Photo credit:
Marisa McClellan
These days, due to rising costs, concern for the environment and the general ethos of conservation, we're all trying to save energy where we can. There are a number of ways to reduce personal energy use, including riding a bike instead of driving, turning the thermostat down a degree or two and vanquishing those energy vampires (appliances that continue to suck electricitiy, even when not in active use). However, when it comes to meal prep, food storage and general kitchen tasks, energy conservation isn't typically as much of a consideration. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the kitchen accounts for 15% of energy used in the home, making it a great place to save. Luckily, there are a number of steps you can take to make your kitchen one of the most energy efficient zones in your home.
On the cook top...
- Make sure to match up the footprint of your pot with the most appropriately sized burner (this applies more to electric stoves than gas) so that you're not heating more stovetop than you need.
- On gas stoves, it's important to notice the color of your flame. If it's burning more yellow than blue, your gas is not burning efficiently. Consult the manual or contact the manufacturer for calibration information.
- Put a lid on your pot or pan in order to bring the contents up to temperature more rapidly, leading to shorter cooking times.
- Use the right sized pot or pan for the job.
- When boiling water for tea or coffee, measure out just what you need, plus half a cup to allow for evaporation. Better yet, invest in a countertop kettle, which brings water to a boil faster and uses less energy than a conventional stove.
- Make sure to clean out the area under the burners frequently, as crumbs and burnt oatmeal absorb heat that could otherwise go into cooking your food. If you use a flat-top or inversion stove, clean it after use to ensure that nothing is getting in the way of the heat being directed into your pots and pans.
- Give away or dispose of cookware that's warped and replace it with pieces that have a smooth and even bottom. If it's warped the heat won't transfer directly and you'll lose heat to the air.
- Release your fear of the pressure cooker and embrace it as your new go-to kitchen appliance. The newer models are far safer than the ones our grandmothers used and can cook a pound of beans in 10-12 minutes.
- Choose recipes that utilize a single pot. Fewer heated burners means that you're using less energy.
In the oven...
- Clean your oven! All those spills and burnt spots lead to inefficient heating.
- Don't preheat (unless you have one of those crazy, super-fast preheating models that will turn your food to ash during the warming cycle). Most foods don't require it and you're just burning energy for an empty oven.
- During the baking/roasting process, keep the door closed! Every time you open it up to peek, you let lots of heat out, forcing your oven to work harder and burn more fuel. Make sure your interior light works and clean the glass in the door, so you can check on your cake without allowing the heated air to escape.
Small appliances...
- If you're not cooking for a crowd, consider using a toaster oven to make dinner instead of heating up the oven. These countertop ovens don't use as much heat and often cook just as well. If you need a little toaster inspiration, check out celebrity chef Eric Ripert's online cooking show, in which he only uses a toaster oven.
- When you make soups and stocks, consider using a slow cooker in place of a pot on the stove. They use less energy and you can run them overnight, which is especially good if you have your household on a time of use energy plan.
- Microwaves can be a good choice for steaming veggies, melting chocolate and reheating leftovers.
In the fridge and freezer...
- Keep your refrigerator set to between 38 and 42 degrees, which food safety experts have determined is the optimum temperature for good food storage.
- Never put warm food in the fridge. When you put food that hasn't fully cooled down in the refrigerator, you ask it to work harder to maintain the proper temperature, leading to increased levels of energy usage. Additionally, putting warm food in the fridge can raise the temp. to unsafe levels, leading to food spoilage and waste.
- For the most efficient use of energy, keep both the refrigerator and freezer full. If you don't have enough food to fill the space, keep bottles of water on the doors to act as insulators. If you find that you are never filling the space, consider getting a smaller unit, as that would mean even greater energy savings.
- If you don't use them, turn off the extra features and ice maker, they are classic energy drains.
At the sink...
- For general rinsing and handwashing, use cold water; the hot water requires more energy than cold to produce.
