My diet is very important to me and everything I eat is measured specifically by the amount of carbohydrates and fibre it contains. I have type one diabetes otherwise known as juvenile diabetes. In this blog I will explore where fossil fuel consumption is found in the production, transportation, and packaging of all the foods I eat in 24 hours.
I eat the same breakfast everyday, and usually stick to similar lunches as well, with some variations but always having whole wheat buns. For breakfast I have one quarter cup of Roger’s porridge, along with milk, toast, and peanut butter. Roger’s porridge contains oat flakes, wheat bran, oat bran, and flaxseeds. The energy inputs that were used in the production and processing of oatmeal come from the pesticides, fertilizers, use of a high pressure spray to be cleaned, boilers, cutting machines, and roasters (“Oatmeal,” n.d.). Rogers Food’s has its
western Canada locations in Armstrong and Chilliwack BC. The porridge come in a large plastic resealable bag. The substantial greenhouse gas emissions from transportation can also be seen in the following steps (train and truck transport would be used in this process):
–Grains would likely be produced in Prairie provinces such as Alberta Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Large fossil fuel consuming combine machines cut the crops that cover extensive acreage of land.
–Grains are shipped to a grain elevator where they are stored.
–Grains would be transported to a processing plant. Here the grains are sorted by mechanically.
–The grains would then be moved to the Rogers Food facility, which are finally transferred to grocery stores.
One of the interesting points that Adam Rome, 2018 brought up was that our dependence on oil resulted not just from market forces but governmental influences. Gas taxes have served as a way to construct the vast transportation infrastructure that so much of our food travels to us on. It becomes harder to shift our methods of consumption once we have invested so much money into the project, and sometimes the way the funds have been raised (like gas taxes) is somewhat invisible to the those that are contributing. This makes it more difficult for people to change the way they contribute to the crude reality that society finds itself in.
I eat my porridge with two slices of Silver Hills whole wheat bread. The bread is packaged in two plastic bags; one bag for the individual bread and another over top that contains the two loaves. The bread contains sprouted whole wheat, oat flakes, cane sugar, brown flax seeds, sunflower seeds, millet, whole khorasan wheat, whole rye, barley, buckwheat, whole corn, brown rice, rolled oats, sesame seeds, quinoa, amaranth, spelt, wheat flour, yeast and sea salt. Rice. The cereal grains for my whole wheat bread and buns would be grown on farms that also produce the grains for my porridge. A single farm can produce multiple grains. Therefore, the grains would follow similar transportation routes described earlier. This bread is baked in Abbotsford, which is a town over from where I live in Langley. This cuts down on the transportation distance, but is not as good as buying it directly from the bakery. The production of wheat requires the production and transport of fertilizer and lime which is a main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (“Carbon footprint for one ton of wheat,” n.d.). Wheat flour is processed by mechanically grinding down the wheat. In Australia, one ton of wheat produces 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide for the entire process of cultivating, processing, and transporting wheat.
The peanut butter I use is a Costco product; Kirkland natural peanut butter. It comes in a plastic jar. I assume that this is a product that comes from the USA and is distributed by Costco in Canada. The distribution plant is in Ottawa, Ontario. The process of making and delivering peanut butter that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions looks like this; the peanuts are most likely grown and mechanically picked in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida (“Peanut butter”, 2018). The peanuts are transported to facilities where they are cleaned with the use of blowers, and then moved to storage units. From there, the peanuts are transferred to locations where they are mechanically dried. The peanuts are again transferred to a place to have them shelled. They are then shipped to peanut butter companies. Here the peanuts are go through a process of being dry roasted, requiring extraordinarily high temperatures to complete the process. Finally, the peanuts are subjected to a grinding process with a milling machine (“Peanut butter”, 2018).
I use milk from Island farms located in Victoria BC. One kilo of milk is equivalent to 1.9 kg of carbon dioxide (“Food’s carbon,” n.d.). Fertilizer is a high source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Fertilizers use rumen methane and nitrous oxide. The manure from the cows also emits methane into the atmosphere (“Understanding the carbon,” n.d.). I get my milk in plastic milk jugs. Plastic milk jugs require substantially less greenhouse gas emissions than glass in the production and transportation combined, (229g vs 75) however TetraPaks require far fewer than plastic (8g) (Paster, 2009). The plastic can also be recycled here in BC.
