Go Green! Eco-friendly! The grocery store and your kitchen are good places to start going green. Every item you buy potentially impacts the environment from the resources used to create it to the energy used to get it to the grocery store shelf. Have you heard the term carbon footprint? A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, specifically the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced in our daily lives from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity or transportation for example. The goal is to lower the carbon footprint for each person by making small changes that have a big impact. If you want more in-depth information on GHG, check out the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.

Let’s look at a food’s packaging as an example. The post-consumer waste of a food product is the packaging. It is the trash that you routinely throw away. The industry standard for post consumer waste varies from about 35% to as high as 70%. Eco-friendly food companies are now striving for around 20% post consumer waste.

What’s realistic for you? What can you do to go green in your kitchen?

1. Start with reusable bags available everywhere. Use them at the grocery, farmers’ market, anywhere you’ve been using plastic bags. I have large ones that I take to the grocery each week and smaller ones for the farmers’ market in my town. I always have one or two small ones in my car for quick stops at the grocery on the way home. The colors and prints are fun and varied…check your favorite shops for unique ones.  I read where Cooking Light magazine readers trade reusable bags from their favorite shops.
2. Instead of brown bags for lunch, try a reusable lunch bag. I found this great insulated lunch bag at reusablebags.com. It’s very colorful and made by a women’s co-op in the Philippines from recycled juice boxes. Each one is different and people always ask me “where did you get your lunch bag?” It keeps the juice boxes out of the landfill and keeps my lunch cold.
3. Use stainless steel or BPA-free reusable plastic water bottles and cut down on the cases of plastic one-time-use bottles that go in the landfill.
4. Check out the new appliances. Are you in the market for a new refrigerator or stove? Refrigerators that have water filters to filter the chilled water and ice that come from the dispensers are common place but recently, a few manufacturers have begun adding interior air filters as well.  For example, according to the pros at Aggressive Appliances here in Orlando SubZero has a very advanced filter.  Originally created for NASA, this system does more than just clean the air. It significantly reduces bacteria, odors, and the ethylene gas naturally emitted by some foods such as apples and apricots. This gas causes over-ripening and hastens the spoilage of foods. The air in the refrigerator is refreshed every 20 minutes.

   Consider induction cooking. An induction cooktop looks like a traditional glass-top electric cooktop, but it doesn’t have the traditional heater coil under the glass.  What is under the glass is a high powered electromagnet.  Roughly 90% of the potential energy of the cooktop ends up being used to cook the food.  Not only are induction cooktops greener due to greater efficiency, they also get to the temperature much faster, shortening the time the cooktop is on.

5. When it comes to grilling, gas is better for the environment. According to Christian Science Monitor, a new study reported in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review compared grilling using charcoal and propane. They found that propane is better for the environment than charcoal. Propane, the author says, has a carbon footprint almost two thirds less than charcoal’s. It’s seems to be a question of efficiency in the manufacturing process (how much fuel it takes to make the fuel). Then, according to the study, there’s the matter of efficiency at your grill. Gas-burning grills turn on and off quickly, so you have control over how much is burned and how much CO2 gets released. By comparison, charcoal grills aren’t as easily started or stopped plus they require a lighter, an additional fuel with a CO2 footprint.

Go green and make a few eco-friendly changes in your daily habits. Mother Earth will thank you.

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