Your Culinary Footprint

 With yesterday being Earth Day, it's time to reevaluate what  being done food wise for the planet. Are home chefs being conservative? Are they being thoughtful?

One of the best ways is cutting down on your meat consumption. Meat consumption increases the amount of carbon dioxide methane and nitrous oxide> WHat can you do? Try meatless Mondays where you can have a good pasta with just a marinara sauce or better yet any plant based meat.Impossible Meats and Beyond Meats have excellent burgers that taste like the real thing. Now that i's coming into barbecue season, think about grilling these for a fun evening meal. You could also have more veggie dishes like  the Irish classic .This also uses up leftover  mashed potatoes by mixing them with butter garlic and any green, such as cabbage spinach and or kale. Eat more potatbella mushrooms too. These are an excellent source of protein and they're just downright delicious when fried in an air fryer.They actually do taste like steak. You can also just go completely vegetarian or vegan too. It may take some getting used to but once you switch over cooking and eating plant based foods will become easier.

Do you wash dishes or pop I=them in the dishwasher? Hand washing them is environemntally safer just don;t waste water. Many a home chef is guilty of this. Use what you have Leave the super dirty dishes , pots and pans to soak overnight instead of using gallons of water to clean them. Soak them with a mix of baking soda and white vinegar. This will loosen any tough greasy bit. If you're thinking about getting plastic plates both for indoor and outdoor dining, you may want to think about buying ones made from recycled plastic. Composting is big and it's a great way to help the planet.Use those garbage to grown lush fruits and veggies. What makes for a good compost heap? Have plenty of brown material for carbon and green for nitrogen. These make for a rich soil and lush plants.There should also be plenty of water and air too. Keep in mind that even tea bags and used towelettes like Burt's Bee;s make up wipes can also be tossed in. Rake up all those grass cuttings and also make them part of your compost heap.

Be more alert and conscientious about your culinary habits. Treat the Earth well. The results will be a cleaner, happier place to live.

Flameless Stoves A Burning New Trend

 For millennia fire and cooking have been entwined.  Yet it turns out that those helpful flames are not only bad for the environment but also our kids. What do we do? Switch over to a different kind of cook top.It's time for home chefs to consider .

Regular contributor Melissa Clark wrote about this neat invention in today's New York Times Food section. An induction stove basically runs on electromagnets. These offer a stove much more responsiveness,power and precision. They are also a dream to clean. There's no going under or between messy burner grills to pick or mop up burned pieces of food or spills.Keep in mind there is a learning curve. It will take some time to get used to this new way of cooking.Robert Osbourne of Brooklyn had one installed after his co-op board rejected his request for putting in a gas line for a gas stove. He resisted at first but then became acclimated . He had to adapt to the mental process of looking at a number instead of gazing at the centuries old orange blue flame.It starts off cool and works up to a heat.However unlike regular stoves, they are expensive. Only five per cent of American homes have one. They can range anywhere from $690 to $1600. An expensive gas range tops at $1,000 while the cheapest is only $395.

Yet converting to an electric range is worth it. Gas ovens and stoves emit potent greenhouse gases like methane into the atmosphere, What's even more surprising and worrying is that seventy-five of these emissions happen when the stove is shut off. Then there are those noxious fumes that are more harmful to kids.It brings about indoor nitrogen dioxide that spike quickly , reaching hazardous levels in the time it takes to bake a cake. Children with asthma suffer terribly.Yet many home chefs are reluctant to switch over. Only five per cent of American homes have them. It could be the cost or the whole idea of cooking on cook top that eventually heats up. It is something homeowners have to get used to though. New York and other cities across the country are enacting legislation that will limit the amount of gas hook-ups in new construction. Luxury buildings not only see them as more efficient and functional but also as more upscale and lux.  Induction ovens are also going to be put into NYCHA apartments throughout Manhattan to help the organization meet its' city mandated sustainability requirements.

Think about an induction oven for your next stove.It's better for the environment and family. It makes your kitchen more sustainable and better for the planet and you.

Be Good To The Earth And Yourself

April is Earth month, four weeks where we not only celebrate Spring, Easter and Passover but the Earth herself. It's a time when beaches are cleaned and, carbon foot prints are reduced as we all become a bit more  eco-conscious. What can you contribute? Change the way you eat. Make it good for you and our planet.

That's what New York Times Science section contributor, Jane Brody urged today in her Personal Health column. She writes that for more than a century Americans have been living high off the hog -literally. In 1900 most of the American diet was plant based. Eighty -five years later two thirds of the country were eating more protein, namely in the form of  beef. The cattle that gives us the steaks and filets we crave is also contributing to the destruction of the planet we live on. It takes eight pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. Then there's the problem of cows releasing tons of greenhouses gases a year. An editorial in Britain's top medical periodical, The Lancet proclaimed "that intensive meat production is on an unstoppable trajectory comprising the single greatest contributor to climate change." This is scary. Not only are we going to suffer the consequences of our greedy eating habits but our planet is  suffering too. The Lancet suggests  that we don't go vegan or vegetarian, just cut down on our bad eating habits.

What do we do? Limit our amount of red meat such as beef and lamb. Have it every two weeks. Eat more chicken , pork and fish. Ms. Brody , who has written several books on nutrition suggests going one step further. Have a diet that is mostly , if not all plant based, It's easy to do these days. She gives us her recipe  of roasting two cups of butternut squash and one cup of coarsely chopped onion with a tablespoon of olive oil. It's then popped into a 450 degree F oven for twenty minutes.This is an easy cook and can be altered to include other veggies such as peppers  and yams. Ms. Brody suggests adding a can of drained chickpeas. also roasted covered with curry powder and salt. The limit also applies to dairy too. This is then the time to explore dairy alternatives.  Think about switching to either soy, rice, oat or almond milks and their byproducts. Soy Delicious has  so many different products such as ice cream and coffee creamer. The trade off is a good one. You get to still have tasty treats such a soy cheese pizza or a fudgy soy ice cream bar while saving the planet. Also baking  and cooking with soy or almond milk is no different than cooking with milk or cream. I have made vegan cakes with almond milk and have used it in icings. The last turns out perfectly creamy frostings that hold up and don't run off the cake.

Be good to your planet and self by changing your diet. Eat more plant based foods. It's a plus for your health and our planet Earth.