Hey guys, I'm Brent Rose.

Tech writer and Georgia's coolest grandma.

So as you know, California is in

the middle of an unprecedented drought.

In fact, just back in April, Governor Jerry Brown

issued the state's first mandatory

water restrictions in its history,

which is good, but those restrictions

were only for municipal water usage.

And while we should be drought-shaming wasteful celebrities

for their gigantic emerald green lawns,

those guys are dicks,

municipal water usage is just a small slice

of the watery pizza pie.

A whopping 80% of California's water usage

goes toward agriculture.

80.

And there's a reason behind that.

California is the country's most productive

agricultural state by a huge margin.

Between livestock, fruit, nuts, vegetables and eggs,

it's a 50 billion dollar a year industry.

So obviously, growing food is important,

but some foods guzzle a lot more water than others.

So how do you know which is which?

If you have vegetarian friends on Facebook,

you probably heard something to the effect of,

if you really want to save water, don't eat meat.

And sorry meat eaters, they're kind of right.

It takes 638 gallons of water to give you

just a six ounce piece of beef.

That's a ton of water for just a little steak.

Actually, it's 2.66 tons of water.

This isn't just because cows are thirsty little buggers.

It's because of how much water goes into growing their feed.

We'll come back to that in a minute,

but for now just know that yes,

beef is the worst offender as far as water usage.

Even if you break it down as gallons per calorie

or gallons per gram of protein.

Beef is the worst.

But don't get too smug yet vegetarians.

While beef is the worst and lamb is close behind,

two of your favorite proteins are almost as bad.

Lentils use 570 gallons

and garbanzo beans use a crazy 609 gallons of water

to produce eight ounces of food.

In contrast, eight ounces of chicken

requires just 133 gallons.

In other words, chickpeas consume

four and a half times more water than chickens.

So if beef is the worst protein,

which is the best?

Well by most metrics, it's the incredible edible huevo.

If you look at how many gallons of water

per gram of protein you get,

eggs win handily 3.67 gallons per gram.

Chicken comes in second at 4.76 gallons per gram.

Sheep meat is the worst at 22.13

followed closely by beef at 20.26.

The humble egg wins in water to calorie ratio too,

coming in at just a quarter gallon per calorie.

Beef handily loses this one

coming in at 2.5 gallons per calorie.

In other words, the egg uses just over one-tenth

the amount of water per calorie that beef does.

To help you visualize all of this,

imagine each one of these plastic cups

is a full gallon of water.

So you know how okra is kinda slimy

and you're always looking for an excuse not to eat it?

Well here you go.

It takes 62 gallons to make eight ounces of okra.

Asparagus is even worse, coming in at 163 gallons.

Compare that to real water sippers like carrots,

which use 7.4 gallons, and that's a huge contrast.

How's about fruit?

In the middle we have raspberries coming in at 34 gallons

and nectarines coming in at 38 gallons per eight ounces.

At nearly double that, we have avocados at 72 gallons.

But here's the thing.

Try and take away a Californian's avocado,

and he will hunt you down and murder your children.

Besides, there are way worst fruit out there.

Cherries come in at a whopping 98 gallons per eight ounces,

which is a shame because I love those things.

If there's any ray of sunlight

in all of this, it's strawberries.

Those little growers come in at

just 10 gallons per eight ounces.

How is about a tasty beverage

to wash that down?

Milk is pretty bad coming in at 44 gallons.

Orange juice is a bit better coming in at 33 gallons,

and wine is better still, coming in at 22.

But you know what's better than all of that?

Beer!

Beer is only 16 gallons per eight ounces.

All though nobody drinks beer in eight ounce increments,

but if we're looking at a 16 ounce pint,

then we're talking about 32 gallons of water.

Compare that with a more realistic six ounce pour of wine

which is only about 20.

So okay, wine is the better one.

But fuck it, you can drink beer.

Here's how some other foods stack up.

Brussels sprouts, 19.5 gallons.

Potatoes, 23.8 gallons.

Huevos, 93.8 gallons.

Spaghetti, 132.8 gallons.

Chicken good, 132.9 gallons.

Tofu, 151 gallons.

Cheddar, 180.2 gallons.

Almonds, 184 gallons.

Bacon, 330 gallons.

Lentils, 570 gallons.

Garbanzo beans, 609 gallons.

Beef, 850.2 gallons.

So how does this look in the context of meals?

Well we invited registered dietician nutritionist

Jessica Guterman to come in here

and put together a few meals for us.

They're high in protein, solid on calories and fiber,

and are rich in vitamins and minerals.

The difference?

Oh only 650 gallons of water.

Plate A uses a whopping 813 gallons of water.

Plate B is at least as good, nutritionally speaking,

but it only requires 163 gallons to make.

In other words, you could make plate B

for five different people before you equal

the water consumption of just one plate A.

We did this to show you how much of an impact

the choices you make can have at every single meal.

Multiply that by three meals a day, seven days a week,

and that's a massive amount of water.

Okay, so you got all this information.

What do you do with it?

Well for starters, you should check out

WIRED's Guide to Produce That Won't Make the Drought Worse.

Our own Joanna Pearlstein crunched

an exhaustive amount of data and used it

to rate various crops by water usage

and organized them by season.

The result is a very handy chart you can print out

and stick on your fridge or just download to your phones.

But lastly, what about almonds?

Major news outlets have been slandering them,

and they've become a very public villain.

But as Gizmodo's Alissa Walker points out,

it's really not so much.

We're talking about 184 gallons per eight ounces,

which is just above asparagus.

It's still a fraction of what beef, pork, and chickpeas use.

You have to look at what you get for that water expenditure.

For starters, you get a high protein, high calorie food.

So nutritionally, you're getting

a lot of bang for your buck.

But you're getting a lot of buck for your buck too.

Last year alone, almonds brought in 11 billion dollars

of revenue to the state of California.

So if you want a villain to blame, who's a better target?

Surprise, the Keyser Söze of California agriculture is,

alfalfa.

But it's not because the sprouts on your salad.

We use more water growing alfalfa

than we do any other single agricultural product.

We're talking 15% or more.

Compare that to 10% for almonds,

but unlike our little nut buddies,

alfalfa isn't used to feed humans.

It's used to feed cows.

And not even American cows.

What the hell is going on here?

California uses over a million acres to grow alfalfa.

Yet only a small fraction of that

goes to feeding California's cows.

The vast majority of it is shipped overseas

largely used to pay down our national trade debt to China.

In 2011, the Port of Los Angeles alone

shipped 2.4 million metric tons of animal feed.

The majority of which was alfalfa grown in California.

This is the equivalent of shipping off 2.4 billion gallons

of water in the middle of an incredibly severe drought.

That's completely insane.

So what did we learn here today?

Obviously, we're all hoping that the drought

will end very soon.

In the meantime, we've got some more information

to make some better choices

and maybe there's a representative you wanna call

about certain policies.

I don't know.

Let us know in the comments below

what food surprised you the most.

Subscribe to WIRED if you haven't already.

And with that being said, there's only one thing left to do.

(water running)

(cheerful music)