A quantitative estimation of the water footprint of the Mexican diet, corrected for washing and cooking water

Mariana Lares-Michel (), Fatima Ezzahra Housni () and Virginia Gabriela Aguilera Cervantes ()
Additional contact information
Mariana Lares-Michel: University Center of the South, University of Guadalajara
Fatima Ezzahra Housni: University Center of the South, University of Guadalajara
Virginia Gabriela Aguilera Cervantes: University Center of the South, University of Guadalajara

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, No 7, 849-874

Abstract: Abstract Water is key to food security since agriculture can require up to 85% of a country’s water. Dietary Water Footprint (WF) calculations have recently been used to assess the impact of diet on water use in contexts of water scarcity. However, diet WF calculations are generally done worldwide for cooked foods using raw food databases, with no consideration of food peeling and the water needed to wash and cook food. The WF of the Mexican diet has not been evaluated. We propose a WF calculation model using correction factors for conversion from cooked to raw and peeled to unpeeled foods, and considering the water necessary to wash and cook food. We calculated the WF of the Mexican diet to validate the model and verify its impact on this diet’s WF. We conducted a search of available dietary WF calculation methodologies, a review of the food components of the Mexican diet, a confirmatory study through 24-h recall and interviews, and an exploratory study of 237 adults following the Water Footprint Network (WFN) method. The WF of the Mexican diet using traditional WFA was 7750 l of water per person per day (l/p/d), and our proposed methodology (which included correction factors and food cooking and washing) increased the WF to 8334 l/p/d, an increase of 584 l/p/d. This is between 148% and 363% higher than WFs reported for other diets around the world, including the US American and vegetarian in Austria. This study represented the first approach of Mexican diet WF calculation and proved that, among diets WF worldwide, the Mexican diet WF is the highest. Also, we found that correction factors can increase or decrease WFs by up to 135%. Although water for cooking and washing food represent small proportions of the Mexican diet’s WF, in the long term these can generate significant impacts on water availability in Mexico, given the large WF of the diet and scarcity of water in much of the country. Effective management of the Mexican diet’s WF will be crucial for continued food security in Mexico.

Keywords: Dietary water footprint; Mexican diet; Sustainable diets; Food preparations; Correction factors; Food security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-021-01160-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:13:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s12571-021-01160-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ulture/journal/12571

DOI: 10.1007/s12571-021-01160-0

Access Statistics for this article

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food is currently edited by R.N. Strange

More articles in Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food from Springer, The International Society for Plant Pathology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().