Summer 2014

The True Cost of Food
A Specialist’s View of the Way We Eat

 

By Edward Behr

Better food — more delicious, organic, sustainable — costs more. But consumers in the United States demand that food cost very little. As a proportion of income, we spend less on food than the people of any other country in the world. Our industrial agriculture allows us to do that. Some of us worry about environmental costs (that aren’t paid by farmers and don’t show up in a grocery bill) and about such things as the waste inherent in long-distance transportation. But what’s really going on? If instead of dollars you focus on the energy — calories — that go into our food from farm to fork, the situation may not be entirely what you think.

The best thing isn’t necessarily to head to a farmers’ market to pick up delicious ingredients for a meal tasting of the local terroir. Driving to buy food turns out to be a significant part of the energy that goes into what we eat, and a farmer’s market or CSA pickup point is often farther away than a conventional supermarket.

“In general, local food systems increase the calorie input,” Eric Garza explained, when I called to learn more. He teaches at the University of Vermont and specializes in energy use in food systems. His careful articles appear on his website, howericlives.com, where you see he’s a shaven-headed, youngish man. He speaks evenly, like a scientist, but with conviction. Why calories? I asked. They’re a universal measurement, he responded, whether of tractor fuel or the energy in food, and people are used to thinking of calories when it comes to food.

Garza takes his numbers from the USDA, which he says has the best analysis. In 2002, of the just over 12 calories that went into each calorie of food consumed, a mere 0.4 were due to long-distance shipping. The broad breakdown was 1.6 calories expended on the farm; 2.7 in processing and packaging; 4.4 in combined long-distance shipping, wholesale and retail operations, and foodservice; and an impressive 3.4 at the household end — driving and preparing and cooking food.

“Back around 1900, 1910, we put about as much energy into our system as we got out,” Garza said. The ratio was “about one to one.” Then, more and more, we substituted machines for expensive human labor, and more and more energy — more calories — went into each calorie of food. We could do it because we had cheap fossil fuels to run the machines. From the old one to one ratio, we leapt upward, until in 1997 in the US, according to the USDA, almost 11 calories went into each calorie of food consumed. The most recent available number is just over 14 calories in 2007. Garza extrapolates from that and says we now spend about 15 calories of energy for each calorie of food consumed.

But even 15 calories for each calorie of food turns out to be a partial number. Garza explained that the USDA numbers leave out certain energy costs, such as from research and development, water supply, wastewater treatment, waste disposal, and healthcare needed by people who suffer from a poor diet. Garza thinks the total energy expended might be 20 calories per calorie of food consumed.

It’s not that Garza justifies mass production, or that he doesn’t have romantic ideas about what could exist. It’s just that he’s realistic about where energy is going. He pointed to a large negative connected with mass production: “There’s a need to homogenize people’s expectations of food.” Deliciousness is a small part of the equation. “You’re necessarily reducing choices” — and marketing those choices uses energy.

Is eating meat a big culprit? One of Garza’s articles includes a graph of USDA figures showing that, of seven overall categories of food, grain took the fewest calories to produce, and even when processing and distribution were added, it still consumed the fewest calories. Meat took the most. But vegetables and fruits weren’t far behind. Garza writes:

The energy intensity of fruit and vegetables in the US might surprise some, but it shouldn’t; modern fruit and vegetable farming systems are highly industrialized, relying on vast monocultures, fertilizers, pesticides, and tillage practices that require heavy machinery and plenty of fuel. While grain is less energy intensive than other foods, it is relatively devoid of easily absorbed nutrients and provides little more than empty calories. At the national level, there appears to be little meaningful difference between the energy intensity of animal-derived foods relative to fruits and vegetables.

If you buy conventional food at a supermarket, you’re not reducing the calorie ratio by eating a vegetarian diet, but locally the methods and economics may be very different. One of the least energy-intensive ways to produce food, Garza, notes, is raise meat on pasture. (And for strong arguments on behalf of old-style, deep-rooted, superior kinds of wheat, see Dan Barber’s new book The Third Plate. Better grains, as part of rotations in mixed farming, might be the next agricultural frontier.)

Garza himself often eats wild foods, such as dandelions, burdock, violets, and lambsquarter, which require no calorie input. Dandelions, soon after the buds appear, turn shiveringly bitter, but Garza juices the greens all season long despite the bitterness. “My palate has become accustomed to it.” Do you enjoy the taste? “Yeah, I do,” he said (adding that “it’s not the same enjoyment I might get from putting a spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s in my mouth”). He said, “Our palates are not etched in stone.”

He’s not expecting any quick changes in our food systems, but he believes there will be evolution over time. He envisions plants continuing to be grown on a large scale but with less mechanization, largely without tillage, and without toxic chemicals. He believes organic and biodynamic methods will play an important role. He says that human labor becomes more affordable when practiced on a smaller scale, such as that of a market garden.

If you want to reduce the number of calories that go into the food you eat, you can switch to “a more whole-food diet, fresh food versus processed in a box. That’s a relatively easy one.” He speaks of “a shift to more people having access to food by walking.” He envisions less energy-intensive preparation, too, and more consumption of raw food and of fermented food, which is low-energy and makes food more digestible without cooking.

Is it realistic to expect major changes? I asked. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be? Change is natural,” he answered. “A normal part of culture is change.” He believes that in coming decades the ways we grow, process, store, prepare food will be very different. Consumer demand will drive the changes, whatever they are. Garza said current large farmers’ markets “are a bridge to getting some place else,” which might be a lot more small local stores with better food. He said, “It took us hundreds of years to get where we are. It will be a long process to get anywhere else.” ●

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