Billboard’s Powerful Depiction of How Much Water Goes Into Making One Hamburger Hits the Nail on Its Head

It takes a few minutes, 15 to 20 at most, to gobble up a jumbo burger. Its juicy innards slinging with patty, crunchy vegetables, an assortment of sausages, and unless it’s vegetarian, some slices of meat too. The reason why this is appetizing to many is probably because of the flurry of dopamine molecules that fire in the brain when someone eats a burger. Keeping aside its fatty content, little do people know that this bulky nibble is guzzled with an unthinkable amount of water. In a 2016 Facebook post, Los Angeles local, Kathy Freston, shared a billboard she spotted that illustrated the amount of water needed to make a burger.

The amount of water required to produce a particular food is known as its “water footprint.” Animal products like meat, dairy, and eggs have a higher water footprint than plant and vegetable products. The water footprint of a food is measured after taking into account both the direct and virtual water used for its production. For instance, one cup of coffee requires 37 gallons of water and one cup of orange juice requires 53 gallons of water. Water Footprint Network (WFN) found that the water footprint of a Margherita pizza, topped with tomato, mozzarella, and basil, is nearly 333 gallons, enough to fill 10 bathtubs. But burgers have even surpassed pizza’s statistics.

The eye-opening advertisement shared by Freston states that it requires as much as "1,300 gallons of water" to make one burger, which is equivalent to months and months of a household water supply. With a satirical comparison, the billboard suggested that to save water, you can choose not to flush your toilet for 6 months, not shower for 3 months, or simply, not eat 1 burger. The advertisement was originally released by California-based Got Drought - an advocacy group that promoted a plant-based diet and opposed meat eating. The company is no longer in service, but its advertisement is perennial on social media.

Other sources and studies have their own numbers for different kinds of burgers. According to the World Economic Forum, The Sierra Club estimates that a cheeseburger requires 698.5 gallons of water to produce, including 616 gallons for the meat patty. Los Angeles Times reports that a 1/3-pound burger requires 660 gallons of water. Plus, The United States Geological Survey estimates that it takes somewhere between 4,000 and 18,000 gallons of water to produce a hamburger, depending on how the cows are raised, according to Fast Company.

The same billboard was shared by u/warmthevampire in a Reddit forum five years ago. The post attracted massive attention. Hundreds of people jumped in to share their comments on the wondrous fact about burgers. u/bjorkforkshorts found the ad “eye-opening.” They wrote, “This information has convinced me to at bare minimum cut meat out on occasion.” u/foamfury recalled an experience when they first came to know this reality behind burgers, “I started looking into facts similar to this a few months ago. I got to the point that I couldn’t justify eating meat/dairy and just stopped. The first week was hard but once I figured out a few meals I could make it much easier.”

Many people suggested that it’s not the burger that’s the problem, it’s the meat content that requires a whole lot of water to make. “Just eat a vegan burger instead. The animal slaughter is the environmental issue here, not the menu item in and of itself,” said u/ultibman5000. Surprisingly, even science says that burgers are mega-hydrating foods especially when you skip the fries and opt for veggie wrap instead of non-veg. It may sound too sweet, but yes, you may eat burgers and stay hydrated!