglomerates can.

Apologies for my unnecessary correction:

1) Please adjust your math. A liter is not equivalent to a gallon. It is a little bit more than a quart.

1 gallon = 3.785 liters.

My eyes crossed on that one. The math of your original formulation- 25,000 liters per 8 ounces, or 12,000 gallons per pound of meat- is accurate, as far as it goes.

I stand by the rest of my points.