The world’s freshwater is in short supply thanks in part to a ballooning global population that uses thousands of liters of water everyday to produce foodstuffs from oil and vegetables to meat, dairy and alcohol. Now researchers have discovered new evidence that a healthy diet, like those followed by pescatarians and vegetarians, also uses significantly less water.
“It is a win-win situation,” said Davy Vanham, a water management researcher at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy, who led the new work.
Around the globe, water shortages impact more than 40 percent of the population, according to the United Nations. And the scarcity of freshwater in lakes, streams, ground water and soil moisture, all endanger food security. Researchers say competition for limited resource pools will grow as the world’s population does and people’s lifestyles change. Researchers say that we’ll have to make changes to our food ...
