Yogurt

   Pretty much everyone in my house likes yogurt. As a result, we buy a lot of it. However, a few times a year we will go about making our own homemade yogurt. Yogurt essentially has two ingredients: Milk, and bacteria. However, the fermentation process is quite fickle and requires very specific conditions and for just about every container and utensil to be sanitized before each use.

   Good Eats with Alton Brown is pretty much the best cooking show to ever be on TV and not surprisingly has a pretty good episode dedicated exclusively to homemade yogurt and its applications.

  This video provides a pretty awesome background on one version of the yogurt making process. It is however, slightly different from the way we have done it in the past at my house. Instead of using store bought yogurt, we typically order freeze dried yogurt cultures from Dairy Connection, a commercial source that is surprisingly friendly to noncommercial yogurt and cheese makers. The cultures that we have used in the past are the ABY653 and ABY-2C yogurt cultures. The contents of the ABY653 and ABY-2C cultures are: Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and Bifidobacterium lactis. Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus are the two most common bacteria seen at work during the fermentation process. All of the above bacteria are at least partially responsible for the production of lactic acid. Typically we use the ABY-2C culture as it tends to produce thicker yogurt in a shorter amount of time without the use of powdered milk. In addition to using commercial yogurt cultures as opposed to store bought yogurt, we typically try to keep the temperature during the incubation period about 10 degrees lower than the 115 degrees that Alton recommends. We also leave it at that temperature for about 8 hours as opposed to 6 just prior to refrigeration and we sweeten the yogurt with sugar and vanilla as opposed to honey (our few attempts at experimenting with flavoring did not end well). I have never had any issues regarding the opacity of the container either.

   So that's pretty much the gist of yogurt making. It involves a bunch of bacteria, and milk. The milk that we typically use at our house is the 2% milk that we buy from DeJong's Dairy in Lake Elsinore. It's about 15 miles from my house but yea... try their milk (particularly the chocolate milk) and you will understand. 

The dairy produces all of its own dairy products (naturally) and has been in business for more than 50 years according to the current owner, Herman. 

This guy

  There are some environmental impacts that come with the consumption of yogurt. When we make yogurt at home, it does require that we buy milk that comes in a plastic container, and store bought yogurt typically comes in a thick plastic cup with an aluminum seal.

  From what I hear, yogurt is also fantastically healthy for you. Yogurt provides a boatload of calcium, whey protein and depending on the fermentation process is usually a really good source of vitamins B2 and B12 as well. Additionally, the consumption of milk based products has been shown to be correlated (at least in some way) with a person's tendency to meet their daily vitamin A needs (McKinley).

Sources

McKinley, Michelle C. "The Nutrition And Health Benefits Of Yoghurt." International Journal Of Dairy  

           Technology 58.1 (2005): 1-12. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.

   Alright so, it turns out that I used quite a bit of stuff today. The vast majority of which (who am I kidding, basically all of which) was from The Earth in some way. So much so that I think these lists deserve bullet points.

A) Food and Drink
   
    1) Breakfast

• 1x English muffin (bread)
• 2x Eggs
• 2x Strips of bacon
• 1x Slice of pepper jack cheese
• ~12 oz. Donald Duck orange juice
• ~20 oz. Am-Pm coffee
• ~3 tbsp. Hazelnut flavored half and half
• ~4-5 Napkins

    2) Lunch

• ~16 oz. Iced tea
• ~1/4 lb Grilled chicken
• ~2 tbsp. Grilled onion
• ~2 tbsp. Salsa
• ~2 tbsp. Lettuce (Romaine mix I think)
• 1x Handful of cheddar cheese
• 1x Spinach tortilla
• 1x Small bag (I forget the exact size) dried mango with chili stuff
• ~6-7 Napkins

    3) Dinner

• 1000 ml or ~34 oz. Adnams Broadside Ale
• ~2 cups Tillamook chocolate peanut butter ice cream
• ~2 cups Steam cauliflower
• 1 cup steamed white rice
• ~ 1/2 lb grilled chicken
• ~ 2 tbsp. peanut oil
• ~ 2 tbsp. various spices (garlic, etc.)
• ~6-7 Paper towels
• ~4-5 Napkins

    4) Between Meals

• 1500 ml or ~ 51 oz. bottled water
• 16 oz. Norco college coffee
• ~2 tbsp. plain half and half

B) Housing and other buildings

• My house
• RCC Riverside Math and Science building
• RCC Norco Applied Technology building
• RCC Norco Industrial Technology building
• RCC Norco Student Activities building
• RCC Norco Student Store building
• RCC Norco Tutoring Center building
• My car (Does that count?)

