Reflections on Daily Food Consumption

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This blog is meant to be a series of reflections on my daily food consumption and how it impacts the environment. As a busy student and athlete, I do focus on my food consumption, but mostly on its nutrition and ability to fuel me though long days and hard workouts. However, in the posts that follow, I am going to consider an alternative aspect of the food I eat: its environmental impact. In particular, I will look at where my food comes from and how it is processed and packaged. Although I don’t usually consider the environmental impact of my food choices when I am at the grocery store, being a part of the History 106 course has made me more aware of the impacts of my consumer habits. Over the next while, I will be looking into some of the foods that I consider to be the staples of my diet and what role oil plays in their production. Hopefully this process will allow me to make more informed choices in the future!

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Looking at my daily food consumption has been both an eye-opener as well as a valuable experience in learning more about where my food comes from  and how much energy and fuel goes into producing it. When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I actually took into consideration many of the insights I gained while researching the origins of my food. For example, even though many products that are more sustainable are also more expensive, this cost might be worth it in terms of reducing my impact on the environment. Similarly, I considered which fruits and vegetables were in season in order to reduce the oil required for food transportation. I was also shocked to find out how much corn is incorporated into most products. Not only does this involve a lot of fossil fuels but it also has resulted in huge swaths of land being covered by monocultures.

I think this is an exercise that should be done by more people as it has certainly made me more aware of the impacts of my food choices. In modern society we are so separated from our food origins that it is important that we are informed so that we can make choices for a sustainable food system. This is vital as the path we are on now, using between 7-20 calories of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of food is certainly not feasible for the future!

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Finally, as my desert I ate the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I had baked the previous day. I would consider myself a pretty frequent baker and so I keep my shelves stocked with typical ingredients like flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, chocolate chips and the like. I usually figure, if I am going to consume these foods, it is probably better to make them myself rather than purchase them in a packaged form. However, upon more research, I began to realize just how much processing goes into these ingredients that are essentially processed beyond recognition of their original form.

Sugar

(Image Source: http://madmikesamerica.com/2011/04/sugar-is-sweet-cane-cools-climate/)

The Sugar I purchase is processed at the Redpath sugar plant in Toronto. Looking at their website, I was able to see just how many steps (and thus, how much energy) is involved in the production of the granulated cane sugar I used in my cookies. First, the sugar cane is grown in many tropical countries throughout the world, as shown on this map (Source: http://sugar.ca/english/educators/thejourneyofsugar.cfm)

As you can see, cane sugar cannot be grown anywhere near Canada, so its production involves a lot of fossil fuel for transportation. In addition to this, cane sugar undergoes initial processing near the farm into raw sugar which can then be shipped around the globe for even further processing. Once the raw sugar arrives in Toronto for even further processing, it undergoes and intensive multistep filtering, boiling and recrystalization process. This is, I suspect, mediated by fossil fuel-guzzling machines.

Image Source (http://www.owskalnik.pl/sugar-production-process-flow-chart&page=5)

When all is said and done, sugar production requires an inordinate amount of energy to make into the form that we recognize.

Flour

(Image Source: http://www.wellnessonline.com/health-tips/nutrition/foods/foods-g-z/wheat/)

What about flour? Does its production require as much energy as sugar does. While wheat may be slight more energetically favourable because it is grown and canada and thus requires less transportation, the production of flour involves a lot of processing. This video below shows the highly mechanized process involved in wheat production:

How Its Made: Wheat

In addition, the graph below shows that it takes a shocking 4 tonnes of oil to produce one ton of grain.(Source: http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Food_Energy.html)

Flour and sugar are two ingredients that many people have on hand as a staple. However, I doubt that many people even know what the original sugar cane crop even looks like, let alone how much energy goes into processing these ingredients. It goes to show that even when I think I am making something “from scratch”, that is really not the case at all. This is highly connected to modern society’s distance from the land as we are often unaware of the origins of our food.

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For dinner, I chose to make a stir fry with a combination of vegetables as well as ground beef and rice. While    it is likely that many of the vegetables I used came from a large distance, thus using alot of transportation energy, the main part of this meal I want to look at is meat consumption.

Richard Manning discusses meat consumption in the article, “The Oil We Eat“. In terms of simple energy flow, he suggests that it is more efficient to eat lower down in the food chain. As you move up the food chain, only 10% of the energy is transferred per each step. So, for instance, when a cow eats a plant and then you eat the cow, you are only obtaining 10% of the energy from the plant. For secondary predators, you are obtaining another ten times less the amount of energy. This is not so bad as long as the cow or other animal is grass-fed and local. However, according to Manning, roughly 78% of the cattle is the U.S. comes from feed lots. Meaning that they are being fed the dreaded corn and wheat products that I discussed in my previous posts. Shockingly, 80% of the grain produced in the U.S. goes to livestock! This seems to be extremely inefficient to me. When I am consuming meat, not only I am I wasting energy by eating higher up the food chain but I am also fuelling the industrial corn crop market. In this article Manning writes, “It takes thirty-five calories of fossil fuel to make a calorie of beef this way; sixty-eight to make one calorie of pork”. I was definitely shocked by such high numbers!

