Beautify the Environment — YOUR environment

Wooh, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this GYK blog — sorry to you, both readers and the blog! I’ve been truly busy with my job and the whole New Year/Decade thing, that I hadn’t been keeping up with this blog. But from now on, I’ll make sure to check in more often and update regularly & better 😉

A"beautified" NYC Dumpster (source: The New York Times)

Anyway, the real reason I came to write on this blog today is to discuss this article I read earlier today, and the concept of ‘beautifying ugly objects’ which was discussed in the article. (By the way, this post is not related in anyway with kitchen or food — instead it focuses fully on “green” part of this blog Green Your Kitchen) You can see the full article featured on New York Times by clicking here, but to give you a brief summary, the article talks about how a young Roman woman — along with two of her friends — wallpapered a couple of dumpsters on the streets of Manhattan, NY. And it added how “it’s a simple concept, beautifying an ugly object.” Basically, the article was showcasing an example of how the public space/fixtures could turn from ugly to beauty with a simple idea, and how that task of “beautification” was able to turn ugly dumpsters into ‘street artifacts’, only with a little extra care.

As I was reading through the article, I was able to recall a same idea that I encountered back in 2002 — back then, my home country co-hosted the FIFA World Cup

 

Save on Kitchen & Cut Back on High Utility Costs this Winter!

As the days are progressing deeper into the winter, temperature has started to drop dramatically.

End result to this? Well, a pricey utility bill coming from excessive use of heating appliances at home. If you’ve ever managed utility bills for your home, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about — though electric costs surge in both summer and winter due to use of A/C and heaters respectively, winter costs tend to be even higher than those of summer time. With combination of high utility costs with Christmas and New Year holidays, winter season really puts a lot of stress on us financially with a burden of spending money for ourselves (utility costs) as well as for others (holiday gifts). Especially this year, with the economy being still cold as it is, this financial burden could hit on us even more critically.

So to help you cut back on your winter spending, I’m providing you with some simple tips to save money this season: And yes, as this blog is named “Green Your Kitchen”, these are tips to save on your kitchen utility costs 🙂

1) Refrigerator/Freezer — According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a few simple adjustments can trim roughly up to 40~50% of operating costs associated with refrigerator and freezer. First is to adjust the thermostat

 

Kitchen Sponge: a hiding place for germs

Have you ever heard how so many unexpected places or objects contain more germ than those that are widely viewed as being “dirty”? e.g. toilet area, under wears…etc.
Though often ignored, things like our hands and coins & dollar bills we use actually contain more number of germs than anyone expects. And this is probably why we’ve been told endlessly by our parents to wash our hands before we eat.

Similarly, it sometimes scares, and even amazes, me to see how many people ignore the importance of sanitizing kitchen sponges that are used to clean our dishes and silverwares.

Sanitizing a kitchen sponge with microwave kills 99 percent of germs on it.

If you think a kitchen sponge is always kept clean by getting rubbed with a soap all the time, think again.
In fact, many researchers say that a kitchen sponge contains and absorbs so many germs from dirty dishes, that it should ideally be replaced with a new one every few weeks. However, as replacing a kitchen sponge every few weeks poses financial problems to many average homes, there’s also an alternative way to keep our kitchen safe from kitchen-sponge-germs.
That is, to sanitize using microwave. The process is

 

Beware Wine Drinkers

The popularity of wine has been increasing gradually around the globe and in the U.S., as more people choose to drink wine whenever there’s a special occasion. Whether it be for mood, for taste, or just as means to get drunk, people drink wine for many different occasions. And while some have expert knowledge on each and every wine they drink, most others (including myself) are just casual drinkers that just drink wine as another liquor alternative.

To all those casual wine drinkers in the U.S. , I have little something for you to be aware of before you go get your next bottle of wine.

Many American wines are becoming processed drinks

The general assumption about wine is that it is made by a winery, and that winery’s name is on the label. However, according to a recent article that I’ve read, of the top 30 wine brands in the U.S., none actually grows, produces and bottles its own wines. Instead, they buy tankers of bulk juice and put their own labels on it.

