Big Green Companion
July 21, 2009 by Kate Heyhoe · 1 Comment
by Kate Heyhoe
Yippee! My book Cooking Green has gone back for a second printing—which in this era of ailing publishing is a major event. Reviewers have praised the book for its solid, well-researched content presented in a very absorbable, thought-provoking fashion (not fluffy or green-lite, but not dry or taxing either). It also won the 2009 Green Book Award for cookbooks. Discover more about Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen, and how to shrink your own cookprint.
Which brings me to another book that often appeared with mine, as part of several Earth Day book reviews: Big Green Cookbook. Both this book and Cooking Green have the same goal: greener cooking by using fewer resources and reducing emissions. Both books tackle the subject matter well, as reviewers have said, and deserve a hot spot in the new green kitchen. But the authors take markedly different approaches.
In Big Green Cookbook, Jackie Newgent, a registered dietitian, presents a great collection of 200 recipes, each with a nutritional profile. A 37-page introduction highlights the basics of practical green cooking. Her other green tips are solid, short and snappy, scattered throughout the book as sidebars or brief textboxes. My book, Cooking Green, presents 50 green-model recipes but devotes 160 pages to understanding the hows and whys of cooking and greener strategies, and the impact, presented chapter by chapter in a logical sequence.
Cooking Green and Big Green Cookbook are really more complementary than competitive. By this I mean each book is different from the other in a good way, and each one has much to offer without duplicating the other. Taken together, the sum of the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts.
If you’re truly interested in shrinking your cookprint and shifting into a greener lifestyle, these two books will get you quickly on your way. Big Green Cookbook lives up to its promise: it’s plump with recipes, and readers can get greener tip by tip, rather than topic by topic. Cooking Green takes a more comprehensive approach: it gives you the tools you need to understand how to cook, shop, and live greener—even beyond the kitchen—so you can make your own decisions every day, in any circumstance.
As I often say, going greener is all about making choices, and in this case (and even though I could be biased), the choice on these two books should be “yes” and “yes.”
- Big Green Cookbook:
Hundreds of Planet-Pleasing Recipes and Tips for a Luscious, Low-Carbon Lifestyle - by Jackie Newgent
- Wiley 2009
- Paperback; 400 pages
- ISBN: 978-0-470-40449-2
Reusable Net Produce Bags
July 21, 2009 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Reusable Net Produce Bags
Quicktip
Ever find you’ve accumulated way too many flimsy plastic produce bags? Stop the insanity! As I point out in Cooking Green, recycling is good, and bringing your own bags for produce as well as groceries is even better. Now, 3B Bags offers hip and practical bags for both vegetables and groceries. They make reusable, washable produce bags from fine, see-through netting. Cool!
They feature a drawstring, weigh next to nothing, and come three to a pack ($7.50). Bring them to the store in the 3B Paisley Tote ($6.00), which is made of polypropylene so it can be wiped clean, and features a clear pocket on the interior side (drop in garlic heads or a grocery list). According to the manufacturer, using three of their reusable produce bags once a week can save as many as 150 plastic bags per year. Check them out at 3BBags.com.
Buy the Self-Cleaning Oven
July 21, 2009 by Kate Heyhoe · Comments Off on Buy the Self-Cleaning Oven
Quicktip
by Kate Hehyoe
Even if you never use the self-cleaning function, it’s a worthwhile feature. Why? Because self-cleaning ovens are better insulated than standard ovens, so less heat pours into your kitchen.
If you do use the self-cleaning feature, turn it on after your oven’s already hot, like after roasting, so you don’t waste extra fuel getting it up to inferno temperature.
Find more tips to shrink your cookprint in Kate Heyhoe’s book Cooking Green
Reviews, Interviews and More
July 7, 2009 by New Green · Comments Off on Reviews, Interviews and More
Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen—the New Green Basics Way
Fox News, April 21, 2009
Video of Kate’s interview
on Fox News in Austin Texas
Buy Cooking Green
Kate on The Splendid Table
Listen to Kate Heyhoe’s Interview with Lynne Rossetto Kasper on NPR’s The Spendid Table, August 1, 2009.
The Spendid Table: Complete August 1 radio show listing
Recent Reviews
“…when it comes to the green kitchen Kate Heyhoe is really the Green Goddess. A dynamic combination of Michael Pollan, Alton Brown, and Wonder Woman all rolled into one. After finishing this book you will definitely be convinced that you can help save the planet while preparing dinner every night.” —Heather Jones, ProjectFoodie.Com, July 9, 2009.
Read the full review.
