MIDNIGHT SNACK
Jul 6th, 2012 by sophiawa
My final little meal within my 24 hours of food blogging was a midnight snack I had after coming home from a bar with some friends. I had a Gabriel’s Bakery (Local Portland bakery) Bagel with some butter on it.
THE BAGEL
Gabriel’s Bagels (Jalapeno Cheese) are made in Northwest Portland and shipped across town via trucks which burn carbon fuel. The bagels are composed of “local sustainable wheat flour” which comes from Eastern Washingtonian farmers and is certified as sustainable by Food Alliance (an organization which “provides the food and agriculture industry with sustainability standards, evaluation tools, and a voluntary, third-party certification program based on these principles” – foodalliance.org). The next ingredient is water, which comes from the bull run watershed which provides nearly all of Portland’s water. After water, Gabriel’s Bagels use brown sugar which is either a naturally occurring product or is made by adding molasses to white sugar. Following brown sugar on the ingredients list is the Jalapeno. Gabriel’s Bagels use locally sourced ingredients whenever possible, so the jalapenos are most likely shipped via trucks from a local farm or supermarket which buys from local farmers. Next up is yeast. Yeast, according to Wikipedia is a unicellular classified in the kingdom fungi. At Gabriel’s Bagels they use these fungi to help their bagels rise. Gabriel’s bagels also use salt, which they probably buy in bulk from a major food distribution company and is shipped by truck from a salt mine, to a packaging plant, to a distribution center in Portland or the surrounding area, and then, finally, to Gabriel’s Bakery. The final ingredient is Monterrey Jack Cheese which is composed of pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt and enzymes. This cheese is made in a factory and is then shipped via truck to Gabriel’s Bakery. Once it is in the bakery, it is put in an oven and baked onto the bagel post-boiling.
Here is the bagel label
THE BUTTER
The butter that I spread on my bagel was “natural, unsalted, Darigold butter”. It contains only cream and says that it is churned from sweet pasteurized cream. It is distributed by Darigold from Seattle, Washington and then transported down to Oregon on trucks. I imagine that it would require fuel for machines that churn the butter, package it, and the transportation to Oregon.
REFLECTION:
Even when I am having just a small bagel snack a surprising amount fuel is used in the process! This blog has made me re-evaluate things like freeganism and 100-mile diets. There are so many resources and energy put into the transportation and processing of food for even a simple healthy meal. I have appreciated finding out more about where my food comes from and look forward to buying more local unprocessed food!