Half a Gallon of Water

I love trivia.  One of the things I picked up somewhere along they way is about almonds.  There is a big debate in California about how much water is being used in industrial agriculture.  I heard a statistic that it takes one gallon of water to produce one almond.  This seemed like a lot so I looked it up.  Turns out it takes 1.1 gallon for that single almond!  Although that doesn't make for a good line - "one gallon of water" just sounds better.

If you don't believe me you can look it up - here is just one source.  There are some sources from the USDA but they are a lot harder to read.

I was making a glass sculpture last year, not thinking too much about what I was going to make.  I glued up some optical glass blanks and used colored HXTAL (an epoxy glue) that was brownish orange in color.  As I ground the blank I noticed that it looked suspiciously like an almond cut in half lengthwise.  So if it takes a gallon of water for a full almond then it stands to reason half an almond takes half a gallon.

Here is a picture:

And another view:

Not sure which display position I like best. 

I ate about 15 almonds in making this post, so I used my share of H2O for the day!