Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen

by Kate Heyhoe

Choosing local, organic foods benefits your health and the planet’s. But how you cook is as important as what you cook: cooking itself is an under-reported yet substantial greenhouse gas creator. Now, Kate Heyhoe shows you how to think like an environmentalist in the kitchen. Without changing your politics or completely disrupting your routine, you can reduce your impact on the planet by rethinking how you cook, shop, and consume food. Using your favorite recipes, you can bake, broil, and grill in greener ways, saving fossil fuels and shrinking your “cookprint.”

Genres: Cooking, Nonfiction, Food, Green, Cookbooks

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2009

Reviews

[Erin Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at making your kitchen greener - a lot of it would fall under common sense but I hadn’t really thought about which cooking utensils are better for the environment which was interesting to read about - plus there are some fun recipes to try out.

[Mindy Cotter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a bit of information I really hadn't given much consideration to. I will definitely start using some of the ideas! It was also good to know that I had already been incorporating some of them. Also has a recipes section in the back, some sound really good!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written and thought out. If everyone followed one or two of her suggestions it would make a difference in the health of the planet.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched and packed with information, but most of the tips are common sense. Other tips are way too complicated/technical for the average cook to take into consideration on a daily basis.

[Susan Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our individual food choices—how we select and prepare our food, how we store it and dispose of the wastes—are part of what has become an enormous, life-changing global problem: global warming and climate destabilization, caused by human production of greenhouse gasses. Kate Heyhoe estimates that twelve percent of all these emissions result from growing (think fossil-fueled agriculture), packaging, transporting, and preparing our food. Over 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide per household per year is attributable to what and how we eat. Chew on that for a moment.

If we care (and we should) what can we do? Cooking Green is full of good ideas for reducing what Heyhoe calls our "cookprint," the environmental impact of every meal we eat. She starts by suggesting that we should think of ourselves as "ecovores," choosing and eating "foods that are raised and grown in harmony with the environment." This is more flexible and realistic than strict "locavore" practices, such as the 100-mile diet. It is more ambiguous as well, as she describes in a section called "The Ecovore's Dilemma." It means thinking, reading, evaluating, deliberating, for these are not easy matters, in an era when there are too many of us and we use too many limited natural resources.

Some of Heyhoe's ideas will challenge your idea of a home-cooked meal. Turn off that inefficient oven, she says ("ovens are the Humvees of the kitchen"), and plug in a toaster oven. Reconsider the cooktop, and opt for a greener flame, using more energy-efficient appliances and "passive" cooking practices. Adopt low-impact waste-disposal methods.

Shopping? Be mindful of the seasons, eat more plants and less (much, much less) industrially-farmed meat. Understand "organic," think field-to-fork, consider fair trade, check for sustainable sourcing, weigh the packaging. Eating out? Ditto all this, and look for restaurants that have gone "green."

Nobody said this was easy.

But Heyhoe is right: "The reversal of climate change requires a complete paradigm shift and global actions, in more than just food and cooking. But one thing leads to another. Little steps in behavior can make a big difference in how we think."

There are a few things to quibble with. To my mind, gardening is one of the most important ways we can contribute to our personal food supply, but Heyhoe dismisses this with "grow a few greens." Dishwashers consume more than just hot water (Heyhoe's only measure of efficiency), especially when you consider the resources and energy that goes into manufacturing, shipping, and marketing the appliance. My dishpan requires no electricity, and doesn't cost as much to make or market as a dishwasher.

And one more caveat: While Heyhoe cuts every possible corner in the kitchen (active and passive cooking strategies, water conservation, and low-carbon choices for almost everything) and emphasizes local foods, she sometimes strays into exotic, non-local recommendations, such as these ingredients from her section on using energy-efficient woks: Portuguese linguica, Spanish chorizo sausage, Indian potatoes, coconut milk. For me, these occasional lapses only demonstrate how difficult it is to re-train ourselves to local food choices.

But these are minor issues. I was challenged by this book to make important changes in what I thought were already careful food choices and cooking practices--especially cooking practices. You will be, too. But you have to start by reading it.

P.S. When you've read the book, check out the New Green Basics website, at http://www.newgreenbasics.com/. Lots more good stuff there.

Review originally published: http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org...

