Kaitlyns Birthday Gifts by Elizabeth/Table4Five, on Flickr

I haven’t posted anything about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for many reasons. I have been reading a lot of commentary and listening to the voices of people much wiser and well spoken than I, watching news reports, listening to political rhetoric and environmentalist anger. But something’s been brewing in my head this whole time.

Wikipedia says peak oil is “the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.” Some experts believe we are already at the peak and others believe it is about twenty to twenty-five years off. Regardless of where we sit on the curve of oil viability, we are being told to conserve. Right now, the focus of conservation efforts seems to be gasoline usage. I guess since people see the gasoline going into their car and recognize it as a petroleum product, it’s a fair place to start.

But what about the supermarket? Can we learn to see oil there? If I am eating an apple in June in the northern hemisphere, how far did my food travel to reach me? Did it go by boat? Plane? Truck? All three? I’m guilty of eating bananas in Tennessee, kiwi in Oregon and pineapple in California, and all out of season. Coconuts for my beloved coconut oil are not local. Neither is my coffee, my cocoa powder or my sea salt.

I am guilty of picking up a ten pound (plastic) bag of organic potatoes rather than weighing out ten pounds in my own canvas bag. As Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish reminds us, plastic is a petroleum product. (Her thought-provoking take on the oil spill can be read here.) Looking through my home, I see petroleum everywhere, but nowhere in more abundance than my kitchen. Even though I’ve gotten rid of the plastic food storage containers, I still have appliances and tools of plastic, coatings on the shelves in my pantry, ceiling lighting fixtures, the paint on the wall. It’s everywhere.

It’s also in my food. According to the FDA, if…The names include a prefix FD&C, D&C, or External D&C; a color; and a number. An example is “FD&C Yellow No. 5.” Certified colors also may be identified in cosmetic ingredient declarations by color and number alone, without a prefix (such as “Yellow 5″) then your ingredient is made from petroleum. Made from petroleum. As in, “pass the unleaded.”

Vitamin capsules are made from petroleum, and the vitamins they contain use petroleum as a solvent to extract their active ingredients. If “enriched” appears on the label of a food item you are eating, the vitamins and minerals enriching your food were produced using petroleum as a solvent. Rubbing alcohol and vinegar, two of my “safe” cleaning products are made from petroleum, as is my daughter’s lipstick. Some of my most beloved products—raw milk, cod liver oil capsules and sea salt—come in plastic containers.

It would not be possible for me to reduce my usage of petroleum to zero. The extremist in me will just have to acknowledge that and deal. But I’m seeing the oil now. When I put something plastic in the recycle bin, I see the oil. When I put the DVD in the player, I see the oil. When I vacuum my carpet, I see the oil. And every time I see the oil, I know that my insatiable lust for more—more convenience, more speed, more stuff—is what caused the oil spill that now threatens far more than “just a piece of ocean.”

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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