If you want to fight climate change by reducing your carbon footprint, then your kitchen is not a bad place to start. From what food items you are buying to how you are storing and cooking them, you can reduce your carbon footprint and save a lot of energy. Adopting an eco-friendly cooking lifestyle will allow you to contribute towards the fight against climate change and make you and your family healthier. When you choose organic vegetables and fruits, you are choosing to keep the chemicals out of your body. Apart from that, most of the eco-friendly cooking habits actually help you save money. In this modern economy, a person watches every penny they spend, and this could help you save a good amount of money while eating healthy. In this article, I have mentioned a few useful tips that will help you go green with your cooking. Let’s have a look:
Purchase Food Items from Local Farmer
If you usually shop at the supermarket, you can introduce a little change to your shopping routine. Instead of buying vegetables and fruits at the supermarket, you should visit the local farmer and get fresh items from him. Fresh vegetables taste a lot better than the ones you can purchase from a vendor. By becoming a regular customer of the local farmer, you will be supporting his small business as well, which can also be quite satisfying. The food you will buy from the farmer would be cheaper, and it would not have the carbon footprint of transportation.
Get Creative with the Leftovers
In order to make your cooking eco-friendly, you will have to ensure that none of the leftovers are going to waste. When we have to deal with the Thanksgiving leftovers, we all know several ways to use that turkey. However, a good cook does not just use leftovers during thanksgiving only, but he does it all year. It does not matter what kind of leftovers you have sitting in the fridge or kitchen counter-top; you can always turn it to a new dish. For example, if you are making roast chicken on Saturday, use the leftovers in your salad on Monday. You can also check this food blog to explore new recipes that can help you deal with your leftovers.
Use Eco-Friendly Cookware
Using eco-friendly cookware would not make you an expert cook overnight, but it will help you reduce energy consumption and avoid harmful chemicals that come with different kinds of cookware. Nowadays, many companies have started to manufacture ceramic based cookware which is non-sticky and good for your health. Most conventional cookware is made from Teflon, a harmful chemical that can badly damage your health. Cookware with ceramic-based non-stick technology is heated much quicker and saves energy. Alternatively, you can choose cookware that is made from recycled materials.
Use Natural Gas
If you use electric stoves, then it is time for you to switch to natural gas-powered stoves. The majority of the good chefs still prefer to use natural gas because it cooks the food much better and quicker. Using natural gas also reduces the carbon footprint as it burns the gas directly to produce fire. An electric stove uses electricity produced from gas, coal, or fuel, which means the carbon footprint will be bigger. Natural gas also offers more flame control, which allows the chef to cook the food in a much better way. That is why it is wiser to go for natural gas.
Develop Eco-Friendly Habits
You do not necessarily have to complicate things to achieve your goal of eco-friendly cooking. All you have to do is take care of little things, and you will be able to save energy. If you are using a microwave oven, make sure it is not on for too long. Similarly, cook the amount of food that you need, so nothing goes to waste. These small tips can help you make a huge difference.
Author Bio :
I’m James Parker. I lead the content marketing department at Globex Outreach. I love helping people build their online businesses through my content marketing strategies. The best thing about it – I get paid for it.
