You should always pause when someone says it takes 10 million gallons of water to grow a chicken nugget without mentioning where that water comes from. /1

Yes, some crops are incredibly water thirsty.

It's only a potential problem when we grow them in large quantities in areas that don't have a lot of water. /2

And if you live in a place - ahem the northeast - that's relatively wet and getting wetter you need plants that can handle a lot of water. /3

I get the desire to say it takes a ton of water to make x. But it matters if that water is rain water that would've fallen anyway vs irrigated water from aquifers. /4

This is separate from not wasting water at home. Even if you're in a wet place, if you're on a municipla system a lot of resources go into cleaning up your water before it emerges from the tap and treating it once it hits the sewer. /5

Last thoughts:

1.A lot of cotton is grown in water scarce places, so basically that's the one exception
2. I know chicken nuggets aren't grown.