Bottled water is the poster child for how profit-hungry corporations spend millions to convince consumers to buy an environmentally damaging product they don’t need. It’s a good entry point for talking about how some of these same corporations and many others are wasting and polluting water to produce food that’s contaminated with agricultural chemicals, as well as ingredients that make us fat and sick.

First, let me say, I’m not blaming farmers, who are held hostage by a food system that benefits the large corporations that control the way our food is produced and marketed. A tiny cabal of agribusinesses and food manufacturers have a stranglehold on every link of the food chain.

These corporations benefit from an endless supply of cheap corn, soybeans and other commodity crops. Mountains of water-intensive crops like corn and soy are necessary to feed the animals that live in the factory farms that produce the eggs, milk and meat we eat. Cheap corn oil and corn syrup are vital ingredients for the junk food and soft drinks people buy because of slick marketing and the addictive nature of these foods.

The food system is not only making people sick. It is drinking up more than twice the water of all other uses combined, and is highly polluting. While it’s no secret that plants need water to grow, the ones that eventually become our dinners (or the dinners of the animals that we sometimes eat) are actually grown using extremely inefficient irrigation methods, sometimes in areas that are essentially deserts.

Watering food crops accounts for more than 65 to 70 percent of world water use. Most large scale farming operations flood crops, using more water than is necessary. This water comes from a variety of sources—rivers, streams, and sometimes even underground. Yet these sources are being depleted faster than they can be recharged, and some are even disappearing.

Growing commodity crops in the dry heartland is depleting the Ogallala aquifer, which stretches from South Dakota to West Texas, 160 percent faster than it can recharge—prompting some experts to predict that it will be tapped dry in just a few decades. These crops are also fed by a toxic cocktail of petro-chemicals that run off the land, ending up in the rivers, streams, and groundwater sources they rely on for hydration.

Industrial livestock production is similarly destructive. Poultry, hog and dairy cattle factory farms cram together thousands, or sometimes tens of thousands of animals, spilling millions of gallons of toxic manure and waste into waterways, contaminating drinking water supplies and damaging ecosystems. These animal factories use large amounts of water. One hog raised in such an environment requires about five gallons of water a day. Industrial dairies can use more than 150 gallons of water per cow per day.

This situation can’t continue and is beginning to collapse from its own weight. At the same time, an exciting and growing regional food movement is expanding throughout the nation. We are at a transformative moment and recreating the food system is possible. But to do so, we must take advantage of the many upcoming opportunities to change the policies that are perpetuating this wasteful and unhealthful system. Find out how you can get involved at foodandwaterwatch.org

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