- When prepping dishes for washing, scrape them clean instead of using water to rinse food particles off. If you're a hand washer, fill a small vessel with water for sponge/rag rinsing and then soap everything with the faucet off. If you're using a dishwasher, don't pre-rinse. Most modern models can handle a bit of stuck-on food.
- Replace your old faucet with an aerating, water-saving one.
- Let dishes air dry.
Other tidbits...
- Consider getting yourself a solar cooker or building a hot box for passive cooking that doesn't draw any additional electricitiy.
- In the summer, use the outdoor heat to make sun tea, instead of boiling water for iced tea.
- Consider eating leftovers at room temperature instead of heating them up.
How do you save energy in your kitchen?
How to join the Canvolution
Comments (30)Add a Comment
Inappropriate or promotional comments may be removed.
Great tips. I really like the ones about stove top cooking and washing dishes--changing your dish washing habits even a little bit can save a lot of water. However, sometimes you have to preheat the oven. Baking things is more of a science than an art, and a preheated oven can mean the difference between baking successes and failures. Also, if you don't preheat, baking times will be affected, forcing you to look in the oven more frequently to see how what you're preparing is coming along, which, as you pointed out, forces the oven to work harder to maintain temperature. Sometimes what I do to save energy is to turn off the oven when whatever I'm cooking is almost done--the residual heat is enough to finish the dish, but I'm not actively burning gas or electricity during that time.
Thanks for the comment, Lelah. It's true that for some baking processes, you need to preheat the oven. However, if you're just baking a casserole or roasting some chicken legs, preheating isn't necessary. It's one of those areas in which it's important to use your judgment to determine what's best.
Fill the oven repeatedly when you use it. Bread freezes well, bake 4 loaves on baking day. Follow bread with meat loaf or casseroles that rarely take all the space in an oven, so toss in potatoes or winter squash. Then they'll also both be fast food ready to slice and cook with the eggs for breakfast, or with onions for soup.
Use glass or ceramic to reheat food in the microwave. I don't think we know much about the plastic problem, but I think we know that heat and plastic combined are more likely to be bad for us.
Don't waste food. Learn to love leftovers. Cook for them, plan for them, delight in them. Leftovers are our friends. Wasted food is wasted energy. Use your pantry storage space wisely. Know what you have there. Shop less often, shop sales. Use that freezer. Just pretend - if you were snowed in for a week, would you be ok out of your freezer and pantry? By all means use your emergency storage water jugs to keep your freezer operating efficiently. Don't over fill them, water gets bigger when it freezes. Water jugs are great for managing freezers, since they can come in and out as space needs change.
Judith, the sad fact is that I don't actually have a pressure cooker, although I've been wanting to get one for some time now. I was thrilled when I found that cooking chart, though.
Betty Jo, those are some awesome tips! Thank you for adding them!
Great tips! I need to use less water when I wash the dishes for sure, it's one of my goals.
I wanted to add that I also don't think that "don't preheat" is great advice for most cooks, unless they are really familiar with how their ovens work. In addition to the baking comments Leah made, (which I agree with), most ovens use both the top (broiler) and bottom burners to bring the oven up to temperature quickly. If the oven is preheating with food in it, that means you're probably burning the top of whatever is in there well before you actually cook it (unless you can bring it to temperature on the bake setting without an automatic preheat cycle).
Great to see that you mention the pressure cooker. Too bad you don't have one. You can potentially win one by posting a comment at http://www.mealmakeovermoms.com website. They are having a contest where they are giving away a new Fagor pressure cooker, and likely my DVD.
You can check out my pressure cooking blog at http://www.pressurecooking.blogspot.com.
The pressure cooker changed my life in many ways, saving time, energy and money are 3 big ones.
