You’re most likely aware of the enormous health benefits associated with consuming dark green leafy vegetables like kale, collard greens, spinach, and broccoli. However, ‘Get Cooking Green’ is not about dietary choices, it’s about habits and decisions on how to keep your food preparation space as Eco-friendly as possible.
These easy, green, home improvement kitchen fixes are not only good for the environment they may benefit your health in more ways than one.
Microwave Safe?
If you can avoid microwaving your food, this is the best option. Although considered safe, microwave ovens are believed to affect both your health and the environment.
According to 2018 report by the University of Manchester,
- Microwaves emit 7.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year in the EU. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of 6.8 million cars.
- Microwaves across the EU consume an estimated 9.4 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity every year. This is equivalent to the annual electricity generated by three large gas power plants.
However, for many, avoiding a box that cuts your prep time down to five minutes or less is a hard ask. Therefore, if you are nuking your food, try to mitigate at least some of the hazards by practicing some responsible choices.
Don’t trust ‘microwave safe’ claims as each device has a different heating capability with many of them heating unevenly. This creates ‘hot spots’ on the container breaking down targeted areas more rapidly and leaching toxic chemicals into your food. The safest and most Eco-friendly choices are a non-glazed or painted ceramic or a thick glass like Pyrex. Never cover these containers in plastic wrap, always use a piece of untreated, naturally sourced paper towel instead.
Spray Away
Replacing chemically laden, potentially poisonous conventional kitchen cleaners with non-toxic cleaning supplies seems to be the responsible thing to do. Study after study indicate the high possibility that, over time, you could be exposed to excessive levels of toxins when using products such as kitchen cleaners. These toxins are believed to possibly accumulate in your body becoming linked to anything from annoying allergic reactions all the way to cancer.
Non-toxic cleaning supplies use naturally sourced ingredients such as citrus, essential oils such as lavender, along with enzymatic formulas which utilize the power of microbes to do the scrubbing. Plus, these products are often produced in a responsibly sustainable, circular manner. Do yourself and any surrounding loved ones a favor and replace your poisonous cleaning supplies with ingredients that won’t leach into your food, water, or air.
Convenience Stock Up
Your green kitchen should include compostable products that you can fill and fly with to work, school, or wherever you will eat on the run. Compostable products take the ‘guilt’ out of disposable as each piece can literally melt back into the earth within a few months. For your convenient disposable container needs, compostables are the way to go. Plus, the competition of conventional brands is so fierce many of these compostable companies are making these products more affordable without losing design integrity. Now that more consumers are buying alternative, Eco-friendly options, prices are lowering. So stock up on compostable products and maybe even start composting in your yard (if you have one) so your kitchen trash becomes that much greener.
Get cooking green in your Eco-friendly kitchen to once again rise up to the task of cleaning up the mess that is choking our earth. All it takes is some simple adjustments in microwave use, non-toxic cleaning products, and compostables to keep you on track that, hopefully, others will follow.
