Cooking takes up an average of 30 minutes to 45 minutes of energy consumption in a household per day. The energy that you expend while cooking can be reduced by more than half if you adopt methods to cook on energy efficient appliances or by adopting methods that reduce either cooking time or energy consumption.
1. Remember that microwave cooking is the most energy efficient way of cooking. A microwave oven uses 3 units of energy for every seven units of energy used by gas oven and sixteen units of energy an electric oven uses. Â Follow the tips below while microwaving food-
- Keep the insides of the microwave oven clean. This is so because spilt food inside the oven will absorb as much energy as the food which is cooking.
- While microwaving food make sure that you have first defrosted food in the refrigerator before cooking.
- Remember to switch off the microwave and unplug from wall socket too so that it does not use up energy for running the clock.
- For heating or reheating food, microwave ovens are the best option,
2. While using a gas range or gas oven keep these tips in mind and reduce your energy consumption further.
- Use just the right amount of water you would want to heat and heat it in the kettle rather than an open saucepan.
- Always cover the food you are cooking. This uses three times less energy than you would be using if you were cooking the food uncovered.
- Cook the food in a pressure cooker. This means you are cooking food at higher temperature in a short time. Pressure cooked food retains the nutrients as well as uses less energy.
- Cook double the portion of your meal and refrigerate one portion to be heated and eaten later. It takes less energy to heat food than to cook it from the scratch.
- Keep the burner pans that collect the grease under the burners clean. This will help them reflect more heat and give you energy efficient cooking.
3. While cooing in an electric oven follow these few tips to save energy.
- Cook a larger portion in the oven so that you use up a larger capacity of the oven and freeze the unused portion.
- Ceramic or glass cooking utensils use up to 25% lesser energy in the same cooking time.
- Try not to keep opening the oven to peep inside at the food. Instead keep the door of the oven clean so you can look inside through it. Each time you open the door, heat is lost.
- Turn off the oven ten minutes earlier than the cooking time required and do not open the oven for that time period, The heat inside the oven will be maintained and energy used reduced.
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