Being part of an Italian family, pasta is consumed a lot in our household. We usually have it 3 times on average during a week. A major ingredient in pasta is durum wheat. It is cultivated in the wheat fields mainly in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in Canada. This cultivation uses an enormous amount of fossil fuels with all the machinery used to harvest the crops and fertilize them throughout the year. This link provides a video description of cultivating durum wheat in the United States. North Dakota’s Wheat Production

A main ingredient that is combined in pasta has to be the sauce. Every old classic Italian Mother will tell you that her sauce is the best, and there is some reasoning behind it. The secret is that the tomatoes are from the garden on their property. This is similar to my household where there is a massive garden that takes up a good portion of our backyard. My Father and Nonno (Grampa), grow many products in our garden such as potatoes, grapes, corn, lettuce, cucumbers, pears, strawberries, and the list goes on. The tomatoes that we grow ourselves is used to make fresh tomato sauce for our pasta meals. In this process there are no fossil fuels being consumed. There is no packaging or distribution that takes place. The only thing that requires energy is the manual labour to grow and pick the tomatoes yourself. The picture above is an actual shot of my garden in my backyard, with the tomato plants on the right hand side.