Compared to the other areas in the house, the kitchen has the most potential for waste. After all, it’s the place where you prepare your meals, which eventually generate food waste. It’s where you tend to use more water constantly, for cooking, cleaning the dishes and even preparing ice.
It’s also where you run those smaller appliances – coffee makers, toasters, and microwave oven – which all use a fair amount of energy. So, if you’ve been thinking about switching to a more eco-friendly lifestyle, there’s no better place to start a sustainable home than your kitchen.
Of course, depending on how much you’re willing to commit, you could end up spending hundreds to thousands of dollars investing in more sustainable appliances or doing a full kitchen remodeling in Utah.
But, there are simple yet still effective measures you can do, such as labeling all the food items you store in your fridge by date, so you’ll be able to monitor them better and know when they expire. This one costs nothing.
Apart from being free, the great thing about these sustainable measures is that planning and implementation will only take you a couple of days.
Using the whole plant
When preparing meals, it’s very common for most people to chop off the top part of celery or the greens from beets. It turns out, we don’t have to! Every single part of these plants are usable – we can either consume them or reuse them for other purposes besides cooking, such as for cleaning or doing simple DIY projects at home.
If you can’t think of other ways to use the entire plant, your best option is to turn to composting.
Reducing the amount of food waste
Not that many households realize how big of an issue food waste is. According to research, as much as half of all produce in the US end up going to waste. Some of the reasons that contribute to these numbers are poor distribution, people’s preference for produce that look “perfect,” and of course, everything that people leave in their kitchens only to end up going bad.
So, it’s essential for many households to come up with a system, such as not overbuying or stocking up on huge amounts of food or taking the necessary steps to preserve food for a longer period.
Everyone has been through it before – opening their fridges only to find moldy strawberries or wilted lettuce, expired milk, and some leftover pasta from weeks ago you’ve completely forgotten about. To prevent these things from happening, you need to decide on a system and stick to it.
For example, place any leftovers in air-tight containers and make sure to seal them properly. Compared to plastic containers, glass containers are better options because they’re non-porous. This means anything you store in them can stay fresh, nutritious, and delicious for a longer time.
Don’t forget to label everything by date and put all of the older food near the front of the fridge so you’ll see them right away.
