The purpose of this blog is to track the amount of oil I have consumed in the past 24hrs. The oil consumed will be explored by reflecting on the role during the production, travel and packaging of the food ate.

	Production	Delivery	Packaging
Dempsters Bread- 100% Canadian Whole wheat	Described in my previous post under breakfast	Calgary, Alberta= 978km after processed	Plastic Bag- discussed in previous post
Bandon Cheese	I had purchased this cheese last weekend in the states. Brandon Coast Foods specializes in providing services in the field of Cheese and Dairy.  I could not find a website for the company, however I would assume that the company operates rather locally, only distributing throughout the west coast.  This would entail a smaller scale establishment with  potentially lower emissions than a large industry would	The cheese was distributed out of Tillamook Oregon	Plastic wrapper- Main component being made from polyethylene. Similar to what was discussed in my previous “8.7 plastic shopping bags contains enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1km”. which I think provides some comparison in more concrete terms to plastic packaging’s effect on the environment.
Heinz Ketchup	Established a Heinz seed company in 1970 with the goal of creating non-genetically modified hybrid tomatoes.  As a result of their market dominance, 34% of the world processed tomatoes are grown using Heinz Seeds.  The large scale cultivation of the tomatoes would involve a lot of heavy machinery resulting in a hefty emission bill.	Processed in Ontario- two locations Leamington, and St. Marys. I found one main distributer located on the West Coast , Woolf Farming located in Fresno California	Plastic container- similar to my last post when discussing the Fred Myer Peanut Butter

Tim Hortons Coffee

I was thoroughly impressed with Tim Horton’s website and their environmental stewardship. Each page was accompanied with their slogan “Tim Hortons understands that changes in the environment need to be managed and embraces our responsibility to do our part”   Furthermore, they make their manufacturing and distributive operations easy to find.  Tim Hortons coffee is primarily grown in by roughly 2500 small scale farmers in central and south America by. The coffee beans are then shipped to roasting plants, located in Ancaster Ontario and Rochester New York and then later redistributed across the country via commercial truck fleets. In addition, Tim Hortons is taking on initiatives to improve their transportation efficiency.  In 2012, they began the implementation of Electronic On Board Recorder to track the many facets of drivers daily operations (video can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5CFzowGZ0s).

Nevertheless, I was still quite taken away by how much global travel was involved in getting my daily coffee fix.   For me to have a Tim Hortons cup of coffee it would have to travel over 8000 or so km from South America to Ontario, and then by another 3000 km roughly across Canada. My cup of coffee would roughly have travelled 11000km. Just imagine the amount of oil I’m drinking.

Small scale Coffee Farms

Overall, I am quite shocked at how much oil I consume. This assignment has allowed me to realize my dietary carbon emissions in more concrete terms. Our 21st century society has allowed us to neglect the effects of carbon emissions when we can drive up the street and purchase a box of mandarin oranges. Meanwhile, that box of oranges has traveled across the pacific ocean burning fossil fuels the entire way.  Similarly,  imagining the distance a simple pasta dinner makes before pouring it on my plate is astonishing. To think that Every Tim Horton’s Coffee I consume travels over 11000 km just in transportation.   An attempt to live a 100 mile diet would be tough, but something I would like to try  in the future.