Here is an interesting graph I found displaying the amount of Carbon Dioxide Produced during and after the animal or produce leaves the farm (Source: http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=2585)

Essentially, although all these products do involve some carbon emission, the major ones to avoid are beef and lamb. I think this visual representation is very powerful because it shows just how much energy goes into producing just 1 kg of these meat products.

Although emissions would greatly be reduced if everyone were to avoid meat products, I don’t think this is likely to happen any time soon. However, it is important to note that consumers have a choice in where they buy their meats from. Although it is more expensive, it is probably worth the price to buy local and grass-fed animal products. Perhaps if more people were aware that beef requires a whopping 35 calories of fossil fuels per calorie of meat, they would rethink the frequency of their meat consumption. I wouldn’t consider myself a huge meat eater but I will definitely consider these statistics when I am purchasing my meat products.

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(Image Source: http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/corn-ethanol-back-in-the-game-under-new-epa-renewable-fuel-standard-rules.html)

Ok, maybe corn is not in everything but it is hidden away in many foods, especially processed ones. According to the article, “We are What We Eat“, by Michael Pollan, “If you are what you eat, and especially if you eat industrial food, as 99 percent of Americans do, what you are is corn.” Richard Manning also discussed this same topic in his article, “The Oil We Eat“. Both authors point to the fact that much of our corn crops are processed into hugh-fructose corn syrup, a key ingredient in things like soft drinks and other processed foods. Pollan also discovered that 30 out of the 37 ingredients in chicken nuggets are derived from corn! This is a serious problem which has three main facets. First, the amount of oil involved in processing all this corn, according to Manning’s article is  about ten calories of fossil fuels per every calorie of food produced. Second, the corn industry has resulted in large monocultures. In fact, according to Pollan’s article, in the U.S. an area twice the size of New York State is blanketed in this corn monoculture. This leads to concerns about biodiversity and well as soil replenishment. Lastly, it is a huge concern for our health. Manning suggests that it is not a coincidence that obesity has risen dramatically ever since corn syrup became a key in ingredient in many processed foods.

Below is a graph showing the rise both in overall sweetner consumption per capita as well as the rise in corn-derived sweeteners (Source: http://grist.org/politics/2010-03-25-corn-ethanol-meat-hfcs/)

So where does this leave me? Well, weary of processed foods. Although I generally don’t eat that many processed foods, these articles have caused me to question where corn is lurking in the products I do consume. At 10 calories of fossil fuels per calorie of food produced, it is definitely something I need to consider when evaluating the environmental impacts of my foods choices.

For instance, as my afternoon snack, I consumed a Clif bar. This also seems to be a company that is devoted to reducing their environmental impact, connecting with the farmers who produce their ingredients and using organic ingredients. However, after reading these two articles I am somewhat more skeptical as to how much energy has really gone into its production. Clif Bar only uses 70% organic ingredients for starters and it also contains a significant amount of soy. Soy can be compared to corn in terms of its production due the enormous amount that is grown and the numerous ways in which it can be processed. On the ingredient list, there is also a number of ingredients near the bottom of the list that I don’t recognize, so it is quite possible that some of them are corn-derived. Even though I recognize that Clif Bar is probably a much safer bet than many other companies due to their commitment to the environment, it is still difficult to be sure that these monoculture industrial crops are not finding their way into these products simple because they are so prevalent.

I also found this very interesting video (posted Below) which further emphasizes how many common place products contain corn:

Corn Processing

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My next meal of the day was a salad for lunch. My salad consisted of spinach, red peppers, cucumbers, carrots, beets and chickpeas. Since this meal was mostly produce, it is  good idea to look at where these products are grown and whether they are in season this time of year.These are two major factors that influence the “ecological footprint” of anyone’s diet as large transportation costs greatly increase the amount of oil that goes into getting the fruits or vegetables from the farm to the table.  Here is a chart that I found that shows seasonal produce in B.C. (source: http://www.actnowbc.ca/everyone/buy_local,_in_season_fruits_and_vegetables)

So, out of my salad, the only vegetable that was actually in season was beets. This is shocking to me, probably because grocery stores continually stock their shelves with most vegetables year- round, even if they have to come from thousands of miles away.

An interesting concept that I came across is that of “food miles“, a term developed by Professor Tim Lang in the 1990’s. It is a way of quantifying the effect that food transport and production has on the environment. While roughly 83% of carbon emissions from food production are associated with processing and packaging, about 12 % are associated with transport and delivery (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles). In the sound clip below, Tim Lang discusses how to make our food system more sustainable. He asserts that while consumers have some choice in the the products they buy, the government also has a role in regulating and developing a sustainable food system:

Tim Lang on How to Solve the Food Crisis

Overall, although it is generally more environmentally-friendly to purchase unprocessed foods with as little packaging as possible, it is important to remember what foods are available seasonally and locally. This is the basis for many current trends such as the 100-mile diet or the low- carbon diet or the locavore diet. So while my salad lunch was good in terms of little oil use in terms of packaging and processing, many of the out-of-season vegetables I used were likely from places thousands of miles away. This greatly increases the food miles involved with this meal. The chart above, displaying the seasonal prouduce in B.C. is something I will refer to in the future in attempt to reduce the carbon footprint of my meals.

