Environmental impact of your food.

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by 557, Sep 19, 2024.

  1. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    So we’ve had some debate lately about the amount of fossil fuels it takes to “make” a calorie of food we consume. The average American diet requires about 10 calories of fossil fuel to “create” 1 calorie of food.

    Just for fun I thought I’d share what I’m eating tonight for a bit of context.

    IMG_4122.jpeg

    5 eggs
    1/8 cup milk
    1/2 of an onion
    1 bell pepper
    1 tomato
    Salt

    Eggs are from our chickens now sleeping about 30 yards from where I’m eating. They eat primarily grains I grow within 15 miles of home and scraps and insects

    Milk is from my cows chewing their cud about 100 yards from where I’m eating. They eat feed I grow mostly within 1/4 mile of home, the rest within 15 miles.

    Onion, tomato and pepper from the garden about 1/8 mile from my house. Grown with organic matter based fertilizer (composted horse, donkey, chicken, cow, and camelid crap) and no fossil fuel based fertilizer.

    Salt is from the freaking grocery store because I live a long way from the ocean. :)

    Yes, some fossil fuel inputs (fertilizer, diesel fuel) come from growing the grains the animals eat and a little in transportation of feed. But far less than 10 calories of fossil fuel to each calorie of food.

    I’m well aware most people can’t grow this much of their own food. I’m very blessed.

    But if people are really concerned about fossil fuel usage in agriculture there are ways to minimize your footprint. Grow a bit of food yourself. Buy local from people who use regenerative practices. Eat less processed foods.

    Thread not intended to be deep or controversial. Just “food for thought”. :)
     
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  2. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I want chickens for the eggs. I have enough space for chickens. Barely. I havn't because reasons, but I really should.

    I've heard it put that chickens are the gateway drug to freedom. They turn garbage into food and demand nothing in return.

    ...I mean its a little more complicated than that, but not much.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2024
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  3. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Yep. Chickens are easy to deal with and inexpensive to feed. And eggs are one of the most healthful nutritionally complete foods.
     
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  4. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I cannot have chickens because of neighborhood restrictions but my city allows people to have up to 4 hens per household. They also allow bee hives but the setback requirements make it difficult for most people to meet them. I grow a fair amount of vegetables and harvest rainwater for the pretties and edibles. Problem for me is that the vegetables I like the most are not really well-suited for the area as far as growing so I end up giving a lot of things away because I am whatever about them. Even leafy lettuces have been hard to grow the last 5 years or so because the heat is coming on too fast and lasting too long. Without the cooler shoulders at the beginning and ending of the gardening year, the lettuce, bok choy and the like almost always bolt super early. I let a couple hispanic guys from a tree crew who recently did some work for me glean my garden because I am sort of over tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers at this point I have eaten so many this year.
     
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  5. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Just got a good rain today.
    Might go out tomorrow too see about harvesting some chanterels. But this was my spot a couple of weeks ago. The water should have gone down by now but no telling how the foraging might be.

    IMG_20240911_121654194.jpg IMG_20240903_175411003.jpg
     
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  6. Media_Truth

    Media_Truth Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Our chickens free-range, and like to poke through my garden fence and eat everything within 6”. I started planting turnips around the entire perimeter. They eat the greens, which are really good for them, and I dig the turnips.

    I also used some old abandoned fenced chicken coops to plant a seed mix of wild oats. Hairy vetch, and field peas. When it’s about 18” tall, I open it to the chickens, and they eat in there for about 2 weeks. I had 4 plantings like this, and rotated them through.
     
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  7. Melb_muser

    Melb_muser Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    When was body corporate chairman of an apartment block that I lived in a young couple, that I liked, asked if they could have a couple of chickens in the corner of the front garden. I said sure. Keep it discrete and get a quiet species.

    They wanted to expand. I said probably not a good idea.

