Learn the Climate Kitchen Hacks
Each of the classic recipes in the Climate Change Kitchen has been ‘hacked’ to lower the carbon footprint, reduce the calorie count, and improve the balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Our simple labelling system makes cooking great tasting, healthy and sustainable food super easy.
Here are some of the key principles which guide us at the Climate Change Kitchen:
800 is the Magic Number: Each of our main meal servings is less than 800 calories with a carbon footprint of less than 800 grams[1]. Why? Well, 800 calories is around the maximum recommended calorie count for the main meal of the day for a healthy adult. And 800 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) is less than half the average carbon footprint of a main meal today. If you combine this small but crucial change with bigger systems changes and reforestation, you are supporting a pathway to net-zero agriculture (starters, soups, and salads are all less than 400 calories & 400 grams of CO2 per serving).
Eat Your Greens, Green Your Eats: Switching from meat to plant-based ingredients is a sure-fire way to lower the carbon footprint and lower the calorie count of a dish. By using high-protein, plant-based ingredients you can create great tasting, nutritionally balanced and low carbon versions of your favorite meals. Jack fruit, sweet potato, beans, pulses, avocados, peas, and nuts are great substitutes, with a lower carbon footprint and packed with flavor.
Choice Meats, Meat Choices: Here at the Climate Change Kitchen we get it - you still want to enjoy cooking and eating meat. We’ve got your back. By making smart meat choices you can dramatically lower the carbon footprint of your favorite dishes and improve nutritional balance. Switching out beef, lamb, or goat and replacing them with pork, chicken or seafood can reduce the carbon footprint of the meal by more than half. Avoiding red meats also means less of the stuff that’s bad for you; cholesterol, saturated fat, and high sodium. The Climate Kitchen recipes combine smart meat choices and simple flavor hacks to enhance the taste, texture, and visual appeal of your favorite meals.
Spray Don’t Drizzle: Oils are an essential part of cooking; they help to raise the cooking temperature, prevent ingredients sticking to the pan, and impart flavor in the cooking process. But did you know that just four tablespoons of oil have nearly 500 calories and a carbon footprint of more than 200 grams of CO2. We like to spray our oil because replacing each tablespoon with just 4 sprays of oil you can reduce the calories and carbon emissions by 75%. We favor olive oil with its healthy fat content for low temperature recipes or dressings, and for higher temperature cooking we use canola (rapeseed) oil which has a higher smoking point and avoids the formation of potentially harmful chemical compounds.
Plenty of Fish in the Sea: Our recipes favor the lowest footprint seafoods which include mollusks such as clams, mussels, or scallops, farmed on the coastline where they help to filter the water and can actually improve the aquatic environment. We avoid crustaceans such as prawns or lobsters, because over half of these products are farmed at the expense of natural mangroves, and most of the remainder are caught at sea using harmful trawling techniques. For fish, we favor line caught species that gather in large schools, - anchovies, sardines, mackerel and skipjack tuna - making them easy to catch and with the lowest carbon footprint. Wild-caught white fish and salmon are okay-ish. We avoid farmed fish (aquaculture) or trawl caught fish which risk a higher carbon footprint.
Dos and Don’ts of Dairy: The cow is no longer king. There are an abundance of dairy alternatives out there which, if chosen well, can add great taste, texture, and nutrition to your cooking. Try using oat or soy milk in place of coconut milk or single cream to add that silky texture with less fat and a lower carbon footprint. Use soy-based yogurt in place of crème fraiche or sour cream, avoiding that dairy. Natural yogurt is better than Greek yogurt as it uses one quarter of the milk to produce. But if you love Greek don’t fret - soft cheeses like Feta have half the emissions of hard cheese options. If using hard cheese use sparingly as a flavor enhancer rather than main ingredient.
Use It Don’t Lose It: We try to create all our recipes using standard portions of perishable ingredients. This helps to minimize the number of half empty packets, and half used vegetables cluttering your fridge, going bad, and ending up in the trash.
Smash it, Don’t Trash It: Cooking isn’t always easy. At the climate kitchen we understand - which is why we have developed simple to follow, foolproof recipes you will get right first time and every-time - meaning no wasted food! We include simple tips like adding big flavors little by little (think lemon, garlic, chili); choosing cooking temperatures carefully to avoid burning food; using appropriate pans because heavy pans reach higher heats and are great for searing meat, but lighter pans will better distribute heat and help to avoid burning more delicate ingredients; or cooking stir fry ingredients in batches knowing that home woks often can’t maintain the same high temperatures as commercial versions.
[1] This is 800 grams of carbon dioxide equivalents CO2e which includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gas emissions measured on a comparable basis.