I decided to start my 24 hour analysis ‘backwards’, so instead of looking up the presence of fossil fuels in my usual food consumption from the morning, I started it at dinner. I am currently living in Barcelona, doing an internship here while trying to improve my Spanish. My flatmate, an Italian guy from Vicenza, brought over some friends for a Paella-Valenciana dinner.
The ingredients he used are:
The chicken, oil, artichokes and flat green beans all come from within the municipality of Barcelona, the farthest ingredients being only 30 km far cultivated from where I live, on the mountain of Montserrat. Thus, the emissions for the transportation from the source to the Market, where the products were bought, is quite sustainable. Especially considering that in developed countries transportation accounts for energy consumption for 25%, and out of the world’s power production of about 15 terawatts a year, 86% is derived from fossil fuels. Also, no fossil fuels were consumed to get the produce from the Market to my house since me and my flatmate only had to walk. It is very common here to go daily or 3-4 times a week to local supermarkets and markets to buy food, instead of the bi-weekly ‘Costco’ trip often done in North American cities.
The production of olive oil in the Mediterranean is quite similar in all the countries in the region, so I used this study:
http://www.rodaxagro.gr/main/downloads/en/lca_oil_in_greece_summary.pdf
To calculate the emissions for the extra virgin olive oil used in the paella. In sum, if sustainable agriculture practices are performed, then olive oil production actually absorbs CO2 emissions through the absorption of the chemical in olive plants and in the soil surrounding them.
As for the chicken, on average 1 kg of chicken= 4.57 kg CO2e 15. Most of the fossil fuels from poultry production comes from electricity and powers the machines used on the farm to produce grains to feed the chickens (http://www.caes.uga.edu/applications/publications/files/pdf/B%201382_1.PDF). Because the chicken used in our paella were free range local chickens, though, and do not have hormones injected to them as the case with most North American produced animal products, unless stated as organic (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/hormones-in-food-should-y_n_815385.html). Besides being more nutritious (Free-range chickens have 21% less total fat, 30% less saturated fat and 28% fewer calories than their factory-farmed counterparts), pasture-based farming (as is the case of free-range chicken) consumes much less fossil fuels because it relies on the animal’s ability to feed themselves and spread manure thus creating themselves fertilizer for the food they eat, so the use of machinery is limited and there is very little electricity expenditure as the animals do need automated feeding or high-tech cages.
Unfortunately I could not find any specific data about the percentage of energy used for agriculture in Europe, but in the US agriculture accounts for 17% of energy consumption. That said, artichokes are originally from the Mediterranean anyways so artificial farming techniques, such as the use of greenhouses, are not needed. However, they do need a lot of nutrients while growing, so the soil they are planted on has to be very fertile. These artichokes were bought from the local market, and I asked the vendor about the farming practices. I was surprised to find out these artichokes came just 5km south of the city of Barcelona, on the Llobregat Valley. The Llobregat river naturally fertilizes the area, and because there are a lot of free-range farms in the area their manure is used as additional fertilizer. The picture below actually shows an artichoke farm close to the Llobregat Delta.
The flat green beans on the other hand require very little fertilizer or water, and they also are typical of the area. They were grown in the rural province of Montseny, also within the municipality of Barcelona and within a 30-minute drive from my house.
Now, as for the rice, Spain is almost entirely self-sufficient on the staple food and Valencia produces almost all of the rice grown in Spain. Valencia is 400 km far from Barcelona. That’s quite a difference from the 9271.55 km flight Spanish rice takes to go to the Mauritius, a country that heavily relies on rice imports.
In conclusion, our meal was entirely produced in Spain and for the most part within a 30-min drive. What I want to highlight is that no ‘special’ effort was made to ‘buy local’: this is part of an average Spanish family’s diet and buying practices. The word local rarely appears because it is assumed that unless you’re buying a pineapple, mango or banana, that food will be local, at least in the case of the ‘Mercats’, which are sprinkled all over Barcelona. Food is also imported daily and by 9 pm, when most fruit and veggie stores close, at least 2/3 of the store is empty. I can never manage to buy an apple at 8pm in the supermarket under my house because they’re already all finished! I think a positive aspect of this type of consumism, the buy-little-day-by-day, is that food waste is heavily reduced because the offer is closely fit to the demand so the amount of food rotting is not very high. Another positive consequence is that the production chain is shorter as there are closer ties between the farmers and the vendors, so a cheaper price can be guaranteed. In fact, I’ve been eating 5-6 portions (which is actualy higher than the recommended amount, so not a very good habit heheh) of organic and local fruits daily here just because I know I won’t be able to afford the same lifestyle when I get back to Vancouver.
Besides the noticeably better taste, lower costs and people-to-people interactions (the vendor I buy my peaches and watermelon from practically knew my life story by my 3rd visit there!), there is also a mathematical and caloric advantage to this lifestyle. To transport a head of lettuce, equivalent to about 50 kcal, from California to New York, it takes 1800 kcal of energy burnt in truck transportation. I don’t think this system makes a lot of sense in terms of crunching number, just as I find it funny that to transport a 70-80 kg person in the best case scenario (Prius) it takes a 1420 kg vehicle.
Finally, the benefits of the Mediterranean diet spill over the question of sustainability, and it has been proved that switching towards a vegetable-based diet is one of the best lifestyle changes we can make, not only for our environment, but also for our health, resource-supply and even issues such as human security and environmental migration (http://www.naturaleater.com/science-articles/Environmental-consequences-of-Mediterranean-diet.pdf).