For Lunch I had a 12 carb glass of milk and had a peanut butter and banana sandwich with yogurt. I always have a 30 carb whole wheat bun from Buns Master bakery in Langley. These buns contain whole wheat flour, canola oil, sugar, yeast, and palm oil shortening. As with other cereal crops, the production of wheat uses GHG’s that are burned in the process of cultivating and seeding the fields with the help of tractors. The buns are baked at the location we buy them from. These buns come in large plastic bags. It is estimated that 12 million barrels of oil are used in the production of plastic bags in the United States (Plastic bags and petroleum, n.d.).
I eat one Danone Oikos Greek yogurt every lunch. This is the recommended yogourt for type 1 (diabetes) people because of the high protein content which helps absorb the insulin effectively. One yogurt typically has 15 carbs. Danone has offices in Mississauga Ontario and Boucherville Quebec. The milk used in their yogourt is from Canada. I assume that their yogourt must travel across the country by truck. Danone greek yogourt is packaged in plastic containers. According to one source, it takes four pounds of milk to produce one pound of Greek yogurt (Smith, 2018). As already mentioned, milk requires a high degree of GHG emissions.
The current mass consumption economy based on cheap oil is evidence of the success of governmental visions and policies of the past (Rome, 2018). The amount of plastic that is used in this economy is also due to companies taking advantage of a technology originally designed for war. At the time, oil appeared endless and therefore mass consumptions of products that utilized it was not seen as problematic. However in 1970 US oil peaked, and the US had to rely on foreign supply in order to maintain its economy. At this time the government should have re-evaluated its consumption techniques. The problem is however that what is cheap often overrides what is most valuable. Politicians get votes for keeping the current economy strong, not the future one. Voters want politicians who can keep them financially secure in the present. The environment, and sustainable practices have historically been seen as secondary to the economy.
I use the same peanut butter as described earlier and eat my sandwich with half a banana, or 10 carbs worth. We buy Dole bananas which are grown in Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The production techniques of Bananas varies a lot.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United States the carbon footprint varies from 324g to 124kg CO2e/kg of bananas (“Carbon footprint,” 2018). Transport and shipping, fertilizing, and ripening processes are the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the banana supply chain (“Carbon footprint,” 2018).
For dinner I had a pizza bun and yogurt on the same whole wheat bun I used for lunch. I also eat the same yogurt previously described. For my flavour I used PrimoPizza sauce. This product is from Toronto, Canada and I speculate they would rely on the long haul trucking industry. The ingredients in this sauce is crushed tomato, water, sugar/glucose fructose, salt, vegetables, (dried onion, garlic, basil, and parsley), modified corn starch, onion, powder, olive oil, cayenne and habanero chili peppers, citric acid, spices. I will focus on tomatoes as they are the main ingredient. The production of the tomato is where the most GHG’s are used. Fertilizers use a lot of energy in its production by combining nitrogen and natural gas. Furthermore, one the fertilizer is put into the field it also rises back into the air as nitrous oxide which is 300 times as strong as carbon dioxide (Science Jon, 2015).
Tomatoes are also distributed by the trucking industry and by boat. Tomatoes used by Primo are crushed using a mechanical evaporator.
For my topping I used canned Dole pineapple. Their pineapples are grown in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Honduras and Ecuador according to Dole’s website. However, It can actually be difficult to find out where canned pineapples originate because they rely on a auction market and use a middleman (Carbon footprinting of canned pineapple, n.d.). The majority of GHG’s are used in the production of the light syrup that the pineapple comes in, as well as the the production of the tin can it is packaged in. A smaller amount of GHG’s are used in the fertilizing during the cultivation process. Slicing the pineapples during processing is also a contributor of GHG’s. Distributing uses land and oceanic transport so it is necessary to transport the pineapples multiple times from where they are cultivated.
I used Sun Select peppers that are grown in greenhouses in British Columbia. This company also has a greenhouse in California and ships its products across the USA. Along with energy imputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, the process of growing bell peppers in a greenhouse environment requires the use GHG consumption in the heating, ventilation, air circulation, cooling and humidification, and mist systems that are used (“Guide to commercial greenhouse,” 2001).
