Cooking Green

Let’s be honest: Not all of us can ever hope to become the best chef in the world. But, with a little bit of practice, you can certainly become the greenest! Here are five simple tips for ways that you can make your kitchen more energy-efficient, eco-friendly and start cooking green.

• Put a lid on it-  Just by covering a pot on the stove top, you can reduce energy use by up to two thirds and heat food faster, saving you both time and effort.

• Keep the oven door shut-  When baking, try to resist the temptation to peek at those cookies every 2 minutes. Opening the oven door lets valuable heat escape and prolongs the time it takes for the food to cook, thus wasting a considerable amount of energy.

• The microwave is your friend-  Microwave ovens use up to 80% less energy than a conventional oven does.  It also cooks faster, leaving you more time to commit to environmentally-friendly activities.

• Multi-task-  Simultaneously preparing more than one food in the same pot saves both time and energy. For example, while boiling pasta you can easily steam fresh vegetables over the top of  the pan.

• Keep it simple- Forgo your desire to be the next Paula Deen and toss out all those fancy-shmancy cooking gadgets. Using good old-fashioned elbow grease is the most energy-efficient way to cook. For example, use knives instead of food processors, spoons rather than electric mixers, etc.   –Kristen Nipper

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Green Ways to Clean Kitchens

The room where you prepare your family’s food should be the last place you expect to find harmful chemicals. But many common cleaners  leave behind a chemical residue that can harm both you and the environment. You shouldn’t have to wear a hazmat suit just to clean your kitchen! Luckily, there are plenty of green ways to clean that will leave your kitchen gleaming  and your pockets full:

• Ban Chlorine Bleach- Bleach may seem like a cure-all for disinfecting, but scrubbing with this potent liquid can be hazardous to one’s health. Bleach contains harmful chemicals that can leak into ground water as well as fumes that are harmful to the environment. But there are plenty of other ways to get your kitchen dirt- and germ-free. Many manufacturers have come out with  green household cleaning products: Clorox, for example, now has a Green Works cleaner that is environmentally friendly and cleans great.

• When Life Hands You Lemons- Clean with them! Lemons have antibacterial qualities and will leave your kitchen smelling fresh. Tough stains on countertops can be removed by simply leaving lemon juice on the stain for a few minutes and then wiping it away with a wet cloth.

• Toss the Paper Towels- Paper towels not only waste  countless trees each year, but they also cut deep into your wallet. Paper products account for a third of the total waste in landfills, and the toxic fumes produced from manufacturing them have harmful effects on the atmosphere.  Sponges and cloth towels are cheaper, reusable, take up less space then a roll of paper towels, and are easily disinfected by boiling them in hot water.

• The Best of Baking Soda & Vinegar- Baking soda and vinegar are not only great cleaners, but both are non-toxic and remarkably cheap.  To clean counters, simply sprinkle baking soda on a wet cloth and wipe down the counter top. Vinegar acts as an all-purpose cleaner and can also be used as a disinfectant. Lemon juice will help cover the vinegar smell.

• Ditch the Dishwasher- Everyone loves the convenience of a dishwasher, but hand-washing dishes helps conserve water and saves money. Filling up the wash basins in your sink rather than just letting the water run while doing dishes uses half the amount of water a dishwasher would use. Sure, it takes a little more time, but it will save on your water bill as well as conserving H20 for the generations to come.  –Kristen Nipper

If you like Green Ways To Clean Kitchens, then you may also like:

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Water Saving Tips

So now World Water Day is over and those of us who can have donated our money, time and/or influence to help organizations such as Water.org in their mission to bring potable water to even the most impoverished of developing nations. What next?

While big annual events serve as great reminders of the global water crisis we all seem to forget about, there are simple water saving tips each of us can use to not only help conserve water for the planet, but also to conserve cash for our wallets. Here are some simple suggestions, most of which cost little or nothing!

