Breakfast:
As I woke up and got ready for another day at UBC, I decided to eat Special K cereal for breakfast. The main ingredients for this particular cereal are rice, wheat, and sugar. I realized that the rice, wheat, sugar, and other ingredients used to make this cereal needed to be processed. The processing of these ingredients requires the use of oil. In order to get all the ingredients required to make a box of Special K cereal, ingredients as well as material for the box are needed to be transported to Special K’s factory. This transport requires the use of oil. In addition, the packaging that is used to make a box of Special K is a cardboard type of paper. In order to get the box, trees needed to be cut down using machinery such as chainsaws and tractors which run on oil. As all the required components of the product arrive in the Special K factory, more oil consuming machinery is used to quickly portion and assemble a box of Special K. Finally, more oil is used in the distribution process as Special K is sold all over the place. Even my participation in going to the supermarket and buying the cereal requires some oil. The cereal is only half the battle because what is cereal without milk? The milk that I used to eat my Special K is the milk that everyone normally finds in the supermarket. Again the logistical component of milk requires the use of oil. On top of that, in order to produce the milk, cows are required! Hormone injections of all sorts are given to the cows in order to continually produce milk. Land is required to feed the cows that produce the milk for my Special K. As we know farming today is more machine and oil intensive than ever. Every dairy farm has a factory to produce the milk that we drink. These factories require barrel after barrel of oil to run. On top of this, milk jugs are required to package milk. Milk jugs uses plastic which needs to be molded by using oil to get the desired shape. Having thought of this process, it is hard to believe that a seemingly simple breakfast requires so much oil to produce.
Lunch:
After arriving at UBC and finishing a couple of morning classes, I decided to grab a bite to eat at White Spot. I had a simple cheese burger that consists of bread, beef, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. In order to produce the bread, processing wheat using oil is required. The wheat needs to be processed into flour and the flour needs to be baked into bread. This process requires oil in every step of the way. As for the beef and cheese, land is needed to feed the cows awaiting slaughter or producing dairy products. Milk needs to be processed into cheese. The lettuce and tomatoes also require land in order to grow. Pesticides are used to keep the bugs away from produce and as expected this process uses oil one way or another. The logistical requirements for all the ingredients to be brought together and made into a perfect cheeseburger that I enjoyed in UBC require barrels of oil. As for my drink, I had Coca-Cola to quench my thirst. The main ingredient for Coca-Cola is high fructose corn syrup or sucrose derived from sugar canes. Sugar cane requires land to grow and is grown and harvested using oil consuming machinery. The sugar cane then needs to be processed which uses oil again. When all the ingredients are brought together, factory machinery that depends on oil is used to make the drink we know as Coca-Cola. To store the drink, aluminum or tin-plated steels are used to create the cans. Mining is required to extract these metals from the ground and heavy machineries using large quantities of oil are used. More oil is used in the process of turning the metal into usable cans as well as transporting the materials into the desired locations. I enjoyed my lunch very much even though I knew it was not very healthy. The oil that is required to create a perfect lunch is staggering.
Dinner:
After a long day at UBC, I went home and awaited a home cooked meal. Tonight’s menu consisted of fresh Atlantic cod that was bought in the supermarket when it was still alive, potatoes, and steamed vegetables. The Atlantic cod was the center piece of the meal as it was delicious. Thinking of it now though, that Atlantic cod must have travelled miles in order to reach supermarkets in British Columbia. In order to catch the fish, fishermen must use fishing boats that run on oil. The fish then needs to be transported hundreds of miles to reach the supermarket in British Columbia. All this effort to transport this fish made me wonder if the fish that I was eating was indeed Atlantic cod or not. As it is not a processed food, there is no processing required. As for the potatoes, fresh potatoes were used. The use of land is needed to grow the potatoes and the assortment of steamed vegetables. Machineries that use oil are required to grow and harvest the potatoes and vegetables. More oil is then used to transport the potatoes and vegetables to the supermarket.
Overall:
Overall, I thought that by blogging my food consumption in a day I come to realize that oil is used everywhere in the process. In particular, the logistical part of food probably consumes the most oil. All sorts of machinery that requires oil are used in order to process and pack food. When we eat any kind of food, we are definately eating oil in a sense that oil had a part in the process of bringing the food at our tables. It is amazing how much oil we as humans are consuming.
Sources for Pictures:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/economy/images/naturespath1.jpg
http://thehairpin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/000305.jpeg
http://www.occupyforanimals.org/uploads/7/7/3/5/7735203/2945911_orig.jpg
http://3dprintingindustry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/recycled-milk-jug-crafts-1.jpg
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/design/2009/6/coca-cola-classic-can.jpg
http://seafood60north.co.uk/sites/default/files/galleries/Atlantic-Cod.jpg
http://img.food.com/img/recipes/14/27/04/large/pic2Qto4R.jpg