Fossil Fuels and Food Consumption

Throughout this blog, each post focused on a specific part of fossil fuel consumption in relation to my meals.  My breakfast post focused on the food and ingredients, while my lunch post focused on the packaging of the meal, and finally dinner was about challenging myself to have an as environmentally friendly meal as possible.

In each post I learned how incredibly fossil fuel dependent our planet is.  In the US, there is an average of “about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy used for every calorie of food energy it produces.[13]”  Accounting for just the lunch and breakfast I ate, this average indicates that I used a minimum of 12,600 calories of fossil fuel energy.  “At the turn of the century, oil scarcely mattered at all,” but as technology improved society became more and more dependent on this natural resource, dawning a  new age of dependence [14]. As we can see from the past, this dependency will only become more intense and if changes aren’t made soon we will either run out of fossil fuels or destroy our environment in the process.

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[13] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[14] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

After realizing how large of an ecological footprint my previous meals in the day had, I decided to challenge myself and see how minimalist my dinner could be. To complete this challenge I went to the farmers market that is close to my house (St.Jacobs Farmers market http://www.stjacobs.com/).  This market is run by a Mennonite community who’s farming methods were not influenced by the green revolution.  They don’t use tractors, any fossil fuel powered equipment or any modern technology for farming – they are self sufficient.  All animal feed is grown on their own farms, and to top it off – transportation from their homes to the market is done by horse and buggy.  The community does not use any chemicals in its farming, thus having the certified organic label for all of its food.  The benefit, as Richard Manning mentioned in his article, is that it reduces the “chemical reaction, called acidification, [which] is noxious and contributes significantly to acid rain.[9]”  Another benefit is that less nitrogen is used, thus preventing the problem of “rainfall and irrigation water inevitably [washing] the nitrogen from the fields to creeks and stream” – avoiding this results in healthier lands [10]. Below is a photo showing on a large scale how chemicals can seep into the land and contaminate water supplies.

For dinner I finally settled on having a peameal bacon sandwich. The bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and bacon was all grown and produced by the family that was selling it. The sandwich was handed to me on a plate, yes that’s right, finally something that was reusable; these small details add up quite significantly.  Taking mass production, transportation, and garbage out of the picture; this was one of the most environmentally and fossil fuel friendly meals you could have.  After the meal, I went over to the stand and talked with the owner for a little bit and told them about this assignment.  After some friendly chat and a couple questions I received almost every step in the process of starting from scratch to getting this sandwich on my plate.  The only point at which fossil fuels were used was to cook the bacon, which involved a burner and propane to heat the grill.

While eating this way certainly is healthy and environmentally friendly, it makes quite the dent in your wallet!

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[9] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[10] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[11] Foundation for Water Research.  http://www.euwfd.com/assets/images/Groundwater-pollution02.jpg

[12] closetcooking. “Peameal Bacon Sandwich.”  http://www.closetcooking.com/2008/05/peameal-bacon-sandwich.html

Lunch was a Tim Horton’s Turkey Bacon Club sandwich.  A combination of whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, swiss cheese, bacon and turkey – there was a total of 750 calories in this meal.

The sandwich was served to me in a wax paper wrapper which was then put in a paper bag. Given the fact that I ate in the restaurant, I would have expected to be served with  a plate, but not everything is perfect.  In this post I’m going to focus more specifically on packaging and how it came to be handed to me.

Starting with the wax paper wrapping, i’d like to note that I am assuming this wrapping is plain wax paper with no added twists as researching the exact composition didn’t provide me with any useful information. Although wax paper is biodegradable, the additives such as petroleum make it take a along time to breakdown.  It is also advised that this paper not be recycled.  So before looking at how much energy was needed to make this, we already know there is going to be fossil fuels burned in the transportation of this garbage to the dump. This link: http://www.dunnpaper.com/ directs you to Dunn Paper, which is a major paper producer, specifically with wax paper.  On their website you can see photos of their factory and the numerous machines they have.  I admit to not being able to find exact numbers for the fossil fuel consumption, but all evidence points to it being much higher than needed as excessive amounts of energy is needed to run all the machines.

The paper bag that encapsulated the sandwich is roughly the equivalent of one 8′ by 11′ piece of paper for numbers and accuracy sake. According to howitworks.com, a one foot diameter tree that is sixty feet tall provides 80,500 sheets of paper.  One in 80,500 is rather insignificant, but we must focus on the fossil fuels burned to process this tree into it’s final product.  First, there is the logging process which requires heavy machine to cut and transports to trees, which of course as all powered by fossil fuels.  Next comes processing the trees, which occurs is factories similar to the one describe above at the Dunn Paper Company.  Once these steps are completed, the final product can then be shipped in gas guzzling eighteen-wheelers across the country or to wherever a restaurant is in need.