Awesome tips! And all this time I thought that simply not cooking at all was enough... ;-) But seriously, I had no idea about several of these!
with regards to installing a water saving faucet aerator one should know that there are various levels of aerators. Typical low flow start at 2.2 gallons per minute and go down to .5 gpm. There are also swivel head spray aerators that are nice for the kitchen, here is a link to examples you can't buy them on the site but it will give you an idea of what to look for at the hardware store. http://www.faucetaerators.com/swivel-head-faucet-aerators...
This is a FANTASTIC piece!!!
My daddy save energy by create oven from solar energy. But we can't cook in night and raining day. So he design to by solar panels and install it for use lighting in home. Before this, solar panels is very expensive and we bought it with cry price. Other wise I think be worthwhile right now.
Also, cold brew tea and coffee :D
Good tips. I must agree especially with the one about considering a solar cooker, I run a blog on solar cookers(http://earthforenergy.co.uk), so I can only agree! People don't realize how much of a benefit this really is! And beside energy and healthy cooking, it gives you a great pleasure of an achievement. Really!
Fabulous content and discussion. I must admit I have an old 60's or early 70's slow cooker, you know one with the olive green lid. It is really heavy and solid. It sits on the cooker and I just adore the whole look and feel of the slow cooking and the fact that this is somewhere between 40 and 50 years old is nothing short of amazing
Not that I'm totally impressed, but this is a lot more than I expected for when I stumbled upon a link on Stumble Upon telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks, David CEO Buy steroids
I always unplug an appliance when not in use; it's just a habit stemmed from childhood. I use thermal containers a lot (for festivals, fishing, etc.) but find them very handy to have around the kitchen. The remaining kettle of water I've boiled in the morning goes into my thermos flask, so there's not need to put the kettle on again for the next few mugs of tea. I always cook my soups in big batches for freezing, but my thermos container can keep what I want to eat that day warm till tea time.
Well, this is a very valuable post. Thanks for the information you provided. It would be great if got more post like this. I appreciate it. According to researchers who are paid to study such things, a load of dishes cleaned in a dishwasher uses 37 percent less water than washing dishes by hand...
poker gratis
pariuri sportive
Betty Jo, Thanks for the great tips! Another easy tip is turn off the "heated dry" option on your dish washer. It's not really necessary, sucks up a lot of energy, and gives off unwanted heat in the summer. For more tips on saving energy with AC & appliances, check out my recent blog post, and feel free to share any relevant tips with your readers. Thanks! http://ableair1.sites.captico.com/2010/06/12/get-the-most...
Emily from http://ableair1.com
Nice tips, i always miss these tips. natural tinnitus cures
Some can sting of bees to cure arthritis, so I would not recommend it, bees produce a natural cortisone. When one transgresses the law has an impact on the printrunner coupon result. My response is: You have much to gain if you change your lifestyle.
Great article and very useful. I would suggest that some times if you are single or a couple that it is in fact cheaper to eat out. In today's modern world there are so many choices and cheap eateries that gee, why would you cook!
great article thank you for sharing
Aumentar Masa muscular
great site vigrx
I thought a few ideas from 25 Green Tips were good:
1. Unplug appliances, because it still drains power.
2. Install Compact Fluorescent Lights in the kitchen.
3. Turn off any lights not being used.
Great article about saving energy in the kitchen. I never realized that what the simple mistakes we made in the kitchen made us lost energy. I used stationary bikes to gain energy.
Great article and very useful. I would suggest that some times if you are single or a couple that it is in fact cheaper to eat out. download takers | download the american
Nice tips. Thanks for sharing you views.
personalized coffee mugs
Stress Balls
promotional tape measures
promotional products
Thanks for sharing....
personalized coffee mugs
Stress Balls
promotional tape measures
promotional products
great site increase semen volume
very informative thanks
Como recuperar a tu ex
Turn your computer off: This seems so simple but you can't imagine how often people leave their computer on during the day, even when they're not home. This wastes electricity. I can understand if you are charging your computer but if you leave your instant messaging program and your music I-tunes program on as well, your computer is using electricity.
Electrical Test Equipment