Green Living by Janet Marchant: Greening Your Holiday Feast

I just love all of the festive meals of the holiday season. When the whole family gathers around the table instead of just grabbing our organic pizza pockets on the go, it makes me feel glad that I can leave a better planet for my children. That's why, at this time of year, I'm usually busy in the kitchen, preparing my special soybean casserole while my husband puts the finishing touches on a big pitcher of eggnog. This year, however, I've started thinking more about how the choices we all make in our own kitchens can affect our carbon footprints.

Now, if you've already torn out all of your old kitchen cabinets, counters, and flooring to replace them with more sustainable alternative materials, there are still plenty of things you can do to make your kitchen greener. The foods you choose, and the way you prepare them can affect how much energy goes into a meal, and how much carbon dioxide gets dumped into our atmosphere as a result. There are various cookbooks and grocery aisle tips that my family has used for years to help reduce our kitchen's carbon footprint, but I realized recently that there's a quick and easy way to reduce your kitchen's footprint to zero!

Here's how you do it: pack your family into the old hybrid S.U.V., and drive to a restaurant of your choice. Now, eat your meal in the restaurant. Since you haven't used your kitchen at all in the production of the meal, that means your kitchen has produced zero carbon! I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. Why not try it today, and start enjoying your cleaner, greener kitchen right away?