Cooks can make an important impact to relieving pressure on climate, not only when procuring new kitchen equipment, but also in their everyday work.
By Dieter Mailänder, mailänder marketing
A green kitchen? Do cooks have to rescue the world now? Isn’t it going too far if, for instance, a cook, who prepares meals for 400 people, is also expected to pay attention to food waste, low-waste water pollution, the conservation of energy and other resources, and the lowest possible emissions? Haven’t high-ranking personalities told us that climate change is supposed to be a hoax peddled by Chinese economic saboteurs, who want to make trouble for other countries and weaken their economies as a result?
Of course, cooks cannot rescue the world. But, together with other professions, they can make an important contribution in addressing climate change. No one who has dealt with the changes in climate can objectively dispute that the glaciers in Greenland, the Antarctic, the Peruvian Andes or the Alps are melting and with increasing speed. As a result, the water levels of seas, rivers and lakes, which are causing more and more floods, are rising. Due to the warming of the Antarctic, the maritime ecological system is becoming more turbulent. Other effects are that wine will be cultivated on a larger scale in Southern Scandinavia (one of the few positive effects) in the foreseeable future, while weather disasters will increasingly result in much more damage. Munich Re, one of the worldwide leading reinsurance companies, offers highly interesting insights into this subject on its website. Addendum: On January 19, 2017, the media quoted information from the US environmental authorities NOAA and NASA that 2016 was the warmest year since temperatures have been recorded. It was 0.94°C above the 20th century average and 0.04°C above that of the previous year.
Greener – Better than Nothing
So, how can cooks reduce their impact on the environment in their daily work? Checkpoints for purchasing new equipment, which are important in terms of sustainability, have been introduced in previous issues of this magazine. But, can a kitchen chef, who doesn’t procure new equipment, trim his or her operations somewhat in the direction of a “green kitchen” and therefore contribute to protecting the environment? Of course, any kitchen chef can organize his or her operations in a slightly more sustainable way as shown in the following examples.
Switching to Green Electricity
Green electricity is extracted from water, wind, sun or biogas, rather than produced in coal-fired or nuclear power plants. While a changeover may lead to ecologically produced electricity flowing from wiring, this isn’t inevitable. In any case, the changeover changes the demand for environmentally friendly electricity from the electricity grid. The greater the demand for green electricity, the more pressure is put on producers to invest in greener power plants. Perhaps costs will rise slightly, but that isn’t an inevitability either. This decision doesn’t affect the procedures in the kitchen at all, but sets a recognizable example, which can also be communicated to guests.
Climate Day or Climate Court
If one follows the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 2014, 14% of greenhouse gases come from agriculture (cf. graphic). The large consumption of meat in many countries and the large-scale rearing of animals for red meat (beef, lamb, and pork) have contributed significantly to these results. In order to acquire land for the cultivation of fodder, tropical forests are being cleared. Pasture and forage areas are being treated with artificial fertilizer, leading to the release of laughing gas (N2O), a strong and long-lasting greenhouse gas. Moreover, cattle, in particular, give off a lot of methane. That’s why advocates of the so-called “climate plate tectonics” recommend reducing offers with meat, especially red meat, but also white meat and fish, because fishing grounds in many parts of the world are also considerably polluted. Climate protection activists call for dispensing with every type of meat, poultry and fish at least one day a week. If an operation offers several different menus, creating a meatless option should be discussed. Dishes that use dairy products with more than 15% fat are also on the negative list of the advocates of climate plate tectonics, due to the high milk yield.
There are many possibilities for a cook to make his or her kitchen greener than it is today, even without acquiring new equipment. This includes avoiding waste as much as possible from foodstuffs in the production and management of waste resulting from the consumption of guests, patients or residents in retirement homes. According to the organization United Against Waste, a third of the food generated yearly is thrown away. At the same time, between around 800 and 900 million people are starving (there are different figures available). The dining-out industry is affected too. In Germany, for instance, roughly 1.9 million tons of foodstuffs are thrown away yearly by operations, which offer meals outside the home; according to United Against Waste, 50% of such waste is avoidable. Starting points in addressing this problem include offering different serving sizes (possibly with seconds), regular analyses of food waste, an uninterrupted (deep-freeze) cold chain, or the precise control of the goods and materials used. United Against Waste’s checklist points out other initiatives.
Purchasing new devices –important questions for an environmentally friendly enterprise:
- Are investment and operational costs taken into consideration throughout the entire operating time?
- Does the manufacturer provide a testing device, so that all of the performance figures can be verified neutrally?
- Do multifunctional devices, such as pressure cookers, make more sense than single devices, such as tilting frying pans, mixing kettles or stovetop blocks?
- How high is the consumption of resources (energy, water, cleaning agents etc.)?
- How fast is the equipment ready for operation (no standby operation)?
- Does a greater number of small pieces of equipment make more sense than a single large piece of equipment?
- Do the devices have pot detection?
- Does the piece of equipment have modules for the following?:
Heat recuperation (is this the reason why exhaust air purification systems are able to be scaled down?)
Processing of industrial water?
Remote maintenance?
- Is there a maintenance plan, with which unscheduled service calls can be avoided?
- Does the device clean and decalcify itself automatically?
- Are the frozen food equipment, cooling units, walk-in freezers and cold rooms equipped with air curtain systems?
- Is the running time of the ventilation system precisely aligned with the service life of the kitchen?
- Does the establishment of an energy management system make sense?