For my cheese I used Saputo provolone which also comes in plastic packaging. Cheese has the third highest cradle to gate carbon footprint of all Canadian dairy products behind butter and powders (Desjardins, R.L. Worth, D.E., Vergé, X.P.C., VanderZaag, A., Janzen, H., Kroebel, R., Maxime, D. Smith, W., Grant, B., Pattey, E., and Dyer, J.A., n.d.). Most of the GHG emissions in the process of making cheese come from the production of milk. Almost 10 pounds of milk is needed to create one pound of cheese (“Understanding the carbon,” n.d.). It takes about 1.3 kg of carbon dioxide to produce one kg of milk. Estimates vary as the figures I used when discussing milk above where higher than this.
Every one of my meals uses plastic in its packaging. As Rome, 2018 points out, oil is the main ingredients in plastic, and its production has come at a low coast. The abundance of cheaply made plastic is so prevalent in consumer culture that it gives the illusion that it isn’t dangerous to our environment. However, the environmental price that global society pays includes the polluting of the oceans, filling of landfills, health risks to consumers, and the fact that the lower class must more readily face the effects of plastic manufacturing than other socioeconomic groups. I think as a society we are tricked into a sense of indifference to the practices of large scale consumption. We accept environmentally damaging techniques simply because they exist. There seems to be an element of behavioural contagion and diffusion of responsibility in people’s inability and unwillingness to recognize and change a system of consumption they willingly admit is inefficient and harmful. Diffusion of responsibility is characterized by the inaction of an individual because of the presence of others who are believed to be more skilled or knowledgable and therefore possess a superior ability to help. Combine this with the bystander effect; the idea that others do not help as readily when there are a lot of other bystanders. Our society is overrun with plastic, and people accept its presence using other people’s acceptance as evidence to justify their apathy. Using this type of strategy, people are less inclined to be seekers or critical thinkers. Rome, 2018 argues that historians have not spent enough time studying how people used to live, and therefore our histories have not informed us about what it is to be human. He argues that paying attention to daily experience is a way to clearly recognize our dependence on oil. I think a way to re-think an approach to the past is to take a moment before the start of each day and ask ourselves what it is we value, and whether the actions we take that day will line up with them; and ask this question throughout the day. In this way, we may recognize the sequences and consequences of our decisions. We may be able to release and/or recognize the sense of cognitive dissonance that is present when we make decisions about what we eat and where we get it. By meditating on our values more frequently it may allow us to become more fully functioning human beings.
Citations:
Carbon footprint for one ton of wheat. (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/content/archive/agriculture-today-stories/ag-today-archives/september-2011/carbon-footprint-for-one-tonne-of-wheat
Carbon footprinting of canned pineapple: findings to inform Iso 14067 development. (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://icgsi.eng.cmu.ac.th/PresentationFileICGSI/LCA/LCA26.pdf
Carbon footprint of the banana supply chain (2018). Retrieved from: http://www.fao.org/world-banana-forum/projects/good-practices/carbon-footprint/en/
Desjardins, R.L. Worth, D.E., Vergé, X.P.C., VanderZaag, A., Janzen, H., Kroebel, R., Maxime, D. Smith, W., Grant, B., Pattey, E., and Dyer, J.A. Carbon footprint of agriculture products- a measure of impact of agricultural production on climate change. (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://www.wamis.org/agm/meetings/teco14/S5-Desjardins.pdf
Fisher, Jon. (2015, October 16). Science Jon. Retrieved from: http://sciencejon.blogspot.com/2015/10/carbon-footprint-of-tomatoes.html
Food’s carbon footprint (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html
Guide to commercial greenhouse sweet bell pepper production in Alberta (2001, December, 21). Retrieved from: https://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/opp2873
Oatmeal. (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Oatmeal.html
Paster, Pablo. (2009, March 2). Which milk container has the lowest carbon emissions. Retrieved from: https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/which-milk-container-has-the-lowest-carbon-emissions.html
Peanut butter (2018). Retrieved from: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Peanut-Butter.html
Plastic bags and petroleum. (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://1bagatatime.com/learn/plastic-bags-petroleum/
Rome, Adam. (2018). Crude reality. Modern American History, 1 (1), 77-82.
Smith, Roxi. (2016, April, 20). Your greek yogurt is actually terrible for the environment. Retrieved from: https://spoonuniversity.com/news/your-greek-yogurt-is-actually-terrible-for-the-environment
Understanding the carbon footprint of cheese. (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://clean-water.uwex.edu/pubs/pdf/CF-Cheese.pdf