About Cooking Green
July 29, 2007 by Kate Heyhoe
Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen—the New Green Basics Way (Hundreds of tips and over 50 energy- and time-saving recipes to shrink your “cookprint”) is Kate Heyhoe’s eighth book. Cooking Green is published by Da Capo Books (Perseus Books Group).
To learn more about a key concept in the book, visit Shrinking Your Cookprint.
“…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.
From Publisher’s Weekly:
“The foods we eat and the ways we buy, store and prepare them are significant contributors to global warming. This information-packed volume, from cookbook author and newgreenbasics.com founder Heyhoe, provides detailed guidance for those looking to make thelr cooking and eating habits earth-friendlier. Heyhoe has thought long and hard about this topic—she cites myriad inspirations (from environmentalists to food scienists like Harold McGee and The New Basics Cookbook) and compelling statistics (“less than 7 percent of the energy consumed by a gas oven goes to the food”) that led her to develop the concept of a “cookprint” (the foodie version of an environmental footprint) and this guide to shrinking it. The book covers everything from appliances and cookware to shopping, ingredients (including details on the impact of meat and seafood on the planet), cooking techniques and cutting down on waste, and answers the questions that many aspiring eco-friendly types have probably wondered about—like which kind of grill is the greenest.
“At the end there’s also a no-frills recipe section wlth dishes such as ginger chicken and broth, passively poached, shortcut lasagna and true skillet cornbread—all featuring a “Green Meter”—that put into practice what Heyhoe preaches.”
Down to Earth books at home in your kitchen
By Janet K. Keeler, St. Petersburg FL Times Lifestyles Editor
April 22, 2009
On Earth Day 1971, a bunch of eighth-grade pals and I snubbed the bus and rode our bikes to school on some pretty busy streets in Santa Clara, Calif. The word “green” was not part of our vocabulary then; still we felt the sentiment keenly. The first Earth Day was 1970 and kicked off the modern environmental movement. • It would be a few months before Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) became our anthem. And maybe a year or two before we started wearing Earth Shoes. • Today, on the 40th Earth Day, I am not sure we are in tons better environmental shape, but we are certainly talking about it a lot. Here are five just-released food books that tell us how easy it is to make our kitchens and menus green.
TITLE: Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen by Kate Heyhoe (Lifelong Books, $17.95)
GENERALLY SPEAKING: Not to get too cute, but this book just may help you reduce your “cookprint.” Heyhoe, founding editor of Globalgourmet.com and Newgreenbasics.com, compares cooking techniques and equipment to help you save energy in the kitchen. For instance, go for small appliances over big (toaster oven vs. oven) when you can. Make sure the dishwasher is full before running. Use cloth and sponges instead of paper towels. I like this book as a wake-up call to the waste that goes on in cooking, and it’s not all about food. Cooking Green isn’t sexy, but what a font of information. Plus, the recipes are sophisticated and with a global favor.
THE VIBE: Your mother was right; turn off lights and don’t let the water run.
HOW GREEN IS IT? Printed on 100 percent “post-consumer waste recycled paper” with vegetable-based inks.
ONE GOOD TIP: A kitchen exhaust fan sucks up grease and fumes, so fewer airborne particles settle on kitchen surfaces. This means less greasy dust and less need for cleaning over time. But don’t run the fan longer than needed, to conserve power.
From The Fun Times Guide to Food:
“…Scores of those half-million book titles are about “cooking green”—everything from going organic, to buying from local growers, etc. But most of them don’t actually talk about cooking green. Kate does.”
From Booklist (American Library Association, April 15, 2009 Issue):
What does it truly take to cook green? It is more than buying locally grown foodstuffs, explains Heyhoe, though obviously locavores do have a head start on dining sustainably. Cooking green is far more comprehensive than monitoring appliance use; tracking energy output, for sure, is yet another element of eco-friendliness. Add cookware to the mix of determinants, along with type of technique, the table decorations, even the choice of energy-efficient ingredients (like no-cook pasta sauces).
Ever-present sidebars are informative, with data that can potentially impact our ecological decisions: freezer packs save energy, vacuum refrigerator coils often to decrease electricity use, and trading white linens for bare tabletops in a four-restaurant chain amounted to a $100,000 annual savings. Fifty recipes, from meatless moussaka to true skillet cornbread, wrap up her go-green dictate, all belying the myth that good for you isn’t great for the taste buds. This is a very careful, well-explained examination of the cookprint we decide to leave; after all, 12 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly tracked to the ways we grow, prepare, and ship foods.
—Barbara Jacobs
From GreenLAGirl:
“…This book will really help answer some of the more anal retentive questions that keep eco-foodies up at night: Should I steam or boil? Should I thaw fish fillets out on the counter or in the fridge? What color should my pilot light be? When should I run my dishwasher? All of these questions are tackled in nitty gritty detail in Cooking Green.”
Buy Cooking Green
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