For lunch, I decided to counter my extremely “oily” breakfast with some fresh food straight from my own garden and some store bought dressing.
I had:
A Garden Salad with Tomatoes, Butter and Green Leaf Lettuce, Snap Peas, Strawberries and Carrots from my own Garden.
Three Tablespoons of Kraft Italian Dressing – Kraft, Canada
Ingredients: Water, Soybean Oil, Vinegar, Glucose-Fructose, Salt, Garlic, Xanthan Gum, Onions, Lemon Juice, Sorbic Acid, Spices, Red Bell Peppers, Parsley, Calcium Disodium, Colour. (No Artificial Flavours)
2 Glasses of Apple Juice – SunRype, Canada
The Salad
At first I thought that the salad without dressing would cost little to no oil to make but then I started to think about it. My grandfather tends our garden with his own hands, and he does not use any chemicals or pesticides therefore all the produce is pretty close to organic, if not completely organic.
The part I did not think about was the fact that although some seeds used in the garden are ones he has saved from last year or prior years. Some he bough this year. I decided to investigate into how seeds are produced, packaged and transported and how much oil that would involve.
Producing certified seeds is harder than you would think. For seeds to be certified and sold they must pass an inspection that proves that there is no cross contamination between plants. To avoid cross contamination, they constantly need to disinfect all their equipment using either machines that gush compressed air or water or cleaning chemicals. This involves using energy in some form, and then chemicals cost oil and energy to produce. In addition, they must carefully tend their fields and prepare them for seed growing. This involves the use of oil guzzling machines such as tractors to plow and harvest. After the seed is grown and collected it is stored. This also involves using oil in transport. Then, before the seeds can be sold they must be conditioned (deeply cleaned) to rid them of any further contamination. This process involves the use of conditioning machines and uses up a fair amount of energy. After the seed is properly conditioned it is once again inspected and then can be packaged and sold either in bulk or in packets. Packaging and transporting the seeds to their destination also requires large amounts of oil. (Producing Seed)
So in actuality, my little salad that I believe was cost almost no oil. Does cost a fair amount. Although garden fresh foods involve much less oil than supermarket purchased foods they still use up a bit of it.
In the past before farming became industrialized, farmers collected seeds themselves by hand, conditioned their seeds by hand and plowed the fields with animals. This method of seed making required little to no oil. Unfortunately, due to the large amount of crops farmers need to produce in order to make a profit, and due to the fact that many seeds such as hybrid seeds are now patented which does not allow farmers to keep their seeds, more seeds are needed. So even seed growers are now dependent on oil and machines.
The Dressing
My dressing was just a typical dressing from Kraft Canada. Kraft is one of the bigger food companies in the world. I know just by that, that this dressing has probably been manufactured in every way possible, but it’s one of my favorite, and when you are allergic to dairy… your choices are limited. I buy it because for me it’s fast and convenient and has a long shelf life. But because it’s made by such a big company it is very hard to investigate into where the ingredients come from as Kraft has suppliers from all around the world and contracts out lots of it’s work.
Dressing bought from the store is something that is super processed. The vegetable content of the dressing is very little and the biggest ingredients are water, oil and vinegar. Because it is so processed, it means that machines are involved in chopping the vegetables (which in the case of this oil are dried), mixing the liquid parts, adding the solid ingredients, and then once again mixing everything together.
As I stated above, since it is a big company, they will be searching for the cheapest possible ingredients to make the largest profit. Meaning that they will cart in ingredients from all over the world and as we know already, transportation is extremely gas guzzling.
In addition the products packaging is machine made, and although it is fully recyclable, the amount of oil involved in making it and the fact that the bottles are plastic which uses oil to be produced makes it all the more costly.
SunRype Apple Juice
The great thing about SunRype is that for one it’s local, based in Kelowna and secondly, they do not have any artificial ingredients in their juices. Which is more than I can say for a lot of other big juice companies. At least you know you are drinking really apple juice and not water with apple flavouring. In addition all their suppliers must be HACCP certified which means that they follow strict food health code regulations. Although, I’m not entirely sure what their environmental initiatives are.
It would be great if they used only local suppliers but they use suppliers from all around the world, which means that they have to transport a lot of goods which uses a lot of oil. In addition, it also adds to the uncertainty of where or how the fruit is being produced.
The fruits are probably being bought and cultivated in the cheapest way possible which is often the least environmentally and oil friendly way possible. But I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Apple Juice is made in a factory where machines press the juice out of the fruit. In addition the fruit may be grinded by machines in order to get the most juice out of them. Then the juice is refined, inspected and packaged all by machine. Trucks transport the juice to where it needs to go.
An advantage of buying SunRype juice is that it has a shorter distance to travel to my local supermarket than juices from the states or other parts of the country. Which reduces the amount of oil it takes to deliver it to the nearest supermarket and then my home.