[May-Ling · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is only for the hardcore green enthusiast. basically, it's a handbook for greening your kitchen - from how and what you eat, to the tools you use. i skimmed over quite a bit in the organic/local/veg sections, since we're pretty much bought into all of that.

otherwise, i feel pretty affirmed in the tools that i'm using and received some good recommendations about cookware, since we're ridding ourselves of the non-stick pans this year to purchase greener options. this book gave me some solid guidelines.

also, i feel comfortable with my main appliances that i use, and it was good to hear (although i felt i knew it already) that the electric kettle saves a ton of energy and effort. i use it for everyone from my daily earl grey to starting boiling water for pasta. she praises the rice cooker and also an immersion blender, which i don't have, but it's on my list of appliances to get one day. this month, i plan to get a new toaster (that's been on the list for a couple years), but after reading about oven consumption, it's time to finally invest in a good quality one. ours has been around since i was a baby. :)

i believe that heyhoe's recommendations about how to cook would only be adopted by seriously committed people. things like passive boiling, boiling while you steam, reusing cooking water and capturing water used for cleaning dishes are more inconvenient methods for the average person. they are still great recommendations and i do believe that daily green actions people take change the world, so the advice was worth incorporating, despite the fact that i have my doubts about overall adoption.

[Bettyann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a while back and then picked it up at the library again, forgetting that I'd alread read it. Several pages into it, I remembered. But I must have not paid attention the first time, because now what the author wrote was getting through to me. Perhaps because I'd gotten on board in my own life more fully with these environmental issues, especially in my own kitchen, the book now spoke to me in a big way.

My favorite part of the book is the discussion on cooking utensils--pots and pans and stoves and toaster ovens. With fuel usage in mind, this author made it clear to me what I could save by choosing to use the right cookware and appliances. Since I'd recently come to the conclusion that every little bit each individual can do toward a better environment, I appreciated this book's information.

I enjoyed reading the recipe section, as I love reading cookbooks in general. I like to enhance my meals by adding new ways and ingredients I learn from other cooks. It keeps life more appetizing. I've always loved to cook new dishes, and Cooking Green has a good amount of these I've adopted, to my family's delight.

I recommend reading the book if you're interested in learning how to make your kitchen "green," and doing your part in cooling down the environment a bit, as well as whipping up wholesome and nutrient-rich food to eat.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cooking Green is one of the books I wish I had started immediately upon checking it out from the library.

The first few chapters bored me and I was afraid I wasn't going to take anything from the book. There was a lot of discussion on green appliances, building your kitchen for maximum efficiency, etc. As an apartment renter, these are things I cannot change or decide.

Then the book moved into chapters more applicable to me - how to cook more efficiently. How to choose foods that have less of a "cookprint." Some suggestions will increase spending (organic groceries) and others will decrease expenditures (saving electricity, resources, time).

Overall, I enjoyed most of the book and hope to borrow this book again. When I do, I'll move through the book much more slowly and begin to implement some of the suggested changes. I've already discovered that pouring hot water over my noodles (saving electricity) works just as well as boiling them!

[Susan W · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book has wonderful hints on how to save energy in the kitchen such as using an electric teapot instead of using the stove (it's faster).
There is a great recipe for cooking a chicken that works...I'm glad I found it because I was going to try the "best chicken soup" recipe from another cookbook that takes 4 hours!
I am a neophyte cook and after years of not cooking much, I am not experimenting in the kitchen and planning on having a worm box for my kitchen compost. This saves water and energy which is a reason not to use the disposal.

[Shannon Hedges · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's just a bland read. Some tips are useful, but I bet most who read this are already well aware of the information presented in the book. I'm tempted to say that the recipes aren't appealing, but I'm pregnant and experiencing major food aversions so I'm a bad judge of that. I will implement her seven minute cooking rule for green veggies, though.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

It goes it so much depth that it's easy to get lost. She base's a lot of the book on how the energy that your utility uses is generated, something you have no control over. Some good ideas, but nothing that we didn't already do; and what we don't do, we can't really affect.

[Melissa]

I brought this home from the library, but since I really prefer fiction, I was reading those books. I will try to read it again some time.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains information that a lot of people don't think about (or at least I didn't...) - like how inefficient ovens are and how wasteful we are with water while cooking.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty basic; gleaned just a few good ideas, which made it worth while for a skim.

Worth borrowing.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned how to passively cook pasta with this book! Useful as a reference; the website (http://www.newgreenbasics.com/) contains most of the information collected here as well.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and interesting, and it makes me tired... :)

[Nicole]

More technical than I need right now.