Tips for Dining and Cooking

Go Green, eat green and save green. Here are a few ways to do it when cooking and dining:

Be Chic. Bring your own cup or bottle when out

Bring your favorite coffee cup to a shop or meeting…..it cuts down on Styrofoam use. Every year Americans throw away 25 billion polystyrene cups and 25 billion individual water bottles, most of which end up in landfills. Another important number: 2 ½ million. That is how many plastic bottles are thrown away every hour.

Don’t Brown Bag It!

Yes. Your heard right. Use a reusable lunch box or bag whether for you or your kid’s lunch. Use reusable containers instead of plastic bags. A brown paper bag takes 1-5 months to biodegrade. Besides, a lunch box is much cooler than a brown bag.

Chef in the House

You have to cook anyway…….or at least some of the time. So, a few simple things to change in the kitchen that are painless and help the environment: Put lids on saucepans to stop heat from escaping; chop food into smaller pieces so that it cooks more quickly; select a pan no bigger than required for the amount of food you’re cooking and a burner no bigger than the pan; and get the most out of your burner’s energy by doubling or tripling up by cooking several items on top of each other in a stacked steamer.

Eating Less Meat

You don’t have to eliminate a great burger from your diet altogether, just reduce how many……just a little. According to the book, Green Chic, the average American eats more than 200 pounds of meat a year and this is environmentally costly. Producing just a pound of beef uses more than 13,000 gallons of water. (By comparison, it only takes 21 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes) Just think about changing the old menu!

Drink your Milk!

A staple in just about every household. Make the switch. Buy organic milk instead of non-organic. Why? It tastes the same, some say better, and it only takes a third of the energy needed to produce it.

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