    They expanded and then somebody reported them to the council. That was the end of that. I'll never forget the red beery face with moustache of the councilman that came out to argue the toss with me, describing that somebody complained about a 'fowl odor' in the neighbourhood (with a chuckle). I'm sure he had been wanting to tell that joke all day :)
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2024
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  8. CKW

    CKW Well-Known Member

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    I don't have the energy after stressing at work to keep my garden alive. I appreciate my groceries being shipped from whereever using as much fossil fuel as needed. Keeps me fed. I'd like chickens---having a couple of neighbors that have them. But keeping them safe from hawks, coyotes and cold weather means a lot of money going into the chicken coop.
     
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  9. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I haven't ate shark in a couple of years and it's about time for me to go out and catch one at my spot.

    I like to catch them on a hand line which is a 9-in plastic donut spooled with some cheap 40 lb monofilament and a 2 and 1/2 ft long piano wire stainless steel leader with a 2 oz lead egg sinker and a live tilapia of roughly 4 inches that I cast net.

    I like a shark of around 20 to 30 lb which is a lot of fun to catch on the hand line and I think the smaller ones are probably safer to eat as far as mercury contamination. Though the game warden might not agree.... I think they're supposed to be 58 in or something.

    But I'm sure that that's better than the processed garbage that consists of most of our diets
     
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  10. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    Some success. There's three are prime condition and they were right next to each other. This is where I recently posted the picture of the flood water on the water has only receded for maybe a week and you can see they are already back.

    Kind of jealous of other people because this is the most I ever found in one spot and I see other people in Florida finding pounds of them at a time.

    Sauteing these up with non-salted butter is the way to go ( salted butter Burns quicker )

    And then salt and pepper and maybe some garlic butter if you like. You would be hard-pressed to find better eating. These pretty much grow in every single state and are some of the safest to identify for beginners. If you walk past a pound or two of these and didn't even know it, you passed up some of nature's free lobster.

    IMG_20240920_174836301.jpg IMG_20240920_173927846.jpg
     
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  11. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Dang! That looks good! Our mushrooms seem to have faded out, but we had some like those in the photos. Got me wanting to try again next year. After I learn a lot more.
     
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  12. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    That got me thinking. I was reading through my great-grandmother's diary the other day, and she always mentioned how many eggs she got each day. She also spent lots of time canning the vegetables they grew because they wouldn't have any if they didn't can their own. Same with meat. Kept it in a cold cellar. They farmed their land, but didn't have a tractor. She also told how "Dad" (my great-granddad) would take the wheel off the car to hook up some kind of belt-driven saw for cutting firewood. And of course, she loved the music on her radio when the car battery was brought in for power. I'm sure their fuel usage was much lower that it would be today.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2024
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  13. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Giving the produce away would have the same emissions footprint reduction because the people you share with are not buying what they otherwise would from possibly another country via the grocery store.

    We do leafy greens early spring and then nothing over the summer and then again in a fall garden.

    We are trying to get rid of (give away) a few hundred pounds of apples right now. Love them and eat a lot but there are just so many this year….
     
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  14. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I’d like to forage mushrooms but I don’t have the skills. Looked into growing cultivated ones but it’s a lot of work.
     
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  15. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I like your ideas for growing feed for the chickens. I wish we could still free range chickens. The red fox population just can’t be controlled to the extent necessary to have chickens out free all day. Free range eggs are unbeatable for quality. And you probably don’t have much insect pest pressure with chickens surrounding the garden. Good system.
     
  16. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Division of labor is what makes modern society possible. :)
     
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  17. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    That’s a treasure you have in that diary. Good point about the trade off of convenience for energy usage. That’s really the bottom line. The more “prepared” your food is by others, in general the more convenient, but also more energy intensive.
     
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  18. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I recently learned to identify these myself and had no idea they were edible to begin with. Usually when you see something bright yellow in nature that's a sign to stay away from it but chanterelle's also come in red and pink and they look a lot like flowers laying in the leaf litter.
     
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  19. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    I like to say that you don't have to know every species to forage them safely, but you do need to know several of the easiest species to identify in your area and their toxic look alikes.

    You can get little kits for around $30 to grow some choice edibles that would usually cost you about $6 for a few ounces and many of the kits will grow a few pounds.

