Food for thought

I had peach yogurt from Foremost Dairies. The original company is Loblaws inc. and is located in Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary. This company is also handling many other brand, the major business is President Choice found in Superstore.

Major ingredients of this yogurt: Slim milk, fruitblend, modified corn starch, sugar, modified milk ingredients, carrageenan, pectin, active bacterial cultures.

My major issues with the fossil fuels in this peach yogurt concern the travel distance and the ingredients that are “modified”. Because the company is located in three important cities of Canada, I’m sure there must be a producer closer by than Calgary. But I am not positive. If this yogurt was produced in Calgary fossil fuels would be used in transferring the products to Vancouver, and the distance between the cities is about 675km. Also, IF this yogurt was produced in Calgary the trucks would most likely be built to keep the yogurt products cooler because of their dairy consistency. This refrigerating process would use extreme energy patterns to regulate this process.

My main concern with the ingredients that are “modified” is that they have been altered with excessive energy. “Modified corn starch” is physically and chemically changed natural corn starch. The methods of alteration require energy processes to boil, break down, and ultimately change the natural corn starch. “Modified milk ingredients” are also not in milk’s natural state, they have been changed chemically. Some have said modified milk strips away nutrients, while injecting chemicals into the dairy. So like corn starch, the method to modify milk would require a large sum of energy in turn, fossil fuels to produce that energy.