Tag Archives: food

How to Choose Green and Healthy Cookware

If you’re like me, you regularly spend time cooking for your family at home. It can be both a chore and a delight. But have you ever bothered to think about whether your cookware is both environmentally friendly and good for your family?

It’s a thought that’s easy to skip. Cookware is something that once you have it, you’ll probably take it for granted, at least until the nonstick coating wears off.

That’s one of the biggest problems with Teflon cookware. That stuff comes off bit by bit through the years, guaranteeing that you will have to replace it regularly, and that your family is eating bits of Teflon. Not really what I want in my food, even though nothing is proven health-wise about it… unless you’re a bird, in which case I understand concerns have been demonstrated. Teflon can create a gas called PFOA that is poisonous to them when used at high temperatures.

The use of PFOA in making nonstick surfaces is decreasing already, as the EPA is working with companies to eliminate its emissions and product content by 2015.

Even if you aren’t concerned about the Teflon, having cookware that you have to replace regularly isn’t exactly environmentally friendly. Wouldn’t you rather have stuff that lasts longer?

Cast Iron Cookware

Cast iron cookware is my absolute favorite. Heavy, takes a little extra care, but it lasts just about forever. My favorite skillet is a cast iron skillet that was handed down to me from my grandmother. So long as I take care of it, I may very well be able to hand it down to my own grandchildren.

Cast iron cookware does release a little iron into your food, in part depending on the acid content of the food. That’s not a bad thing, as many people need a little more iron in their diet.

You do not need huge amounts of oil to cook in cast iron. Keep your cookware well seasoned, and it is beautifully nonstick.

Best of all, even if you don’t have someone to inherit cast iron from, you may be able to find it in antique shops or thrift stores. There’s also plenty of new cast iron out there to be bought if you just aren’t having any luck.

If you don’t want iron leeching into your food, there are ceramic coated cast iron pans you can buy also. They come in some nice colors as well.

Stainless Steel

If you want something a little lighter, go for stainless steel cookware. These often have a core of aluminum or copper to help with heat distribution. I grew up using my mother’s stainless steel skillets, and they worked quite well. Quite reasonably nonstick too.

Old, dinged up stainless steel cookware can leech some chemicals, but only in small quantities.

“Eco Friendly” Nonstick Cookware

“Eco friendly” nonstick is a bit newer to the scene.It uses a nano coating, which not everyone is comfortable with, as the technology is quite a bit newer.

Thermolon is what the coating is usually called, and I have some concerns about whether or not it is really worthwhile. Looking at online reviews, people love it at first, but within a couple months in an awful lot of them start to have problems with food sticking badly to the cookware.

This type of cookware, for all it gets trumpeted as being green, I am much concerned is more of a greenwash. It’s not green if frustration with stickiness causes you to replace the pans in short order.

They’re also apparently quite susceptible to chipping, and some manufacturers recommend you hang them rather than store in a cabinet or drawer. I consider durability a part of being green, so these don’t do well in that respect.

Overall, despite the number of people calling this type of cookware green, I’m not convinced. I suggest sticking with more reliable types.

edited to add

Glass Cookware

I had a reader point out to me that glass is another great choice. I don’t know how I forgot my beautiful glass cookware. My Pyrex cookware is wonderful for cooking and storing the leftovers. You have to use it in the oven, not stovetop, but it’s amazing stuff. Wonderfully easy to clean since you can put it in the dishwasher if you like.

One Small Change Month Three & Month Two Review

Month three of the One Small Change challenge already? How did that happen?

Month two’s challenge of washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar went pretty well. It’s a different feeling, and one I’m still experimenting with. Hair still comes out soft, but a different kind of soft that takes some getting used to.

This month’s challenge is going to be a bit more difficult for me. I want to get my family to eat at least one vegetarian dinner a week. Getting others involved is always a little more difficult.

The hard part about this is how my family generally reacts to vegetarian meals. There’s one that everyone enjoys, Sand and Shells, but that’s it.

My husband always says either that it would make a great side dish or suggests adding something to it, such as chicken, bacon, ground beef… you get the idea. He’ll accept the occasional vegetarian meal, but as a weekly thing may push his habits a little.

The two older kids are each challenging for this in their own way. Neither likes beans just now, although my son used to utterly adore them.

My oldest daughter loves barley in soup but not otherwise. She hates all nuts and nut products, except once in a while when she will enjoy cashews, but is just as likely to hate them the next day. She loathes couscous.

My son is just plain variable in what he will eat on any day, even favorite foods. He’s still highly resistant to all unfamiliar foods. On the plus side, he would take peanut butter as a food group if I let him. Except when he wouldn’t. He enjoys couscous sometimes.

I have some hope that a recipe with lentils will do well. They’ve all enjoyed those in homemade chicken soup, to the point that my daughter begs me to make it. Might be possible to get them eating lentils in another recipe.

