Oily Food

Americans consume about 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen for agriculture, a close second to our vehicular use. Getting the crop from seed to harvest takes only one-fifth the total oil used for our food. The lion's share is consumed during the trip from the farm to your plate. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles.

A quick way to improve food-related fuel economy would be if every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.

This information was extracted from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.