When thinking about greening your home, the kitchen is a great place to start! Here are a few easy tips to help you get started…
Choose a Gas Stove
Gas cooking appliances use less energy than electric stoves because the fuel is delivered directly to the home and used directly for cooking. When choosing a gas stove, look for a model with a self-cleaning oven, which improves efficiency because it has more insulation and maintains oven temperature better. In addition, choose a model with a convection oven or fan that continuously circulates heated air around the food, allowing temperature and cooking times to be reduced – on average, convection ovens use 20 percent less energy. It’s also important to keep your stove burners clean to ensure maximum efficiency. Blue flames mean good combustion; yellow flames mean service may be needed to ensure the gas is burning efficiently. Visit http://ohiogascompanies.com or your local gas and electric company for more energy saving tips and information.
Choose Energy Efficient Appliances
If your kitchen is filled with outdated appliances it may be time to consider an upgrade. There are many kitchen appliances on the market today that can do the same job as your old appliances, with much less energy. When looking for energy efficient appliances, I always look for the trusted Energy Star Label. Energy Star is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency voluntary program that labels and promotes products that meet the highest energy efficiency standards.
Fill Your Kitchen With Locally Grown Foods
On average, American farmers receive less than twenty cents per dollar for their products. The majority of your food dollar goes to middlemen, such as food brokers, distributors, and retailers. By comparison, when you purchase food locally grown by farmers, a much higher return per dollar goes to the farmer. In the case of farmers’ markets for example, the farmer receives 100% of each dollar you spend. In addition, when you spend money in your community, it gets spent an average of seven more times inside the community before it’s finally spent outside. So, when you buy locally grown produce, you’re not only supporting your local farmer, you’re also supporting the entire local economy.
Ditch The Disposables
Paper plates, paper towels, ziplock bags, and plastic cutlery all end up in the same place- the trash! Although sometimes more convenient, disposable paper and plastic products aren’t good for your wallet, or the environment. One of the best ways to go green in the kitchen is to ditch the disposables and opt for 100% reusable options instead. Use “real” plates and silverware, replace ziplock bags with reusable storage containers (preferably glass), and consider making the switch to un-paper towels. Never heard of un-paper towels? Google it! There are tons of great options available.
Clean Green
Cleaning products are among the most hazardous substances you will find in your kitchen. It’s almost impossible to be sure about the safety of a store bought cleaning product because there is no federal law that requires pre-market safety testing by the manufacturer. The best way to be certain about the safety of cleaning products is to make your own eco-friendly cleaners at home! Click here to check out some of our favorite homemade green cleaner recipes.
~This post was contributed by guest author Jennifer Smith~
Have you started going green in the kitchen? Do you have any tips to add? Please leave a comment and share!
Terri
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