“Best of all, it’s so well-written and informative that I can say confidently that it’s one of the few environmental book I’ve ever read that’s actually fun to read.
“Cooking Green’s key gift to readers, however, is its surplus of creative and counterintuitive thinking—and its absolute lack of junk science.
“Cooking Green is the kind of book you’ll want sitting on your shelf as a reliable resource for decades of intelligent kitchen decision-making, and it’s selling at a very reasonable $9.99 at Amazon. Use it to shrink your own carbon cookprint! —Daniel Koontz, Casual Kitchen, July 22, 2009.
Read the full review.
“Ever thought about the ‘cookprint’ of your kitchen’s pots and pans? What about the oven and microwave? A new book gives you the answers.”
Read Kate Heyhoe’s Interview with Leah Koenig on Mother Nature Network, July 15, 2009.
Washington Post, A Mighty Appetite, April 22, 2009
Earth Day Food for Thought: Shrinking Your ‘Cookprint’
by Kim O’Donnel
Excerpt:
Cookbook author Kate Heyhoe would like you to put down that organic avocado and chew on this morsel for a moment:
When it comes to being green, what you eat is not enough; how you cook it and what you cook with are equally essential to the green equation.
On the first page of her new book, “Cooking Green,” Heyhoe tells us right up that “appliances account for 30 percent of our household energy use, and the biggest guzzlers are in the kitchen.” (She refers to the oven as the “Humvee of the kitchen.”)
As we talk about reducing our carbon footprint on this Earth Day—and going forward—Heyhoe, who’s based in Austin, Tex., would like us to consider shrinking our “cookprint” as well – the energy it takes to prepare food every day. In the interview notes below, she explain what the heck that newfangled word means and how the electric kettle can be your new best friend.
Read the full interview at Shrinking Your ‘Cookprint’.
Consumer Reports 05/15/09
Buzzword: Cookprint
by Daniel DiClerico
What it means.
Cookprint takes the carbon footprint—the amount of greenhouse gas each of us generates through our daily activities—and plants it firmly in the kitchen.
Food writer Kate Heyhoe cooked up cookprint, defined as the energy needed to prepare the food you eat. That energy use encompasses the appliances and techniques used to prepare and store food, though the management of leftovers and food waste also factors in—you lower your cookprint by composting rather than tossing scraps into the trash. Low-cookprint meals should also be heavy on plant-based and locally grown, sustainable foods.
Why the buzz? A few new cookbooks—including Heyhoe’s Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen—the New Green Basics Way; Big Green Cookbook: Hundreds of Planet-Pleasing Recipes and Tips for a Luscious, Low-Carbon Lifestyle, by Jackie Newgent; and Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, by Mark Bittman—have stirred up interest in eco-conscious cooking.
Besides food enthusiasts, appliance manufacturers are in on the cookprint movement, though it’s worth noting that cooking appliances as a category account for just 3 percent of a home’s energy consumption, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Whirlpool says that for its induction appliances, “90% of the energy [is] expended into useful heat to reduce utility costs. (With gas ranges up to 60% of the heat is normally wasted through indirect gas combustion.)”
Read more at ConsumerReports.org
2009 Green Book Festival Names Winners
LOS ANGELES (April 20, 2009) _ The 2009 Green Book Festival has named “Cooking Green” by Kate Heyhoe the top winner in the Cookbooks category.
Denver Post, April 22, 2009
Green day: Five ways to shrink your “cookprint”
By Tucker Shaw, Food Editor
Excerpt:
We’ve all heard about the toxic emissions spewing from our gas-guzzling automobiles. But according to Kate Heyhoe, author of the new book “Cooking Green”, the average single-family home accounts for twice as much greenhouse gas per year as the average sedan. And the kitchen is a hot zone.
There are hosts of products out there to help you turn your kitchen into an eco-friendly entity: Super-insulated refrigerators, induction cooktops, in-home composters, organic cleaning products.
These are all good ideas — if you have the money to spend on them.
But it doesn’t have to cost you much time or effort — or any money at all — to reduce your cooking footprint (or as Heyhoe calls it, your “cookprint”) and your utility bill.
All it really takes is a little common sense and a touch of elbow grease.
Here are five cheap, easy ways to make your kitchen greener and save cash…
Read Five ways to shrink your “cookprint”
The Providence Journal, April 22, 2009
Eco-smart tips and recipes help reduce your ‘cookprint’
By Gail Ciampa, Food Editor
Excerpt:
Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen the New Green Basics Way (Lifelong Books, $17.95) by Kate Heyhoe is almost two books in one. The first half is devoted to explaining why you need to make a green commitment