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Continuing on with my breakfast theme, one of my main breakfasts is cereal. In particular, the box of cereal right now in my cupboard is Nature’s Path Flax Plus Cereal. I thought that this company/ product would be a good one to investigate due to Nature’s Path’s commitment to the environment. I think it will be interesting to see how it is possible for companies to be environmentally- conscious, yet still profit from their products.

Naturally, I first went to the Nature’s Path Website. Their company vision is the following:

“To be a trusted name for quality organic foods in every home; socially responsible, environmentally sustainable and financially viable.”

-Arran Stephens, Founder

They source all their ingredients from organic farms and are in the process of purchasing farmland and converting it to organic. They were also waste-free certified in 2010 and are on the way to being carbon neutral by 2020. In fact, on this page of their website, they even note many of the prominent environmental thinkers like Wendell Berry and Sir Albert Howard that we have studied in our own readings during this course. They seem to have a connection to the land that many companies have lost over time as farms become of a larger and larger scale. One thing that I really appreciated from their website was the fact that they introduce the farmers that actually grow their ingredients. Nature’s Path wants their customers to be aware of where their food is coming from.

Reading about this company and its business practices has made me a lot more aware of the profound differences between organic products and non-organic products. Organic farms tend to be smaller, they use very few chemicals  and the people who run them have a connection to their land that leads to better stewardship. Because “organic” is sometimes a fluid term, here is a table that describes what it really means:

One thing that really struck me from their website was this fact:

“If only 10,000 medium sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, or reducing car miles driven by 14.62 billion miles. Converting the U.S.’s 160 million corn and soybean acres to organic production would sequester enough carbon to satisfy 73 percent of the Kyoto targets for CO2 reduction in the U.S. U.S. agriculture as currently practiced emits a total of 1.5 trillion pounds of CO2 annually into the atmosphere. Converting all U.S. cropland to organic would not only wipe out agriculture’s massive emission problem. By eliminating energy-costly chemical fertilizers, it would actually give us a net increase in soil carbon of 734 billion pounds.”

Source: http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest_print.shtml.

Obviously, if more companies were willingly to invest the time and money to have similar business practices to Nature’s Path, we would be less reliant on fossil fuels as a whole and  our agricultural practices would be must more sustainable. I can feel confident purchasing Nature’s Path products, not only because of their organic certification but also because of their company values. Although there is likely still some oil usage in both producing and packaging this cereal product, buying from this company is a better choice than many other companies. While I don’t necessarily always buy organic foods due to higher costs, reading about companies like this one make me think that the higher costs might be worth it.

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I am definitely one of those people who can’t begin their day until they’ve had a cup of coffee. So, I decided that it would be appropriate as the first thing to look deeper into.

Did you know that, next to oil, coffee is the second most traded commodity on worldwide markets? It is also grown in more than 80 countries and employs roughly 20 million farmers! (1) Clearly this is a huge industry. However, something that is worthy to point out is that the countries that produce coffee beans are not the largest consumers of it. Here is a chart which shows the largest coffee producing countries in the world:

This is in contrast to the largest coffee consuming countries: the European Union (35%), the United States (25%), and Japan (9%)(1). Obviously, because of such large transport distances, the environmental footprint of my coffee-drinking habit goes way up.

My coffee of choice is usually Starbucks and so I decided to take a look to see if I could could find any information on the origin and processing of their coffee beans. I found the following video which points towards both the huge amount of human labour and energy costs associated with coffee production:

Satrbucks Coffee: Growing, Processing, Roasting

Not only does the transport globally of coffee involve tremendous amounts of oil but the actual coffee processing has high energy costs associated with it as well. I found this article discussing the energy burden of processing coffee in Costa Rica and new technologies that can be implemented to reduce these costs. In the article, the author suggests that 25 405 000 kWh and 142 268 cubic meters of fire wood are used annually for coffee drying and processing. This electrical energy is enough to power a Costa Rican community of 13 000 people for an entire year (2).

Obviously, although the coffee industry is a huge global industry, it does not run as energy-efficiently as it probably could. Huge transportation distances, coupled with the high energy costs of coffee bean processing require large amounts of oil. With so many people indulging their caffeine habit on a daily basis, it is important to recognize where our coffee is coming from and how much energy is used in its production.

References:

(1) Starbucks Coffee Company. http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pdf/2002-1-0023.pdf. Accessed Feb. 28, 2012.

(2) Chavez, Victor Julio et. al. Measuring and Managing the Environmental Cost of Coffee Production in Latin America. http://www.conservationandsociety.org/article.asp?issn=0972-4923;year=2009;volume=7;issue=2;spage=141;epage=144;aulast=Arce. Accessed Feb. 28, 2012.

Image Taken from: http://seekingalpha.com/article/294328-coffee-despite-brazilian-frost-colombian-weather-bearish-market-may-be-ahead

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