If you are concerned towards healthy food then you should be also concerned towards saving energy. Today electronic items cook faster but they use up to 20-30 percent more energy. Reason behind this is not that they run on electricity, but the reason is that they are not used properly.
If we follow some simple tips in our kitchen to cook food, we can save up to 50 percent of energy without much effort. Let us see how we can save energy using ecofriendly ways to cook food.
1. Wash your vegetables before chopping or cutting them. If you wash them after cutting, this will drain all essential nutrients from them.
2. Do not soak vegetables for long time. Cut them when you want to cook. This will prevent soaking vegetables.
3. Whenever you boil vegetables like potatoes, carrots, tomatoes or other root vegetables, do not peel them. Boil them with their peel. This will retain all essential vitamins and minerals.
4. While peeling vegetables, use peeler instead of knife. This will prevent peeling too deeply and thereby retaining all important nutrients.
5. Always place a lid over pot when cooking vegetables. This will reduce cooking time; retain color and freshness of vegetables.
6. Eat cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and reddish with their peel. This will increase the fiber content in your body.
7. Always keep pot or cooker of larger size than the gas burner. This will prevent the escape of heat. Ensure that the flame covers the bottoms of pot or cooker. For this use large burners for large pots and small burners for small pots.
8. To cook food use pressure cooker instead of open pots. This will reduce the cooking time as well as save a lot of energy. It also retains the nutrients.
9. When you refrigerate any food item ensure it is not warm. If itâs warm, let it cool down. Keeping warm food directly in fridge makes the fridge work harder to cool it.
10. When buying electronics equipments like fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, air conditioner, or fan, always see energy star logo. This logo ensures that this electronic item will save up to 50 percent of energy while ensuring same quality.
11. Always switch off the flame 5 minutes before the prescribed time of cooking. Do the same when you are baking or steaming any food item like baking cake, vegetables or boiling potatoes, beans or any other vegetables. They can cook in residual heat without wasting energy.
12. Donât waste water. Water which you used for boiling potatoes, rice, tomatoes, or other vegetables can be easily used in preparing vegetable stock.
13. Use electric kettle for boiling water for pasta, vegetables, tea, coffee, rice, or any other food item. Pour this water in a pan and place vegetables in it. Put this pan on flame for extra cooking. Gas will take more energy than electric kettles.
14. Use dishwasher with full load. When there is enough utensils to wash, then use dishwasher.
15. Use a smaller toaster for toasting or baking small food items. A large oven takes more energy.
16. Use microwave ovens to bake or cook food. They use up to 30 percent less energy than conventional ovens.
17. Use paper towels in your kitchen to wipe dishes or hands.
18. Keep your fridge temperature at an optimal range. Check the temperature from time to time.
19. Do not preheat the oven. This will use more energy. Switch on the oven when you are ready to cook food.
20. Always cut and prepare salads at the time of dining. Do not cut them and keep them in fridge.
