March 19th, 2011 
Tushar Mathur What is green cooking? Well, to put it simply, green cooking is the practice of cooking with high efficiency. That efficiency can reduce emissions and wasted energy. Furthermore, it can help you to save money on your gas and electric bills.
Of course, green cooking really starts with green shopping. Here are some simple grocery shopping tips to help you protect the environment and your wallet:
• Don’t be afraid to buy food in bulk, especially if you’re lucky enough to have a chest freezer and a large pantry. Buying in bulk saves money and cuts back on plastic packaging.
• Buy from local farm stands whenever possible. Fresh salads or fruit salads support the local economy, are good for your body and involve no cooking. So, they save energy.
• Do not buy expensive plastic bags or disposable containers. They waste money, are bad for the environment and usually aren’t microwave safe. So, they’re completely useless in the kitchen.
• Use glass containers for cooking and food storage. They heat up easily for cooking, are easy to clean and are great for reusable storage.
Once you have the shopping under control, the next step is to control how you actually cook. Start by keeping your appliances clean, especially your ovens and stove tops. Pans won’t heat as well on the stove if the pan isn’t in full contact with the heating element.
As for ovens, if your oven has a self-cleaning option, that’s great. Just be sure to use the feature right after you cook, since the leftover heat can be used in the cleaning process. There’s no reason to heat up the oven just to clean it.
What You Cook With:
What you cook with also matters. For example, glass heats up more efficiently than metal in the oven. So, you can save time and run your oven more efficiently by only using glass baking dishes in the oven.
As for the stove top, you should use pans that are the right size for your burner. You should also put lids on boiling pans to keep the heat in.
Additionally, you could invest in an induction cook top. That uses magnetic energy in a direct transfer method. In other words, the pot will get hot, but the room will not. An even better reason to use induction cooking is that the burner will cool down almost immediately, saving energy and protecting you and others in your home from potential burns.
Oven Alternatives:
You also have many more energy-efficient options than simply cooking with an oven or stove top. For example, you could make use of a toaster oven. Toaster ovens are fabulous, especially if you’re only cooking a small meal for yourself. They are also space savers. They can fit into even the smallest of apartment kitchens. Other oven alternatives include:
• Crock Pots
• Microwaves
• Slow Cookers
Efficient Clean Up:
If you really want to go green with your cooking, you also have to consider green clean up. Remember to store leftovers in reusable containers. Compost any food scraps that you can, too. It’s also important to recycle as many packaging materials and other cooking remnants as possible.
If you must throw things away, be sure to use “green” trash bags. They can biodegrade in landfills in a matter of a couple years. Traditional black trash bags can take hundreds of years to biodegrade. So, if you do your part for the planet, even when it comes to getting rid of trash, you can save time and money for yourself and also do your part to keep the environment healthier for the generations to come.
Author Bio
This article was provided by Chris Marcus, who writes regularly as a guest author on the topics of green living and energy saving devices for cooking. He is also the owner of ToasterOvenGuide.com, which is a site helping consumers find green kitchen appliances for their kitchen, which also includes a section on toaster oven reviews, and a great selection of other green cooking appliances.
Posted in 
Tags: 