It is just like how most big name retailers would do — buying bunch of products at cheaper cost and selling them as if their own.

 

Share Your LOVE, Conveniently!

Only three days left until Thanksgiving!

In Thanksgiving day, most people will sit with their beloved families to have a fulfilling dinner, watch some football on TV, and have fun!  Those who live away from home may also sit with their beloved friends and neighbors to feel the holiday spirits. However, there are also many that cannot afford all that luxury due to financial and other reasons. And with the current global economy, this number is only expected to increase.

Thanksgiving day apparently is the time of year to be thankful for all that we have, and for all that we have to offer our neighbors.  Right…?

Look for easy, affordable ways to contribute to the holiday spirit

So why don’t we start showing some love for our neighbors? This ‘showing of love’ does not have to be in a fancy way. Of course if you are a billionaire with a whole lot of disposable income, it will be nice to have your name on top of the donors list by donating thousands of dollars in a charity. But this certainly does not have to be the method for us average individuals.  There are tons of ways in which you can contribute to more affordable holiday ‘love sharing’

 

Green Toothpicks

I changed the overall appearance of this blog today, to better reflect its contents and to look cleaner. I’m not sure how others will adapt to it, but I like it and hope you guys like it as well! — Tell me if you don’t, and in that case, some suggestions could help. 🙂

Now, to get to the point, I introduced reusable straws a few days ago, which can contribute to a cleaner environment. And to provide you with information on more TINY things that could help our environment BIG, I’m now introducing to you the Green Toothpicks – toothpicks that are made from starch.

Starch Toothpicks

 

Greener way to Drain your drink

Just now, I bought my lunch from a nearby deli. For my lunch, I got a grilled chicken BLT sandwich with a can of soda;and along with these, the man at the deli counter gave me some napkins and a plastic straw.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of using straws, especially when it comes to drinking a can of soda – I think it tastes worse to use straw. Nevertheless, many people use plastic straws, and they turn into trash immediately after the first use.

So as I was drinking my can of soda, I thought “what if we can get rid of straw-garbage?” So, I went ahead in a search of reusable straws online, and found these glass straws which can be washed and reused permanently just like metal silverwares.

 

Eating Healthy with less Dollars

Last week I wrote about how more people are choosing unhealthy food to cut back on their expenses, as a result of this on-going global economic crisis.

And to follow up on that, here are some tips on how you can spend less dollars, and still eat healthy (how great  is that?!)  — based on “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides” report by a green organization called Environmental Working Group (EWG).

• If you do not have enough budget to buy everything organic, try saving your dollars for “high-risk” produce. According to the report by EWG, produce such as peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, strawberries, lettuce, carrots and pears get highly contaminated by pesticides. (even if you rinse them before you eat) Thus, it is highly recommended that you put them on top of your list when going organic-grocery-shopping.
• For items like onion, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, asparagus, cabbage, kiwi, watermelon, broccoli and tomato,

 

Economic crisis vs. Healthy eating

As I was looking at news online, I found this interesting article featuring the recent study by an organization called Christians Against Poverty (CAP) which is based in UK.

The study looked at how people’s eating habits have changed due to the current economic downturn. And the results are… well, not too good (as far as health is concerned). It said that almost a third of 2000 respondents were eating less healthily than last year in a bid to save money amid soaring food prices and economic downturn. And more people are turning to cheap, processed foods as organic, healthier foods tend to be more expensive.

Upon looking at the article, I just could not agree less 

 

Electric Cooktops: Are they really better?

I’ve been using an electric cooktop for almost an year now – and you know, by electric I mean those stove cooktops that have circles drawn on top with red-light glowing in them to heat up your pot/pan as supposed to having real flames coming out. And although electric cooktops are supposedly more innovative (I agree with this part) and safer than the traditional flame-bursting stoves, as I’ve been using one for a while, I noticed that’s not necessarily the case.

From personal experience, these more-expensive electric cooktops (around $500-1000 more expensive than traditional ones) have both ups and downs