Don't Preheat Your Oven
"Ignore cookbooks! It is usually unnecessary to pre-heat your oven before cooking, except when baking bread or pastries. Just turn on the oven at the same time you put the dish in. During cooking, rather than opening the oven door to check on your food, just look at it through the oven window. Why? Opening the oven door results in a significant loss of energy." —Vanity Fair, April 2006
Around a half pound of carbon will be saved every time you do not preheat the oven.
More Cost-Cutting Tips
The VISTA Energy Program of Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL CAP ) suggests the following:
Use pressure cookers and crock pots—they save energy compared to using a pan on the stove.
Use a microwave—it uses less than half the electricity to heat items compared to a stove.
Use a toaster oven instead of a regular stove or oven.
Use the smallest pans on the smallest burners that you can when using a stove.
Use a lid on pans when using a stove to keep the heat in while cooking.
If you cook in the oven, use a glass or ceramic pan and turn the heat down 25°F lower than the recipe calls for—it will cook just as fast but use less energy.
By not opening the oven door, using the microwave for smaller heating jobs, and covering boiling pots of water so less heat is lost, an additional 85 pounds of carbon can be saved each year.
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