This year's Thanksgiving dinner was top-notch. The free-range turkey was cooked just right, and the apple cider we picked up from Weber's Farm (perhaps the most popular family-run apple orchard in Maryland, and undoubtedly the producers of the best apple cider you'll ever taste) hit the spot.

Of course, I did pick up a little flack from some of my family over my desire to keep this year's Thanksgiving dinner as energy-efficient as possible. Not that I expected any less. The fact is, on its face the idea of an "efficient Thanksgiving" seems kind of odd. The average consumer puts little thought into the amount of energy we consume in order to feast like gluttonous royalty.

But the fact is, our entire conventional food production and distribution system is highly inefficient.

Back in 2002, a study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated that, using our current system, three calories of energy were needed to create, on average, one calorie of edible food. The biggest culprit is actually grain-fed beef, which requires 35 calories for every calorie produced.

The most prominent factors found in this inefficient system are:

• Inefficient growing practices

• Food processing

• Storage

• Transportation

That's one expensive Turkey!

The turkey we bought this year was ordered through a local organic and natural foods store. It was juicy, tender and delicious. And it was about three times the cost of the conventional turkeys they were selling at the mega-supermarket.

But these turkeys were raised without genetically-modified feed or feed loaded with pesticide residue. There was minimal processing, minimal storage, and transportation was less than 30 miles.

Now why would I tell you about this? What's the investment angle?

It's simple.

The current system cannot sustain itself as energy prices continue to rise. And the companies operating in a more sustainable manner are the companies that will rise to the top when the turkey poop hits the fan.

Let me explain . . .

Most of the food produced today is done so in an unsustainable way. And I'm not just talking about environmentally unsustainable. I'm talking about bottom-line sustainability. In other words, with rising energy prices, companies cannot sustain themselves by sticking with a "business-as-usual" approach.

For instance, let's take a look at the amount of fossil fuel used in industrial farming.

Certainly fossil fuels are used in transportation and fueling machinery. And that has to be figured into the equation. But the biggest chunk of fossil fuel usage in industrial farming actually comes from chemicals.

That's right, as much as 40 percent of energy consumed in the food system can be traced back to artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

You see, fertilizers are synthesized from nitrogen and natural gas--a big energy drainer. According to the D.O.E., it takes an average of 5.5 gallons of fossil fuels per acre.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, however, smaller, pasture-based livestock farms utilize natural cycles. That is, the animals feed themselves on grass and distribute manure, fertilizing the pasture without the assistance of chemical fertilizers.

Another energy hog in our system is food transportation.

Most industrial farming utilizes economies of scale to gain a competitive advantage. And that means that today, most of our food is grown in concentration-specific areas. However, as we're seeing now with rising oil prices, the cost advantage could potentially disappear within the next twenty years, simply because it'll be too expensive to transport all that food from one centralized area. This is a big country, folks! And it ain't cheap to move tomatoes grown in California's San Joaquin valley to Baltimore. Though it's still not uncommon for us to find these 3,000-mile tomatoes at the local supermarket.

And this is an international issue too.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than $120 billion worth of agricultural products crossed U.S. borders as imports and exports in 2005. How long do you think that's going to last with $300 oil?

It's funny, but you can buy local, organic tomatoes in Maryland for the same prices as those conventional tomatoes that come from California. Now guess which are fresher and sweeter? And guess which will be the cheaper deal in about a year or two?

Opportunities in Sustainability

There are a number ways to play the sustainability angle when it comes to food production.

The most obvious is organic food plays, since organic foods don't use pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. There are companies on the retail level like Whole Foods Markets (WFMI:NASDAQ) and Planet Organic (POH.V) and on the production side like Hain Celestial (HAIN:NASDAQ) and SunOpta (STKL:NASDAQ).

But we can dig even deeper here.

For example, the USDA has estimated that if all of our farmland's irrigation systems could become just 10 percent more efficient, we would save 80 million gallons of diesel annually spent on pumping and applying the water.

Well, here's one for you . . .

How about a company that uses solar-powered irrigation systems, like World Water & Solar Technologies (WWAT.OB)?

The USDA also states that reducing repetitive fertilizer application on the 250 million acres of major U.S. cropland would save about $1 billion worth of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides per year. This is an increasing price tag that organic food suppliers do not have to pay.

We have a couple of new plays scheduled for 2008 in this category. If you want in on these, you must be a member! You can join here.

Until then, enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving break.

To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth . . .

Jeff