The Guide To 'Greening' Your Kitchen
In honor of Earth Day, we've decided to find ways to make our kitchens a little greener. As cooks and food fans, we spend a lot of time in our kitchens and figure that this is the perfect place to start. What's the idea behind making your kitchen more eco-friendly? Cutting down on waste, using less toxic chemicals, saving money, and doing more yourself.
We've narrowed it down to three main sections — herbs, kitchen tools/habits, and natural cleaners — and turned to garden expert Ellen Ecker Ogden and the green cleaning queen Mary Moppins for some basic tips and advice on how to get started. Plus, some great recipes to inspire you to make the most of your new green supreme kitchen.
Growing Your Own Herbs
Ellen Ecker Ogden started her first garden over 30 years ago in Vermont and started from the beginning just like everyone else: she read ways to remove soil and dig out the dirt to replace it with compost and how to sow seeds. She quickly learned that gardening takes time, practice, and a lot of trial and error, but it hasn't stopped her. She recently published a fantastic new book called The Complete Kitchen Garden as a comprehensive guide for planting almost any type of garden plus recipes to use for your newly grown accomplishments.
Click here to see her 5 tips for new gardeners and more...
Green Kitchen Tools and Habits
Greening your kitchen through tools and new habits can be pretty easy; it just might take a little getting used to. If you're redesigning your kitchen, try to look for eco-friendly equipment especially for dishwashers and ranges (link to kitchen fantasies). If you're just trying to improve your kitchen in small ways like using more kitchen towels than paper, check out our list of simple changes that will make a large difference in the long run.
Click here to see more ways to green your kitchen tools and habits.
Green Cleaning
Did you know that vinegar actually kills more germs than bleach? Mary Moppins, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning and the site GoClean, shares some tips for easy household items that double as cleaners, how to naturally clean your pots and pans, and her favorite eco-friendly brands.
Click here to read more ways to green clean your kitchen.
Click here for all of our Earth Day coverage.