Unless I dine out; otherwise, my daily routine and the food I eat do not have much diversity. Like any other typical day, today, I got up and had my first glass of water. To be honest, I have no idea how water gets to my house. Since I am blogging about the role oil plays in my food consumption, I looked it up.
I am currently living in China. As far as I know, China has its own water resources, so the water pretty much comes from local rivers. According to the USGS Water Science School, governments fill water towers on top of hills with water. With gravity and pumps, water reaches homes through pipes (How does Water Get to My Home?). I assume that the Chinese government draws water from rivers and fills water towers. Then, water will reach my house through pipes. According to the USGS Water Science School, gravity alone is not enough to push water to homes. Electricity is needed to run pumps (How does Water Get to My Home?). According to the U.S. Department of Energy, China burns coal to generate electricity (China), and coal is a type of fossil fuels. Thus, for only a glass of water, I am consuming oil.
What is more, Chinese people do not drink tap water. We boil water before we drink it. Most Chinese people have a water boiler at home. When it runs low, my Mom will fill it with water. Once she closes the top and presses a button, the boiler will automatically boil water and keep it warm. So, electricity is used again, and I am consuming oil again. The next step of keeping cool water would be more eco-friendly. Usually, my Mom pours some water out and keeps the water in a jar. She lets it sit, so the water will cool. This process does not involve the use of electricity, but if I trace the root of the jar my Mom uses for the cool water, I would probably find that I am consuming oil again.
I am a typical Generation Y. I live with my parents, and they take care of me. However, since I do not usually get up a lot earlier than the time I have to go out, I usually do not have much time for breakfast. I do not like eating a lot in the morning anyways, so I usually choose something easy for breakfast. Most of the time, I eat crackers, and today, I had SkyFlakes. SkyFlakes have been around for a long time, and it is one of the snacks that appears in my house a lot. Its ingredients include wheat flour, vegetable shortening, iodized salt, sugar, baking soda, and yeast (SkyFlakes). From Richard Manning’s article, “The Oil We Eat,” I learn that fossil fuels are not only used to produce energy, but they are also good for making products. The ingredient, vegetable shortening, is actually Hydrogenated Coconut and Palm Oil (SkyFlakes), so it is an oil product.
Even before the cracker is made, fossil fuels are already consumed. As Manning states, gasoline is used in the process of production (44). For example, one of the SkyFlakes ingredients is baking soda. Although I am not a science expert, I know that baking soda is a chemical compound. Thus, to make baking soda, people would need to have the chemical, and they would need to mine it. If one barrel of oil is needed to produce three barrels of oil from the tar sands in Alberta (Module 7), I assume other mining processes such as the one for making baking soda would require some oil as well. Therefore, even before my SkyFlakes’ production takes place, people are already burning fossil fuels for the ingredients.
Of course, oil is used again in the actual production, delivery, and packaging of my SkyFlakes. Wheat flour is one of the ingredients in SkyFlakes. Reading Manning’s article, we learn that wheat is domesticated by the green revolution that tractors and nitrogen fertilizers are used in farming (41-42). So, tones of oil are burnt for farming wheat for my SkyFlakes. When all the ingredients are ready for production, machines and equipment are used in the factories in the Philippines to produce SkyFlakes (Production). Machines and equipment would probably need fossil fuels to power. As a result, oil is consumed again. After production, SkyFlakes are put into individual plastic bags and plastic boxes. Oil is the main component in plastics (Module 7); thus, even the containers use oil. Since SkyFlakes are produced in the Philippines, they would need to be shipped to China. Trucks are used to transport SkyFlakes from harbors to trading companies, from trading companies to wholesale companies, and from wholesale companies to grocery stores. All these shipping and transportation require the use of gasoline. Fortunately, there is a grocery store that is pretty close to where I live, so my Mom walks there to shop. I believe my Mom buys most of our groceries from that store, and her walking reduces the burden I create for the world oil reserves.
