Why food and water? I have spent the last several years focused on water conservation in the home. My showers are a quick three minutes. I hold the family record, unless you count my daughter Isabella’s attempt to best me with a two minute shower that ended with bubbles of shampoo still on her head. Short showers and other home water conservation measures are important but will not be enough to derail our current path of water scarcity for two-thirds of the world population by 2025.

The average American uses 150 gallons of water each day to bathe, wash dishes, wash clothes, and water the lawn…you get the point. We each use an additional 1300 gallons of water each day for what is called industrial use. This total captures all the water used in the clothes we wear, stuff we pack into our closets and shelves but mostly it is what we eat. Seventy percent of all fresh water that cycles around our globe is used for food production.

So begins my journey to understand the relationship of food and water at my kitchen table. Thus far my research has taken me to a chicken farm, a bakery, apple orchard, wheat farm and strawberry farm.

The list of farms and food production facilities that I will visit in the coming weeks and months gets longer as my curiosity intensifies. My hope is that my research will inform others in their food choices.