In the Kitchen...

Ecover © Healthy Homes

The kitchen is the heart of the home and one of the best places you can start to make a difference.

Cooking

Always use lids on pots and pans - this reduces heat loss and energy consumption. It also reduces condensation.

If you have a freezer buy good local food in season and either freeze it or make healthy dishes to keep for the future - much nicer than filling the freezer with prepackaged junk food.

Saving Energy & Resources

Save energy the Italian way! When you cook pasta, bring to the boil and continue simmering for two minutes. Then turn off the heat, cover and leave to cook until the pasta is as you like it - you'll need to experiment with the timing on this. It works for vegetables too.

Don't spark up the oven to warm plates - if you leave pasta or vegetables with the heat off you can warm plates over the pan - swap the plates for the pan lid - but be careful the plates are not too cold or you might crack one. If you use an ovenproof dish you can use the same trick to keep food warm on top of a pan.

Turn down the heat as soon as anything boils - a gentle boil and a seething cauldron actually run at the same temperature, a gentle boil uses much less energy.

To use the minimum amount of energy the bottom of your pan or pot should be the same size as the burner or hotplate.

Surprisingly - it's more efficient to use a small gas burner on a higher setting than a larger gas burner on a lower setting.

A gas burner on a cooker should burn with a blue flame. If it's yellow it's wasting gas - try cleaning the burner components to restore a blue flame - check the manufacturer's instructions for this. If that doesn't work the burner should be professionally adjusted.

Save cash with each cuppa. Just boil the amount of water you need for one cup of tea, rather than a full kettle every time.

Electric kettles consume half the energy needed to boil water on the stove, so when you put on a pan for pasta or something, boil the water in the kettle first.

Resist the urge to open the oven door to peek. Each opening can lower the oven temperature by 25º. Preheat only as much as needed, and avoid placing foil on racks - your food won't cook as quickly.

A steamer is the most efficient and cost effective way of preparing most vegetables, pasta and even some meats - and it's the most healthy too.

Cooking foods from frozen uses more energy - take them out of the freezer early to defrost at room temperature.

Did you know your refrigerator uses more energy than any other appliance in your home, typically accounting for 20% of your electric bill.

New refrigerators and freezers are on average 75% more efficient than those made 30 yeras ago. Investing in a state-of-the-art refrigerator can cut hundreds of pounds from your electric bill during its lifetime.

For optimum efficiency your fridge should be kept at 38/42ºF (3/5ºC), the freezer at 0/5ºF (minus 17/15ºC).

Try to open the fridge door less frequently and don't leave the fridge or freezer door open longer than you need to - it takes three or four minutes to regain its temperature, wasting valuable energy.

For efficient operation, clean the condenser coils on the back or bottom of your fridge at least once a year (the condenser coils are the bits that look like small radiators) - they get very dusty.

Keep the fridge door gasket clean to make sure the seal isn't broken by dried food.

Dealing with Waste

Try using newspapers to clean windows before they go in the recycling bin (the the newspapers that is!) - they give glas a brilliant streak free shine.

Consider home composting your kitchen waste - as well as fruit and vegetable peelings you can compost egg cartons, coffee grounds and teabags too. Up to two-thirds of food each household throws away could be composted.

Avoid using aluminium foil wherever possible - every year we use 25,600 tons of foil in the UK but only 2,940 tons is recycled - that's just 12%

On the very odd occasion you find half a bottle of wine leftover in the morning, tip it into an ice cube tray and pop in the freezer. Add a cube or two to pasta sauce, gravy, soup or even to chill a summer glass of wine!

If you can, re-fill your cleaning products instead of throwing the old bottles away. This saves you money as well as plastic resources - Ecover bottles are designed to be re-filled at least 30 times.

Getting it Clean

When you wash dishes by hand, remember to turn off your tap in-between rinsing.

Place a small seashell in your kettle to avoid limescale build-up.

Remove strong odours from your fridge by placing half a lemon in there and leaving overnight.

Greasy microwave? Shift the grime by placing a couple of slices of lemon in a bowl of cold water and switching on the power for a couple of minutes.

Clean your kitchen bin with a solution of water and a teaspoon of Ecover's chlorine free Laundry Bleach. Swill, leave for a while and rinse for a gleaming finish.

To loosen the junk in a really dirty roasting tray or frying pan add a dash of Washing-Up Liquid and half an inch of water - Really important - make sure the pan is cold first, otherwise the oil will spit. Put on the hob, bring to a gentle simmer then rinse normally.

Bubbles have nothing to do with cleaning power, they just look good. Many manufacturers add foaming ingredients even though this makes the products less biodegradable. Try Ecover Washing-Up Liquid, you'll see that it works perfectly well without making masses of unnecessary bubbles.

For really stubborn, greasy pans & trays, scrub lightly with Ecover Cream Cleaner, leave overnight and wash normally.

Other items of interest

Take a look at our full Ecover range

Don't think you need a different cleaner for each task. A good Multi Surface Cleaner (like Ecover's)can be used for all washable surfaces including floors, tiles and painted woodwork.

Don't rinse dishes before you put them in a dishwasher - that's what the machine is designed to do - just scrape all the excess food off the dishes and let the machine do the rest.

Rather than letting stained flower vases soak in bleach, put your potato peelings into the vase and fill with water. Leave overnight for a sparkling vase.

Use old garments and sheets for your household cleaning rather than buying synthetic ones.