Minimize your Cookprint

How to be an Environmentally Friendly Cook

As millions around the world celebrate Earth Day, here’s a morsel to chew on.  Let’s all try to minimize our “cookprint.”

Kate Heyhoe, cookbook author and founding editor of The Global Gourmet and New Green Basics, has coined this phrase in her newly released book, Cooking Green: Reducing your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen.

Cookprint refers to the entire chain of resources used to create the foods we eat. Shrinking your cookprint includes saving water and energy, as well as reducing waste and emissions.

“The oven is the Humvee of the kitchen,” Heyhoe says.  That’s why she prefers using her toaster oven to prepare foods. They use less energy and are more efficient in heating the types of food we eat on a daily basis.

Another favorite energy-saver is her tea kettle. She uses to boil water to prepare lasagna noodles. “Arrange nine lasagna noodles in a glass baking dish,” she says. “Pour boiling water over, cover with a baking sheet to keep the heat in, and jiggle the noodles around periodically to keep from sticking. In 25 minutes they’ll be tender; cool the water and pour over plants to repurpose it, wipe the dish dry and build your lasagna in it. You’ll save washing another pot.”

You can find a comprehensive interview with Heyhoe in the Washington Post online.