As a CHINESE Generation Y, what I eat for lunch is pretty similar to what I eat for dinner. I think most Chinese parents do this – they pack lunch for their kids. My lunch is the food my Mom made for the previous dinner. Chinese dinners usually have meat, fish, tofu, vegetable, rice, and so on. Since my lunch and my dinner are pretty much the same, I will talk about the oil I eat for lunch and dinner at the same time. Today, I had beef, pork, vegetable, and rice for dinner.
As I mentioned earlier, I think my Mom buys most of our groceries from that store near our house. Although, like SkyFlakes, food products are transported to this store before they are bought by my Mom, my Mom does reduce the amount of fossil fuels burnt by walking there and back home! However, the fact that we do not buy from local markets, but supermarkets means we are consuming livestock raised in what Manning calls the shoulder to shoulder space (45). In fact, it is not easy for us to buy in local markets. Local markets do not usually locate in cite centers in China; they are usually farther out from city centers because local farmers would not go that far and have booths in city centers to sell. Thus, if my Mom goes and buys at local markets, she would really need to drive or take public transportation. Anyways, this means, according to Manning, the beef and pork I ate are from animals that were raised by grains (45) which need a lot of oil to farm. The pork should come from somewhere close, but I am really uncertain about the beef. I heard from the news these days that because the current beef price in China is extremely high, people smuggle beef. If the beef I ate were smuggled beef, the oil burnt for transportation would be even more. I guess I’ll just have to trust this supermarket and believe smuggled beef is not purchased as its stocks. The vegetable I ate is the same story. It is probably a product of the green revolution, meaning tractors and machines that are powered by fossil fuels are used. Again, unless we buy from local farmers, the vegetable we buy and eat would not be those produced by local small-scale farmers. Then, it comes to the rice. Rice is a major part of the Chinese diet. As Manning mentions, rice originates in the area of China and India (40). Thus, rice is grown and produced in China, but since there is the green revolution, the farming of rice has been oil consuming.
The packaging of these food products utilized oil for sure as well. Meat like beef and pork at supermarkets are now nicely packed. In order to let customers see the color and quality of the meat, the packaging of meat is usually covered by a piece of transparent wrap. I looked it up and confirmed that this transparent wrap is a piece of plastic film (Packaging of Fresh and Processed Meat); hence, there is oil. The vegetable is also placed in a plastic bag – a bag which has holes. My mom told me the holes are for releasing oxygen, so the vegetable won’t go bad as fast. Plastic bags – again, something that needs oil to make. I touched the rice bag; it does not feel like plastic, but the outer layer does feel like plastic… I guess oil is used again to produce this bag…
The last thing I would mention to wrap up this oil in my food consumption blog is the process of making dinner. Of course, dinner is made by my Mom. Every night, when she cooks dinner, she would have to wash everything. So, she uses water at home. As mentioned earlier, coal is burnt when we use water at home. When she has everything ready, she would have to use the stove to cook. Unfortunately, I am not a kitchen person, so I really do not know if our stove is a gas stove or an electrical stove. Either way, it will need electricity to run. Again, coal is burnt. After dinner, my Mom washes dishes, using water again. My lunch will need to be refrigerated, so electricity is used… Again and again, oil is used and fossil fuels are burnt for my food…
Works Cited
China. U.S. Department of Energy, 22 Apr. 2013. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.
Davis, Brandon, and Eagle Glassheim, Tino Loo. “Module 7.” History 106: Global Environmental History. University of British Columbia. Vancouver, B.C., 2013.
How Does Water Get to My Home? The USGS Water Science School, 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.
Manning, Richard. “The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq.” Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2004. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.
Packaging of Fresh and Processed Meat. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.
Production. Monde. M. Y. San Corporation, 2009. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.
SkyFlakes. Monde M. Y. San Corporation, 2009. Web. 9 Jul. 2013.