Do I have to worry about my cooking oil too?!?
Behind the scenes on my 'sustainable cooking oils' explainer for Bon Appétit.
Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and this newsletter grows by word-of-mouth. Someone share or forward this edition with you? Sign up here. You can also read and share this edition online
I'm back with a new occasional newsletter format to share a story I published on Bon Appétit's website last week about "new" kinds of cooking oil with big sustainability claims. Let me take you a bit behind the scenes of everything you never knew you wanted to know about algae oil.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
Would you swap out your vegetable or olive oil for one made with algae? What if it cost $25 for a 12 oz bottle?
This past week I published a story on Bon Appetit's website about a "new" crop of cooking oils that claim to be better for the planet. As someone who had dipped her toe into stories about food & climate before, I considered the assignment from Bon Appétit with a bit of trepidation. Food is perhaps one of the most complicated intersections of climate, and I was unlikely to "get to the bottom" so to speak, on the claims these companies were making.
But encouraged by a strong experience at SEJ and a fairly tight deadline, I made the case to myself that this was something I could use my skills to improve coverage on this topic, which had mostly consisted of breathless headlines and same-y talking points.
So no, algae oil doesn't smell like pond scum: the pitch from fancy chefs for it actually involves its "neutral" flavor, meaning the oil itself doesn't taste like much, preventing secondary flavors on foods cooked in the oil. That's because the algae is a helper to the process, not an output: under controlled conditions, microscopic sized algae are fed sugarcane, which they convert to oil, plumping themselves up as they grow. The oil itself is extracted from the algae.
As I reported, this process also works with certain yeasts, and can be used to produce everything from biofuels to fish oil replacements.
But the economics are tricky, whether microalgae or yeast is being used. “Running a bioreactor is expensive,” Boundy-Mills says, and the costs have made it difficult for microbe-created biofuels to compete with the relatively low cost of petroleum. So some companies have turned to higher-value commodities: cosmetics, industrial lubricants, and—yes, premium cooking oil.
Is this cooking oil that much better for the planet? The companies making these products have some eye-popping claims about their carbon emissions, land and water use compared to olive, soybean and other commonly-used oils. Their claims make sense in terms of the processes they're using, but I couldn't fact check the specific figures, as many were from a single life cycle assessment, commissioned by sustainable oil company from 2016, that I didn't have.
There's no question about the fact that industrial production of cooking oils does impact the environment, but the marketing behind these companies needed some better context:
But each crop has a different mix of impacts. Palm oil uses relatively little land per metric ton but has high greenhouse gas emissions, while canola has higher land use but lower emissions. Even within each crop, there is a wide range of how water- and emission-intensive growing these plants can be, according to a new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
These crops have driven deforestation and emissions increases, but there's other parts of our food system that have a bigger impact.
Grazing lands for cattle makes up an estimated 41% of yearly destruction. Forestry products like paper and timber are also major contributors... While soybean production has grown rapidly in the past 50 years—and contributed to major deforestation in places like Brazil—more than three quarters of all production in the world is not destined for cooking oils, or even for human consumption, at least not directly. Instead that proportion of soybeans are being grown for animal feed, especially for poultry and pig, according to data compiled by the USDA.
What does it all mean? I'm not exactly rushing out to replace all my cooking oils. There's probably some sort of broader future for oils produced in this way, but right now they're mostly an expensive curiosity, a way to create a consumer brand for the second time (there was a company that tried this in 2016) around a new way of making oils and fats that intrigues both sustainability-minded folks and foodies.
You can read the rest of my explainer here.
Adventures in reuse
Last month I went to Community Forklift just to see what they had, when I found this electric tea-kettle. It was a little grody, full of calcium deposits, but functional. Four vinegar rinses later, it looked new and has been serving our household tea (and adding hot water to pots) needs.
What I've been reading
- "Zombie" coal plants and the need for better transmission planning. If you live in the mid-Atlantic, this is a particular problem with your electricity grid. (Canary Media)
- This happens regularly in California during the spring, but Maine?? (Maine Public)
- Michigan's AG is planning to sue fossil fuel companies for their contribution to climate change. (Bridge Michigan)
- What Can ‘Green Islam’ Achieve in the World’s Largest Muslim Country? (NY Times)
- Can’t install your own solar panels? Some states let you join a community project (Stateline)
- Louisiana lawmakers take aim at federally-funded community air monitoring (Floodlight)