“The common assumption these days is that we muster our weapons to secure oil, not food”, but the same can be said for mustering oil to produce packaging rather than food [8].

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[7] Calgary Travel Foodie. “Ham & Swiss Sandwich.” http://www.elsiehui.com/food/snack/tim-hortons-ham-swiss-sandwich/

[8] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

To begin my day I had a bowl of Vector.  Simply put, this is cereal accompanied by milk.

Alright, here we go, ingredients in the cereal: rice, whole grain wheat, sugar/glucose-fructose, soy protein, whole grain oats, vegetable oil, brown sugar syrup, rice flour, salt…. are we done yet?…. vegetable oil shortening, honey, barley malt syrup, molasses, cinnamon, soy lecithin, citric acid …. I left out a lot more as I’m sure you see the point by now.  Its surprising to think that so many ingredients go into making such a simple and delicious food.  Each ingredient is often produced by a different company, or mass production factory and shipped to ‘vector headquarters’ for further processing.  You’d think that one factory consuming and polluting should be more than enough to produce a cereal, but specialization and mono-culture allows for farms and facilities to produce extreme amounts of these ingredients and still turn over a profit.

The same can be said for milk, as in previous era’s farmers grew the feed for the cows, or allowed them to graze freely among the fields.  Grazing cows equals time and money spent on preserving their lands.  Buying feed is an more efficient way to nurture cows, but it requires another factory consuming fossil fuels and producing pollution to manufacture this food.  Importing feed and inputs for farming is how farms are able to stay in one location, whereas “our ancestors found it preferable to pluck the energy from the ground and when it ran out move on.[5]”

Each factory, farm or facility has its own carbon footprint and consumption of fossil fuels.  The more ingredients there are, the more inefficient the production is.  We’ll take a closer look at the main ingredient in this meal, whole grain wheat.  To produce wheat there is a lengthy process involved. There is harvesting, which requires large tractors plowing the fields and collecting the wheat plants.  Next is preparing, then cleaning, then tempering, then gristing, and finally milling.  Milling is the next fossil fuel intensive step as heavy machinery is required to power rollers that flattens and break down the wheat into small pieces.  In the comments below there is a link to a video showing how wheat is farmed on a large scale. Think about how much fossil fuel energy is required to prepare this ingredient for Vector, now times it by ten to account for the other ingredients.  By now it should be blatantly obviously that an excessive amount of fossil fuels is needed to make these ingredients.  After hearing these processes it shouldn’t be a bit of a surprise that “humans take 40 percent of the globes primary productivity every year.[6]”

I consumed approximately 2 cups of vector and 300 mL of milk for this meal.  Using the nutritional facts from both the milk and vector box I calculated my calorie intake to be approximately 510 calories.   It can be estimated that 2040 calories of fossil fuel energy was required to produce my breakfast.  Had I not been in a rush to get to work I would have ate more..

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[4] flickr. “Vector Cereal.”  http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035720546@N01/3333690032/in/photostream/

[5] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[6] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

Did you know the food we eat is processed using a large amount of fossil fuels and often travels a long way before arriving on our plates?

The thought that I’ll try to press upon you during this blog is how you can reduce your dependence on foods that require excessive amounts of energy.

I find myself guilty of thinking that carpooling or walking to work is all I can do to reduce my carbon footprint, when a very effective and surprisingly not so well-known way is analyzing my food choices, specifically how that food is produced.  Richard Manning states “every calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten.[1]” Energy is embedded in our food, it has come to the point that        “[a]griculture isn’t about food; [but now] it’s about commodities that require the outlay of still more energy to become food.[2]” As an example, grinding, milling, wetting, drying, and baking breakfast cereal requires about four calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food that is produced.  This doesn’t account for the fuel for transportation, and fuel used by the consumers who travel long distances just to save fifty cents on a box of corn flakes.

Eating high up on the food chain has its consequences. With every step up, more energy is lost or consumed.  Lets say my daily diet takes approximately 3,000 calories, then it requires 30,000 to grow that food.  To simplify this math, this means A LOT of energy is going into growing, processing, and delivering food.  The one calorie in to one calorie out ratio is what needs to be aimed for, otherwise lands will slowly deplete and the energy cycle will slowly die out.  The image below shows how energy is lost throughout each step in the food chain.

Throughout this blog, I will be documenting the food I eat in a 24 hour period, and analyzing  the amount of fossil fuels needed to bring it to my plate.

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[1] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[2] Manning, Richard. The Oil We Eat, Harper’s Magazine, (Feb 2004): 37-45

[3] Tutor Vista, “Ten Percent Law.” http://www.tutorvista.com/content/biology/biology-iv/ecosystem/ten-percent-law.php#