"Whilst i do what i can do reasonably to cut down my ecological footprint, there are limitations and in this case i cannot have a cow in my backyard and i am not willing to give up meat."
Okay, so reducing your ecological footprint is important, but you don't want to give up meat? That's fine, I'm not trying to make you do that anyway, simply to provide some information to consider and promote understanding).
Here's something for you to consider. According to UNESCO, the production of 1kg of meat requires 15,000L of water. There are many who would say that figure is ridiculously low, but we'll run with it anyway, all sides agree that this is at least a minimum accurate figure. That's the first point to keep in mind.
The second is this. ACTEWAGL (an Australian water/electricity provider) claims in a current tv ad that an 8 minute shower can use up to 160L of water, whereas installing an efficient shower head and having only 4 minute showers can reduce this to 36L. So, if you followed their advice you would, in the course of an entire calendar year, save a grand total of 45,260L of water.
Now compare that to the figures above for meat. You could save the same amount of water simply by reducing your annual meat consumption by a measly 3kg. According to the MLA (Meat and Livestock Association), that's about 6 weeks total consumption for the average Australian (they say 480g, but that's an average figure that is based on total population, not actual consumers of meat). Assuming an average serving size of 100g of meat, you could easily achieve this saving by cutting out meat from as little as 1 meal a fortnight.
One meal a fortnight without meat, and you save 45,000L of water a year! Not a big ask, is it? And it gives you the best of both worlds - you're reducing your ecological footprint, and you can still eat meat. The advice they give re showers is supposed to be one of the simplest things people can do to make a big difference to water consumption - but as these figures show, you can make just as much of a difference just by reducing your annual meat consumption by only 3kg (which you probably wouldn't even notice). Worth considering?