• Hit The Showers-  A full bath can take 70 gallons to fill, while a 5-minute shower uses just 10-25 gallons. Better yet, shower with your spouse and together you’ll save nearly 100 gallons of water!

• Let It Flow, Slow & Low- Installing a low-flow shower head costs $20, but this simple screw-on attachment can reduce water usage by 50-70%! Better still, Lifehacker.com offers a DIY shower shutoff valve, allowing you to cut the water off while you get soapy without having to re-tweak your temperature.

• Replace Your Porcelain God- Any toilet manufactured before 1992 uses at least 3.5 gallons per flush. Modern toilets use less than 1.28 gallons, saving 60% of the water. A new toilet may cost a few hundred bucks, but it will save you several thousand dollars in water consumption over its lifetime. (Note: adding a brick to the toilet tank will help save even more!)

• Go Au Natural- According to the EPA, a typical single-family home uses 30% of their water on irrigation to water their lawn. In many cases, more than half of that water is being wasted due to evaporation and runoff caused by overwatering. Instead of high-maintenance lush green lawns, consider using the natural landscaping of your region, or at least creating an edible garden to offset your water usage.

• Refuse Not To Reuse- A big part of our water problem isn’t just that we over-use, but that we don’t make the most use of the water we have. You can put a bucket in the shower to catch the grey water, then use that to flush your toilet. My grandmother used to wash her dishes in a plastic bin, then pour the nutrient-rich water over her plants.  And rain water catchment systems can be as simple as an open barrel set below a drain pipe with a fine screen to keep insects out.

Saving water, and saving money in the process, is simple. It’s replacing our precious planet and its natural resources that’s hard…  –Bret Love

If you enjoyed our Water Saving Tips, you may also like:

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World Water Day

Tapped – The Bottled Water Scam

China is Running Out of Water

So you’re starting to get the Green Living thing down, or so you think: You reuse and recycle, turn off your lights whenever you leave the room, you’ve made the switch to CFL or LED lighting, and you’re streamlining your energy usage when carrying out your daily routine. But is your home doing everything it can to mimic your good intentions? With these 5 helpful tips from energy expert David Johnston, you can find out, potentially reducing your home energy consumption by almost half. Johnston recommends 5 easy ways to make simple changes:

• Power strip your small appliances

• Call in the experts for an in-depth energy audit

• Over-insulate your home

• Clean out rarely visited areas (such as an unfinished basement or crawl space) to check for leaks and monitor air ducts

• If you’ve got the budget, invest in new windows.

Sounding like the perfect project for spring? Check out the details here.  –Jenni Williams

“Transitional Ethics” is not a term most of us use in our everyday lives, but when it comes to going green it’s a concept we should all become familiar with. Just think about the last time you tried a green product and immediately realized one glaring flaw that triggered your discernment. Did you toss up your hands in frustration and decide it wasn’t worth it? Transitional ethics could be the answer to such dilemmas. 

According to green-tipster Michael Bloch, anyone attempting to “go green” needs to accept that such an evolution takes baby steps. The transition between how we used to live and how we should be living requires a forgiving attitude and a dedication to making gradual improvements, no matter how minor. In a recent blog, Bloch relates a story about a dam in his neighborhood. Losing the dam would’ve threatened an entire neighborhood’s water supply during a particularly alarming drought. Cleaning it up by hand would be an inefficient waste of time, despite the best intentions towards the planet’s health. In the end, hiring a bulldozer got the job done quickly and efficiently. Yes, it blew smoke and burned fuel for hours, creating pollution. But the truth is that a few hours of pollution saved a lifetime’s water supply.

In the end, Bloch suggests we’d all do well to take a step back from our heated efforts to change the world ASAP and learn to start making small, sustainable changes that will ultimately lead to one massive good (and permanent) change down the road. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and saving the planet doesn’t happen overnight. Read more of Bloch’s insights on the Green Living Tips blog.  –Jenni Williams