GRACE Communications Foundation recently released new tools to help consumers, students, researchers, and policymakers understand the water footprint of food.

The two tools—a quiz and resource guide—offer information about the amount of water it takes to produce food, also known as a water footprint. The Water Footprint of Food Quiz, composed of seven questions, tests people’s understanding of the relationship between food and water. The Water Footprint of Food Guide classifies the water footprint of more than 100 food and beverage items.

“Most people have a general sense that it takes water to produce the food that they eat every day,” Kai Olson Sawyer, Senior Research and Policy Analyst at GRACE, tells Food Tank, “but they don’t really have a concept of how much water it takes, and it really takes a huge amount of water. Whether it’s irrigation, rainfall, and even pollution, all these things come together to make up the water footprint of a single food item.”

A food’s water footprint consists of three components. The blue water footprint is defined as the total amount of irrigation water extracted from reservoirs and rivers. The green water footprint, which makes up the largest percentage of a food’s water footprint, is the total rainwater that is either directly incorporated by plants or stored in the soil. The gray water footprint is the amount of freshwater used to dilute waste from fertilizers and/or pesticides. Together, these components equal the total water footprint of a product.

The Water Footprint of Food Guide breaks down each component of an item’s water footprint and reveals whether that food’s footprint is large, medium, or small. Fava beans, for example, have a small water footprint at 20 gallons per four ounce serving. Beef has a large water footprint at 463 gallons per four ounce serving.

Read the full article about water footprint by Sycamore May at Food Tank.