Monday, January 24, 2011

All Things "Green"

Okay. So I really have no excuse for not trying to "green" my family's life. It is somewhere between a mix of laziness, and how expensive those green items are. I know that I should be using no VOC paint, and given the frequency of which I change colors (our teal bedroom is back to beige) I could benefit hugely from the no toxic smells, but darn it, it just costs so much more!

But after Chris scraped off the mother lode of teflon out of my favorite pan, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and look into cooking ware that didn't give off toxic chemicals. First, I will admit that google is not always your best friend when it comes to making yourself smart. Mostly I know this from googling health things that I am worried about with my kids, and of course the worst possible case scenarios are the ones that I always find, and then you take them into the doctor and they are like "we see this all the time, it is nothing to be worried about." Which I follow up with something smart like "but google said...." (can you just hear the exasperated sighs from the doctors?!)

Anyway, so I googled cooking ware. Turns out teflon is a very scary thing, especially if you heat it too high, or scratch the surface. (check and check) Aluminum really isn't better, there have been studies linking high levels of aluminum in Alzheimers patients. This left us with stainless steel, and castiron. Chris found an old castiron pan in our garage that was designated for the good will. We buffed that puppy up with some salt, although we need to scour it with one of those metal scrubbies to get all of the rust off. The good news is it works great. The bad news is the pan is too small.

As fate would have it, the one big soup/boiling water pot I own is stainless steel- I had no idea, but yeah for us! Unfortunately, stainless steel is uber expensive, and because we already have a huge pot that is stainless steel, it doesn't really make sense to by one of those 10 piece sets. Plus I do almost all of my cooking in a huge 6 quart deep covered pot, which is not included in any of the sets I could find. So I think we will be buying piecemeal to complete our collection. This will definitely cost us more, but then we can get exactly what we need and not have extras.

I would LOVE any advice on cooking with stainless steel, I have heard it is a big pain, (think food sticking and stains) as well as with cast iron. I would also love it if anyone has any other "green" ideas for the home. examples: kitchen stuff, hair products, etc. Somehow with more kidlets coming, I feel I need to be more responsible with all of the nasty things that can be in all the stuff we use.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Jess,
    I have been going through this exact same conundrum for over a year now!
    I threw out the aluminum and teflon (along with the microwave ;)... And started researching.. A lot!
    What I found was that stainless steel was very good for minimal leeching of chemicals, however they said that "some" leeching still occurred. Cast iron is a great teflon alternative, but there is a great deal of iron that leeches into your food - which is great if you are menstruating woman, but not so great for men and children.
    The best cookware is a coated cast iron - like Le Creuset. Very expensive! I now have 4 pieces and LOVE them - even my husband loves them! They last a very long time, so are typically handed down to the next generation. You can sometimes find them at garage sales... They are certainly worth the investment - and better if you can find them cheap!
    Cast iron tips - you need to "season" it to help make it non stick. Coat it with peanut oil or shortening and throw it in the oven for a couple hours at 350. Use a scrub pad etc on the pan, but not soap as it will take all the oil back out of the pan.
    Good luck... being green is not easy or cheap! lol.
    Jolene
    www.thompsontreehouse.blogspot.com

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  2. I use EarthChef. It's comparable to non-stick but without the toxins :P
    Here's the link:
    http://www.earthchef.ca/commercial.html

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