Where does cooking oil come from?

“If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?” - Stephen Wright

I'm amazed that there are people who do not realize that hamburgers and steaks come from cattle. Perhaps they think it was created in a laboratory or grew on a tree? Although a city-boy through and through, my grandfather was an Idaho dairyman so I did get to visit working farms as a child. I also learned just how much meat a steer can provide when grandpa give my mother a half side of beef as a Christmas gift. My parents paid for the butchering and rented a storage freezer. It took awhile to eat that much beef!

So although I'd like to think I know where food comes from, I did learn a few things in a recent blog, Cooking Oil or Butter. The authors researched what it would take to create new cooking oil (olive, canola, corn, etc.) should they run out.

• Corn oil takes 56 lbs (1 bushel) to make about 1.2 lbs of corn oil.
• Almond oil, Soybean oil and Sunflower oil like take a lot of product and some serious pressing and processing for not much output.

My wife & I experienced the same problem when we decide to make apple cider. We got a great deal on a half-bushel of apples and the nature center where she worked had a cider press. For all our effort we got perhaps a quart of cider.

Bottom Line

Some foods are NOT easy to make at home. Include LOTS of cooking oil in your food storage. When it's gone you're not likely to make more. Also be sure to use the oil and replace it since it will go rancid over time.

What alternative do you have for oil? Butter & lard. I know of two long term storage techniques for butter:

1. Butter powder - we have it but haven't tried it yet (not desperate enough :-)
www.usaemergencysupply.com/information_center/butter_powder.htm

2. Raise a goat, sheep or cow and make your own butter from milk. (the city-boy part of me says "no-way") www.geocities.com/zambo_da9/tip_goat_raising.html