Healthy Living

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Four (fast!) ways to green your cooking tonight

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Okay: We know that it's important to eat seasonally and locally (it takes less energy to get food from plant to plate that way) and that we should fill our recycling bin to the brim whenever possible. But there's more to going green in the kitchen: according to Kate Heyhoe, author of Cooking Green (Da Capo Press), appliances account for 30 percent of our household energy use, and the biggest guzzlers are in the kitchen.

Up your environmental mojo with these four clean, healthy diet and earth-savvy cooking strategies. Bonus: They'll save you time and slice your utility bills!

1. Scratch baking. Don't wait for the oven to preheat - it's not the most efficient way to make small loads - up the 94 percent of the heat from this appliance is wasted (ie, spent warming the kitchen rather than warming your food!). Instead, use a toaster oven or microwave to do thinks like bake a potato or roast a plum.

See our tips: Green your kitchen routine!

2. Put a lid on it. Cook pasta by placing dry noodles in water an letting them boil for two minutes. The extinguish the flame, clamp on a cover and let sit for the cooking time on the package. A no-touch, al dente dinner!

3. Think small. Shave minutes off cook time with quick-fire foods. Smaller, thinner ingredients need less time to heat, so pound chicken breasts into slim cutlets before you saute or grill - it iwll take less time and the food will be more evenly cooked through as well.

4. Surrenter the sink. Surprise! Running a full load in the dishwasher uses less water than washing by hand. Use the "air dry" as opposed to the "heated dry" feature to save energy.

Reach Your Goals! YOUR ONE-MONTH TOTAL BODY MAKEOVER IS HERE!

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