    Check out the ones they have for Lions Mane, a choice edible that is said to be very good for clarity of mind. I ate some for dinner the other night and only slept for an hour and a half but had extremely vivid dreams and felt like I had slept for much much longer and was very refreshed.

    And some species such as chanterelle cannot be commercially cultivated because of their unique relationship with tree roots. They can only be foraged though I did see some dried ones for sale on Amazon but as far as I know you will never find them fresh unless you go out and get them or know someone that does
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2024
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  20. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I was like that with peaches earlier in the season. I had more peaches than I have had in the past combined. It was crazy but then summer became a dud garden year for a lot of things as there was crazy hot dry weather for months followed by crazy hot rainy weather for weeks. I plan to get some mustard in the ground to over winter but I keep forgetting to go buy any. At this point I will just be happy if I have grass growing again before the frost. Tree company's skid steer was not kind to the turf (but at least there isn't a lot of ground damage even though the grass is just gone in that area).

    I gave up on apples. With so many cedar trees in this area it is just too much work to try to keep the rust in check. I do peaches, pears, and plums. Well the pears are more theoretical--healthy trees but not much in the way of edible fruit yet.

    I really don't grow in the name of my carbon footprint, though I suppose it does reduce it. I do it just because we have always done it. Some of my earliest childhood memories include the family getting together and working in the garden, processing things we grew, etc. I knew I was officially a big boy when my mom would have me go up the hill to the garden all by myself to check to see if there were any tomatoes or whatever needing picked. It was only maybe a couple hundred yards but at that age it felt like I was being sent into the wilderness alone on some scary great adventure in which I might have to fight off pirates or indians just to feed the tribe :angel:
     
  21. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Yeah, last summer was pretty polar here--in the sense that we went from dry to wet in extremes. And the summer before was a terrible drought. No mushrooms that year, but after this wet weather this past summer, we saw mushrooms sprouting up all over. I've never seen so many types. But the rain dried up a lot and there are no more mushrooms.

    You mentioned apples and it reminded me of how the smell of apples used to fill the air in the fall. There were a lot of orchards in that area, and when school started, many of the young people spent their afternoons picking apples when they got home. Weekends were for loading hay and digging potatoes. And the wives of the farmers would get together and fix us some amazing food to eat at the end of the day. It was a lot of work. Nobody does that anymore--except maybe the Amish.

    Odd memory--We finished loading up the hay and went back to the barn. The women were setting the tables set for us, but were not quite ready so I went to watch the farmers unload the wagons. Two guys. One in the wagon would use a pitchfork to stab the bale and toss it up into the loft. The other would carry them over and stack them. I was barely able to pick up those 40 lb. bales to get them on the wagon. That's my definition of respect.
     
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  22. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    And they look so good in the frying pan. I'm jealous.
     
  23. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I should probably try a kit to learn. Someone else already did the work of sterilizing and inoculating I assume. All I have to do is manage the growing environment?

    I could certainly use some Lion’s Mane. I enjoy sleep deprivation less and less as I age. :).
     
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  24. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    You ought to see them after they Brown up a little more
     
  25. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Yeh I get the “always done it” part. I grew up eating from and helping with the garden, orchard, animals, bees, etc. We were dirt poor so anything you could grow/raise to eat was great.

    The main reason I grow much of my food today is because it’s just better. As in it’s not only healthier, it’s just so much better tasting as well. I can’t even look at a cracked egg from the store. Gross.

    As far as carbon emissions I’m not particularly concerned from the atmospheric CO2 perspective either. Higher atmospheric CO2 and warming help me grow more food. But I do hate wastefulness. And I’m not a fan of particulate pollution either.

    What I care most about is putting carbon in the soil and plant matter where it belongs. Soil carbon is life.

    We have some trouble with cedars as well. Some varieties of apples handle them others have died actually. Peach trees last a few years and die here or get destroyed by wind. Currently we’ve given up on peaches and apricots and get them wholesale from Palisade Colorado.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2024
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