I’ll probably start the first week with Sand and Shells, just because they go over well and the leftovers go into my daughter’s school lunches. Very easy lunch for her to bring, something I really appreciate in a leftover. This will also give me time to start looking up recipes and getting any ingredients I don’t already have on hand.

Talking as a Family About Where Food Comes From

For the most part, kids don’t care where food comes from, so long as they can eat what they like. That’s natural. However, you can teach them from pretty young to appreciate where food comes from.

There’s not much you can do for babies, of course. You can appreciate things yourself, though, and make homemade baby food when possible. Teach your baby from a very young age how wonderful homemade food is.

Believe me, they do notice the difference. My nearly 1 year old isn’t nearly so enthusiastic about eating when it comes from a jar, as it does when we visit relatives. She can tell the difference.

Toddlers and Preschoolers

Toddlers and preschoolers can begin to appreciate where food comes from. One of the best ways to do this is to start a garden with them. Go select seeds together, and plant them together. Get your toddler or preschooler involved in caring for the garden – watering, learning what makes a weed, and of course harvesting.

Another way to teach appreciation for where food comes from is to visit a local farm. Try to find one that offers tours. This may be easiest to do as a part of a preschool group, so suggest it to the teacher if your local farm prefers group tours.

Kids this age love to be told that they are eating “grow foods” when they’re eating healthy foods. Little kids do love to grow!

Elementary School Age Kids

Keep working with kids as they get older in ways similar to how you started with your toddler or preschooler, but increase their participation. Teach your child how to cook age appropriate recipes. It’s really not that hard to teach a child to do something like make scrambled eggs safely. Talk about safety rules and only cooking with adult supervision, of course.

You can also get more into the difference between organic, local and conventionally produced foods. If you haven’t already, join a CSA or co-op and get some organic or local food at a pretty good price.

Middle School and Up

Time to get serious!

You might want to check out The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids as a great starting point for really getting into what goes into bringing food to the plate. It really gets into what goes into all kinds of food, and the environmental damage that occurs.

And of course keep up the healthy eating habits and keep the kids involved in food preparation at home. It’s not only a great way for them to really appreciate what they eat, it’s great family time.

A Quick Break From Baby Food Making

What a week it was last week! Thanksgiving is always a crazy time of year, but my dear eldest daughter had to make it more interesting by coming down with a rather nasty stomach bug.

And passing it on to my husband and son.

Fortunately, the baby and I did not get it. It took a lot of effort to keep things that way. Keeping kids apart who normally play together much of the day is rough, and the baby really loves her Daddy.

So what does all this have to do with baby food making?

I’m picky about the conditions under which I will make baby food. A house full of people who have been throwing up is not what I consider good conditions. Too worrying that maybe there was something in the kitchen either causing the problem or that had come into the kitchen with one of the sick people.

Naturally this hit right when I was just about out of baby food cubes. I’d been planning on making quite a number just after Thanksgiving.

I had to resort to jarred baby food!

All right, so it’s really not all that horrifying. Glad I had a good stock on hand. I use jarred food for when we visit family.

Fortunately, they’re all well and I’ve done some serious scrubbing to be sure that no one spread anything too bad around the house while they were sick. So I’m back to making baby food. And very grateful that whatever the virus was, the baby didn’t get it.

Sugary Cereals are Deceptively Labeled? You’re Kidding!

I’m rather pleased to see that the FDA is looking at food labels again. This ABC News article focuses on how cereals such as Froot Loops and other types of food are marketed and labeled to appear healthier than they really are.

The focus is on the Smart Choice label, which is supposed to be on nutritious food choices. While they may be fortified with however many vitamins, Froot Loops and other such cereals that focus on appealing to the sweet tooth scarcely qualify as healthy last time I checked.

Must be some new definition of healthy I’m not familiar with.

Admittedly, many healthier cereals may not be so good for you either once you’re done preparing them. I don’t know if the habit is common anymore, but I remember always having a spoonful of sugar spread over my cereal as a kid any time it wasn’t one of the sugary sorts. Wouldn’t eat them any other way back then. Thank goodness my kids haven’t heard of that habit.

My mother told me a while back that when a study was done comparing different kinds of cereals and the way they were really eaten, sometimes the sugary ones would come out ahead in nutritional value just due to how much sugar people would add at home to less sweet cereals. Now this may well have been done when different sweeteners were used, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting tidbit to consider if you still add sugar to your own cereal.

Better yet and potentially cheaper can be to buy oatmeal and have that for breakfast. No worry about artificial colors. You may have the sugar issue going again, depending on your sweet tooth, but you can easily add naturally sweet things such as raisins to make it a bit better. My kids love oatmeal, although they do want more brown sugar or honey in it than I really like to give.

There’s a good side to this kind of labeling, however. It’s a great teaching point for parents about advertising and how you really can’t trust everything you see on a box or on television. It’s a way to teach kids to be more cautious consumers.