Cooking and shopping for a healthier climate
Rachael Eedy, special to the Journal Argus Editor’s note: Rachael is Dorothy’s oldest granddaughter. She moved to BC three years ago to pursue a career in environmental science and currently lives in Vancouver, working for the government in the Ecological Department.
By now our New Year’s resolutions have withered or flourished. So this is a good time to remind your memory if you were thinking about our environment and get going from knowing to doing.
For one, we have all heard about global warming, so how do we start doing something about it? It took me a long time to accept this challenge. The strategies that got me going were the same ones suggested for any type of resolution. I worked with other people and started in small steps.
I recently joined the Vancouver-based group Community Change. They organize free public events called “cafes,” described as “ conversations that lead to tangible action.” At my first cafe, I met some great people who shared my interest in the environment. One had been inspired to give up her car, which was itself is inspiring. By the end of the cafe, I had signed up to become part of a new Eco-Team in my neighbourhood. It took a bit of faith for this city girl to get involved with strangers, but I’m glad I did. I now visit my neighbours on a regular basis to work on environmental projects over tea and dessert.
I am also lucky to have a boyfriend who lends his engineering expertise to my little technical endeavours. He was the one who located the compact fluorescent light bulbs and figured out how to attach water-saving aerators to the tap faucets. Overall, I would say that working towards preventing
global warming has been much more rewarding and social than I had imagined.
Since this is a recipe column, I’d like to share some small steps for saving
energy in the kitchen. These can be divided into two categories: how we cook
and what we cook. For how we cook, as you might expect a microwave or crock
pot uses less energy than a stove to cook the same amount of food. A toaster
oven uses less energy than an oven.
There are also little familiar ways to saving energy with an oven or stove.
One is keeping the oven door closed and checking food by looking through the
window. This was something that I needed to practice after years of student
living (it’s hard to see through a greasy oven door when the light bulb
hasn’t shone since the dinosaur age). I am now matching the pot size to the
stove element size and putting the lid on the pot. I can thank my dad for
these good habits. (Grandma would likely say that she taught these tricks to
my father years ago). He likes to lovingly give me the same reminders each
time I visit home. I realized during my research for this article that you
can learn many of the useful on energy efficiency that have been prepared by
the government experts just by listening to your parents.
When shopping for food, the most obvious way to reduce greenhouse gases is
to shop nearby so that you can walk or drive a shorter distance to the
store. You can also save on transportation in directly by buying food that
was produced locally or at least in Ontario.
I happen to live across the street from two grocery stores with good
selections of produce. So buying locally has been far the most challenging
of my food choices. Food in North America now travels an average of over
2,000 km before being eaten. Reading the labels in a supermarket is like
meeting a UN delegation: kiwis from New Zealand and strawberries from
California and meet under a fine Belgian chocolate fondue.
The good news is that cooking with local foods doesn’t hurt. Better yet, all
the main ingredients can be grown and bought in Ontario and St. Marys.
Dorothy looked around for me to confirm this. (Thanks Grandma!). For
instance on one shelf of a local grocery she found five packages of salad
croutons and only one was a product of Canada — now tell me, why do we need
croutons made in the USA for our salads? Peanuts now are grown in Simcoe,
replacing the tobacco industry; farmers don’t get the same money but it is a
Canadian product and there is peanut butter made from Canadian peanuts, so
check your labels. We want to keep our farmers happy so we should help by
buying their Ontario and Canadian products, also it boosts the local
economy, which helps everyone.
 Robin Hood oatmeal, the large-flake variety, is another Canadian product.
Check the labels of your honey and maple syrup; I buy both locally so I
avoid mixtures made of ingredients from somewhere else.
Buying clothes made in Canada is a far more frustrating adventure which I
hope to cover another time. When I think of those huge ships sailing out of
China with products carrying names that used to be made in our country, I
see red, but try to find clothes made in Canada. Splendour sweaters at Ivy’s
Boutique are one of the few products I have found that are made in Canada.
I can’t understand how our country has allowed us to get into such a mess,
now we are paying for it with our factories closing, because they just can’t
compete. And we are also guilty as we look for the cheaper product.
Asian Coleslaw
This recipe gives an elegant and flavourful twist to conventional coleslaw.
2 cups thinly sliced Ontario green cabbage
1 cup thinly sliced Ontario red cabbage
1/2 cup thinly sliced Ontario Napa cabbage
1/2 cup grated Ontario carrots
optional: sesame seeds and or toasted sliced almonds
Dressing
4 tbsp. rice vinegar
3 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. grated ginger
1 tbsp. grated garlic
Combine and toss vegetables. Mix the dressing ingredients. Add dressing just
before serving. Serves four.
Apple Date Breakfast Bars
These moist, fruit filled bars make a nice change from muffins. Leave on the
apple skins for more color and fibre
3 cups diced Ontario apples
1 box date nut snack cake mix
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup natural wheat bran
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup water
2 tbsp. brown sugar
In a large bowl, toss together two cups of the apples, cake mix, wheat germ,
bran and cinnamon; stir until well blended. Stir in water just until
blended. Spread in ungreased 8-inch (2L) square baking dish, (if using metal
rather than glass dish time might be a little longer). Top with remaining
apples and sprinkle brown sugar on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 60
minutes, or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Let cool on
rack. Cut into 12 bars.