C) Transportation and Roads

• My car (I guess that answered my question)
• ~4 gal Gasoline
• The 15 freeway
• The 215 freeway
• The 91 freeway
• Various surface streets (14th street, Magnolia, etc.)

D) Clothing

• A Scooby-Doo t-shirt
• A pair of black jeans
• My shoes
• My jacket
• Undergarments
• My wallet
• My pocketwatch that my girlfriend got me for Valentine's Day
• My backpack (Does that count?)

E) School Supplies

• My backpack (Haha, answered my question again)
• My calculators (those ultimately came from the earth)
• 2x Pencils
• ~25-30 Sheets of graph paper
• 1x Dry-erase marker
• Eraser for dry-erase marker
• Pencil sharpener (little plastic hand crank one)
• An unfathomable amount of eraser

F) Personal Care Products

• Tooth brush
• ~1/2 tsp. Tooth paste
• Shower water (probably a lot)
• Sink water (also probably a lot but not nearly as much as shower water)
• Hair brush
• ~3-4 tbsp. Shampoo
• Bar Soap
• Cloth towel
• Aerosol deodorant
• ~8-10 Sheets paper towels
• ~1/128 roll of toilet paper
• 2x toilet seat cover (have to double up)

G) Leisure Activities

• ~1/4 can Aerosol primer (white)
• ~1/8 can Aerosol primer (black)
• ~1/8 can Aerosol matte varnish
• ~1 tbsp. Rubbing alcohol
• ~4 Cue tips
• 2x Styrofoam cups
• ~100-300 drops Acrylic paint (various colors)
• ~6 oz. Distilled water
• ~10-15 drops Drying retardant
• A bunch of compressed air
• ~3 tbsp. Dry pigment
• 1x Ceramic tile
• 1x Cloth towel
• 2x Sheets paper towels
• Various brushes (both hair and synthetic)
• Guitar
• Guitar strings
• Guitar picks
• Guitar pickups, hardware and wiring

H) Other

• Various containers from food and drink items
• Duct tape for my car door handle (it is broken)
• Various paper receipts
• Debit card
• Cash

   Yea...

   As I went throughout my day, one of the things I noticed (although I have been noticing this for years) is that I use a massive amount of paper. I use paper towels, napkins, paper cups, toilet paper, toilet seat covers, receipts and writing paper quite liberally. I did use a lot of paint and painting related items today as well but I don't paint every day so in the grand scheme of things I would say that probably isn't too bad. It seems like I use quite a bit of plastic too but that doesn't really surprise me either. In addition to plastic, paper and painting crap, the other obvious one staring everybody in the face is water. Yes, I use a lot of water. However, this seems to be less reconcilable considering that pretty substantial amounts of it are an absolute need in order for me to even survive. So, considering that paper is the thing that I seem to use the most (except for probably water), it would make sense to focus on that.

                                       

  As far as what paper is made of: well, it is made of paper. Haha, I'm only kidding (although not really, because it really is made of paper). As far as I understand it, most paper is made of processed wood, grass, or other kinds of plant material. It's uses are pretty varied. In this one day alone I used it for probably ten different things. If it is thick enough, it can be used as a container such as a cup. I did a shit ton of writing on paper today. For example:

                                                             This is one math problem

 I also used it for hygienic purposes, in addition to a transaction record (receipt).

  According to these folks and their sources: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2231/how-is-paper-made about 95% of the material used in the paper making process comes from trees. It seems to follow that this involves some labor along the lines of logging/tree chopping, which would require those with the necessary skill and badassery to chop said trees down. Both softwood and hardwood trees are used to make paper, some of which include: spruce, fir, pine, birch, maple and oak (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2231/how-is-paper-made). The finer points of paper making are covered quite extensively in the linked article, however the basic principle behind paper making dictates that it involves a fair amount of human labor and in the vast majority of cases machine labor as well (cooking, chemical treating, pressure, seperation, bleaching etc.). Most paper, after it has been used is recycled, ideally. Paper has been around for thousands of years so there is no question as to its availability 100 years ago.

   Paper mills used to be a significant source of hazardous chemical emittions as a result of the treatment and bleaching processes. However, more recently many paper mills have made switches to relying on less hazardous chemicals for these processes (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2231/how-is-paper-made). Paper processes altogether have become more efficient over the years, resulting in a decrease in raw material used per unit.

   Although paper has come a long way in terms of being less harmful to the environment, the fact still stands that you have to litterally cut down trees to get the stuff when (at least as far as writing paper is concerned) typing your work on a computer screen is functionally equivalent in about 99.9% of cases. New methods of hand drying that don't require any paper have been implemented over the years and were initially kind of a pain in the ass but have gotten way better as anyone who has used a public restroom recently can tell you.

Ultimately, paper is on its way out. We still use it all of the time, but 30 years from now it will likely be completely dated.