Potato Salad Will Wreak Your Carbon Foot Print

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/opinion/30palmer.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I’m not advising you to forsake grilling this holiday and join the ranks of raw-foodists. Nor do I believe that we can reverse climate change by eating burgers rare instead of well done. But a little creative thinking can reduce this year’s Fourth of July carbon emissions without gustatory sacrifice. And maybe that awareness will carry into other days and other parts of our lives.

Consider potato salad: a pale mixture of boiled potatoes and mayonnaise that is sometimes appetizing but always wasteful. An overwhelming majority of the energy in boiling goes into heating the water rather than cooking the potatoes."

 

If boiling water is ruining the planet, we're doomed. But not as doomed as we will be if we eat the potato salad this author seems to think is the only kind.

 

Or his suggested environmentally friendly desert:

"And finally we come to dessert. Skip the pie. Baking is so energy profligate that the government hasn’t yet figured out a way to reward any residential ovens with the Energy Star label.

Here’s where you can really make use of your briquettes. One problem with charcoal is that you can’t turn it off when the burgers are done. In most backyards that means lots of heat — and carbon dioxide — goes to waste. Not in your yard, though.

Use that leftover charcoal glow to grill up dessert. Apples, pears, peaches and nectarines grill beautifully, and are even better à la mode. Or you can prepare a cobbler in a foil pan and grill it on the dying coals. From an environmental perspective, that’s free energy."

 

I can't fucking stand potato salad; however, it's the one dish my wife is famous for far and (across her family) wide. So every 6 months I have to smile widely and choke down a few mouthfuls while her 5 brothers and sisters and the 50 other people in attendance rave about how great Mrs. TV's potato salad is.

Woe is me.

 

And then there's the additional waste of countless gallons of water, flushing away the inevitable effects of potato salad ptomaine.

 

Who new, who knew.

 

Ice cream is extremely energy inefficient

*the cow needs to eat a lot of grass to produce the milk. And don't even ask me about the bovine methane gas
*any ice cream recipe includes heating the cream on the stove until it boils
*you have to chill the completed mixture for hours. Those refrigerators aren't running on solar power, buddy. If you buy the ice cream in the store, its been in a freezer for days or weeks, sucking energy like a prom date


For a dessert with a small carbon footprint, your best bet instead of ice cream is just chewing on some fresh dandelions in your yard.

 

As a matter of fact, I had potato salad last night. My daughter made it. Delicious! Also had fried chicken, which I'm sure is more destructive to the environment than your average nuclear power plant meltdown.

 

"FOOD is responsible for 10 to 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. By many estimates, cooking represents more of a meal’s carbon footprint than transport. For certain vegetables, it accounts for more emissions than agriculture, transport and disposal combined."

10 - 30 percent seems like a pretty wide range. Would like to see Brian tighten this up a bit.

 

Just off the top of my head, I cannot think of a vegetable whose cooking causes more emissions than growing and transporting it. Mushrooms, maybe.

 

Just leave your air conditioner and tv off for the weekend to balance things out.

 

Lets all have gazpacho for our July 4 cookout, but only if it can be cooled naturally. I'll dig out a bunker this weekend to keep the soup cool.