©iStockphoto.com - redmal

When we go out to eat at a restaurant, those inspection placards or letter grades remind us that the kitchens where our meals out are prepared have been inspected and held to standards of food safety. Sure, there are lapses, and local news stations get plenty of mileage from uncovering health lapses at local restaurants, but if those news cameras came into your kitchen, how would you look?

Even factoring in lunch at the office and an occasional family night at the restaurant, more than half of your meals are probably prepared in your home kitchen, unless you’re stopping for takeout every night. If you are eating that much takeout, stay tuned for the easiest ways to start cooking from scratch, coming next week. Foodborne illnesses caught in the home don’t attract attention since usually only the immediate family is affected, but that doesn’t mean foodborne illness and food safety aren’t a concern in the home kitchen. (continue reading…)

Cuisinart GreenGourmet

Thanks to new green cookware options you can say goodbye to toxic Teflon pans filled with dangerous chemicals that off-gas into the air and can possibly leach into your food.

Cuisinart’s line of non-stick cookware  is PTFE and PFOA free, which means that it contains none of the nasty chemicals that Teflon and similar non-stick coatings are formulated with.

Cuisinart’s GreenGourmet pans are petroleum free, have a hard anodized interior, an aluminum alloy core, and a Cuisinart Ceramica (TM) interior which is what makes the pan non-stick.

So what does all this mean? Keep reading to find out. (continue reading…)

ⓒiStockPhoto - stephconnell

When you’re trying to reduce your environmental impact on the world, it’s hard to figure out where to start. One thing you can do to reduce your family’s waste and to add a touch of beauty to your life is to make your own cloth napkins. This is very easy to do even if you’re intimidated by fabric stores and don’t know how to sew.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed in a fabric store, and even if you do manage to pick out some fabric, the thought of figuring out how to measure and cut your fabric can be a bit much. One easy way to make your own napkins is to use fat quarters, which are pre-cut sections of fabric made for quilters. Most fabric stores have a large number of these cut, and it’s easy to mix and match so that you have a stack of fabrics that will go together and look nice on a table. Often these fat quarters come bundled in quilt packs so that you don’t even have to match them out yourself. (continue reading…)

©iStockphoto.com - emreogan

In an earlier column, Green Diva Mom discussed why you should not microwave food. Knowing that microwaves may decrease the nutrient content of your food is one thing. Actually getting rid of the magnetron in your kitchen is another thing entirely. Convenience foods rely on the quick cooking of the microwave, and our hectic modern lifestyle is that much less hectic when you can pop forgotten cup of coffee in the nuker for a minute to warm it back up. Ditching your microwave takes some adjustment. Here are some suggestions for working cooking the most commonly microwaved foods without a microwave. (continue reading…)

Organizing a household is enough of a challenge for a person, but when you add in kids and all the stuff that they come with, then the task can seem overwhelming. It can also genuinely be overwhelming. I have three kids, and much of the time it looks like a fleet of evil elves have taken armloads of clutter and thrown them up in the air. If that weren’t bad enough, whatever has landed on the table, the cat has knocked onto the floor. If I clean one room, the others immediately fall into conspicuous decay, and it seems like I’m always picking up other people’s stuff.

I’ve tried Flylady and other plans, and read numerous books on how to organize my house. I’ve got all those books nicely organized on a shelf, but other than that, you’d be hard pressed to find me in my house never mind anything else. I’ve dressed to the shoes in the morning, shined my shoes, bought way too many nice baskets, and made all sorts of lists for zone cleaning. Yet too often I can’t find simple things like my hairbrush, yesterday’s mail, or anybody’s underwear. (continue reading…)

For months, I occasionally saw moths in our pantry but not enough to worry. To remedy the situation, I threw out opened packages and placed everything else in beautiful mason jars with a tight latch. I had a very nice, organized pantry and thought the problem was solved. I soon found out that I was wrong.

I kept seeing a few here and there, I brought in an exterminator, used “green” chemicals with no order and found that a month later I still had this problem. The second time the exterminator came out, I asked several questions,  “Why do I still have moths?  Where are they coming from?  Why is it they are only in my pantry and not the rest of the house or closets?  Did they come in from outside?  How did they get in the mason air tight jars?” (continue reading…)

Stainless steel cookware with tight fitting lids is your best choice. Don’t cook directly on copper because of the potential for copper toxicity. But copper seems fine in between layers of stainless steel, or on the bottom of a pot or tea kettle to promote quicker heating. Cooking on aluminum presents the risk of aluminum migration from the pan into the food. Aluminum-clad stainless steel pots are fine. There is some risk of nickel migration from stainless steel into food, but only if the stainless steel cookware has been damaged by harsh scouring. Pyrex, Glass or Corningware baking dishes with covers also work well. Teflon and other inert non-stick surfaces should be avoided.