Experts say there will not be enough water to grow fodder for livestock by the middle of the 21st century

Other than the Green-house effect and global warning, it simply takes too much water to grow a steak.

According to www.sciencedump.com. a new report states that the human population would have to switch to an almost entirely vegetarian diet by the year 2050 .. to avoid catastrophic global food and water shortages.

"There will not be enough water available ... to produce food for the expected nine billion population in the year 2050, if we follow current trends ", Malin Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute.

By their estimation, there should be just enough water to go around if humans derive just five per cent of their calories from animal-based foods by mid-century. Instead of the twenty percent of calories that they currently get from meat, eggs and dairy.

It's a simple numbers game : Cattle, for example, consume a shocking seventeen times more grain calories than they produce as meat calories. All that lost grain (which humans could have eaten) requires water.

" Producing food requires more water than any other human activity .. and meat production is very water-intensive", Josh Weinberg, the institute's communications officer, told Life's Little Mysteries.

The fixed amount of water on Earth indicates people must reduce their meat consumption to avoid shortages. But with so many meat lovers around, will people actually do it ?

They'll be forced to eat less meat, experts say. But not by government intervention or their own inner moral compasses.

For most people, the choice between a mutton biryani and dal makhni will hinge on the contents of their wallets, as meat will become too expensive for ordinary mortals to consume.

Source: " Spiritual India - Jan - Feb, 2015 "