Kitchen

A Green Kitchen

Conserving Water and Energy

When washing your dishes by hand, don’t leave the water running the entire time. Instead, fill up the sink with soapy water, or if you prefer not to, turn the water off when you aren’t rinsing a dish.

Avoid washing all of your dishes in hot water. Contrary to popular belief, this does not disinfect the dishes. In fact, your dishwasher doesn’t get hot enough to disinfect your dishes. By washing them in cold water it will help save energy and lower your carbon footprint.

Let food cool before placing it in the fridge. Your refridgerator will have to work harder (requiring more energy) to cool hot foods as opposed to foods which have cooled to room temperature.

In her Fresh Living book, Sara Snow recommends that you set your fridge at 37°F and your freezer at 3°F for an “optimally efficient machine”.

Safe Products To Use

Just like your typical laundry detergent, your dish soap and dishwasher detergent contain synthetic (petroleum-based) surfactants, along with other harmful ingredients, such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES).

There are companies who make biodegradable dish soap and dishwasher detergent. Some markets do carry these products and most natural markets do. These are safer alternatives for both you and the environment. The issue with using petroleum-based surfactants is that these chemicals take an enormous amount of time to break down in the environment. Your great grandchildren will have been long dead before those chemicals have finished wreaking havoc.

Install a water filter on your kitchen faucet or use a water filter pitcher to purify your drinking water. These filters remove hard minerals and chlorine from the water making it safer to drink.

Buy Organic Food

Buying organic is important for so many reasons. First of all, it is healthier to consume because organic produce doesn’t come loaded with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, or fungicides. Organic livestock is fed organic feed, meaning the meat you consume does not contain all of those synthetic chemicals. Secondly, these synthetic chemicals are retained in the soil and have been found in nearby watersheds, contaminating our drinking water supply. In addition to this, supporting organic farmers means you are supporting a better, healthier, more eco-friendly method of farming.

Organic food can be expensive, and I’ve learned that as a college student there is only so much I can afford. The best way to get around this is to replace what you eat the most with an organic alternative. You can also check out the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides to learn about which produce is the “dirtiest”.

Buy Locally Grown Food

Buying locally grown food is a good way to support local farmers in your area and to lower your (somewhat indirect) carbon footprint. The food on your plate, on average, has traveled close to a thousand miles from its source, and thats a lot of fossil fuels burned over time! By buying locally grown food, it takes less gas to get to you. Shopping at farmers markets is a good place to go for locally grown food and this gives you the chance to meet those farmers and learn about their farming methods and what they do and don’t use on their crops.

Grow Your Own Food

Another alternative is to grow your own food. This will lower your carbon footprint and you won’t have to worry about synthetic chemicals because you’ll know exactly what was and wasn’t sprayed onto your produce.

Purchase Your Fish Responsibly

Many fish are currently being hunted into extinction, while others that are farmed (this is known as aquaculture) are done so in an irresponsible manner which leads to environmental pollution. To find out which fish to buy and whether to buy it wild or farmed, you can visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program Website.

Paper Products

Cutting back on the amount of paper products you use in the kitchen is a green idea. Instead of cleaning with paper towels, use old kitchen towels which you can wash over and over again. Using cloth napkins is also a greener alternative to paper towels, because like kitchen towels, they can be washed and reused.

When choosing paper products, choose products which have been produced from post-consumer content (the higher the % of post-consumer materials, the better) and are whitened without the use of chlorine. Whitening with chlorine leaves behind by-products known as dioxins. Dioxins are tetratogens (they cause malformations in fetal development), mutagens (they cause genetic mutations, some of which lead to cancer), and they are suspected carcinogens (meaning they are believed to cause cancer) (Loux).