Q: What do we all have in common? A: We are all eaters.

At 3:45 a.m., I rolled out of bed to make a 4:00 a.m. Zoom call with panelists scattered across the globe. We are preparing for a discussion ahead of next week’s HORASIS Global Meeting in São Paulo, Brazil. 

What struck me as I listened to the diversity of the panelists is how much we resemble a forest. And since I’m headed to Brazil, the Amazon—the lungs of the planet—fills my imagination. These rainforests don’t just hold biodiversity; they regulate rainfall across South America and even shape weather as far away as the United States and Africa. Their canopy and soils act like vast reservoirs, recycling moisture into the atmosphere and sending rivers of vapor that sustain life far beyond Brazil’s borders. A rainforest thrives because of its layers: from towering kapok trees that stretch skyward to the tiniest fungi threading unseen through the soil. 

Every layer matters. 

                           Each organism, seen or unseen, plays a role.

The same was true on that 4 a.m. call—each panelist holding a different seat in industry, government, and nonprofits. And beneath it all, the ground we share is the same: WE are all eaters. 

                            The WE includes you, too. 

Our eating connects directly to those rainforests. In Brazil, nearly 75% of deforestation is driven by cattle ranching (revisit the Meat and Water chapter in EAT LESS WATER for more on this). Some of the beef that ends up in American burgers or supermarket freezers originates from pastures carved out of the Amazon before being transported to feedlots elsewhere. Even something as ordinary as ordering a hamburger is tied to the fate of rainforests and the water cycles they sustain.

This is the power—and the responsibility—of being an eater. Asking simple questions like Where did this meat come from? What story is attached to this food brand? These simple questions we ask can shift entire systems. It creates space for food raised on regenerative farms, the “understory” operations that restore water, soil, and biodiversity instead of depleting them.

If you’d like to explore this connection more deeply, I invite you to listen to the latest episode of the Kitchen Activist Podcast, where I speak with Dr. Adolfo Murillo, an organic tequila maker who connects his farming practices to rivers in Mexico and the villages that depend on them. His story is another reminder that even the drinks in our glasses trace back to watersheds and choices that matter to water systems around the globe. 

Because at the end of the day, no matter where we sit—on a panel in Brazil, at a kitchen table in California, or in a café in Côte d’Ivoire—we are all water managers. Every eater shapes the system. Every choice ripples outward.

Thank you for the work you do in the world, for the questions you ask, and for the choices you make.