Sankey Diagrams

A Sankey diagram says more than 1000 pie charts

Material Flows in the U.S. Food

System
If you enjoy browsing for tidbits of interesting information on the
web, I highly recommend the collection of fact sheets on the website
of the Center of Sustainable Systems (CSS) at the University of
Michigan. This series of 2-page papers on topics, such as energy,
water, waste, transportation or buildings, targets at the ordinary
citizen and presents scientific information with bulleted list of
interesting facts, nicely illustrated with diagrams, and sometimes
recommendations for individual behaviour (“What You can Do”).

The fact sheet on the U.S. Food Chain shows the material flows for
providing food in a Sankey diagram. Data is from 1995, the flow
quantities are in million pounds.
The inputs from the left are limited to crops, feed and pasture. Other
inputs such as water, fertilizers, etc. are omitted. The actual quantity
of food consumed by U.S. citizens is shown on the pink arrow
(355,880 million pounds). Exports of food are shown in blue and are
about the same size (355,560 million pounds). A large portion of
material into the food chain goes into “respiration, animal losses and
live animals” (the latter probably being fed back into the food chain
at a certain point, I assume, so consider them a foodstock. ,-)

There is much more to find in this Sankey diagram. So why not take
a few minutes of your lunch break to explore it and read the full fact
sheet. And while your at it, why not eat a locally grown apple while
doing so …