Here are snack recipes that are thought-provoking, if not exactly appetizing. Slice a large tomato and pour in about 5-6 tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil. Depending on where you get your tomatoes, that oil is roughly equivalent to the amount of diesel fuel needed to grow them and get them to your table. thank you!
Influential environmental scientist and energy historian Vaclav Smil came up with this illustration several years ago. He recommends using black sesame oil on salads for maximum visual effect. His aim is to highlight that our current food system is completely dependent on fossil fuels, which are used to run agricultural machinery, make fertilizer, heat greenhouses, power ships, and even refrigerators. It is also used to generate electricity for cooling.
As he explains in his new book, to feed the worldwhich has made our food system productive enough to feed 8 billion people and growing. It also leaves inefficiencies and waste piling up, with food production taking up more than a third of ice-free land, swallowing up most of the water we use, and contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions. Almost one-third of the amount is occurring.
Smil, who is based at the University of Manitoba in Canada, is best known for his work on energy use throughout human history. But several of his more than 30 books focus on what we eat. Feed…
