You see, I’m not very much a cook, despite being a latch-key kid when I was in my teens and I had to so-called cook lunch for my sister and I when we got home from school. But that was merely re-heating the (already cooked) rice and pot of soup and probably fry some vegetables, that was all. And when I came to the university, not surprisingly, I ended up dining out most of the time.
Now, this is to make myself feel better: Suppose I can walk into a food stall/restaurant, can I assume that the way a restaurant cooks is almost more efficient and thus more green? Or are restaurants almost always more wasteful overall? Perhaps because they don’t use local ingredients (who knows?), they keep their stoves on, they use and wash too many dishes, they keep all the lights switched on, etc.?
Take, for example, a loaf of bread. Is it greener to bake your own bread or to buy it from a bakery? To me the answer is quite obvious since a bakery bakes many dough at once. I also think that if a bakery can predict roughly the demand on its bread, it will generate much less waste.
Image credit: Beachy.
Consider this scenario:
There are 50 people in a restaurant, and all of them turn out all their lights when they leave home, that’s many houses that won’t be using electricity, and one restaurant that will be, even if there is an enormous amount of lighting, I doubt it will be more then those homes. A green restaurant that focuses on efficiency would be much greener than eating at home simply because of economies of scale and concentrating the means at one point.
Now the food, they buy in bulk, which means less packaging. The ovens and stoves are always on, but they’re cooking multiple meals with them at all time, whereas at home you would only be cooking for yourself (or perhaps for your family of 4 or 5 persons), and they’re using more energy because it is an industrial stove, but they’re cooking for dozens of people at the same time. So it possibly could be greener from an energy standpoint.
There is also the “green” side of it with chemicals, if you eat at home you choose what goes into your food, if you eat out, you are going to eat whatever they put into the food — chemicals and all. There are also the chemicals they use for cleaning, de-greasing, etc. In restaurants, almost everything is cleaned in bleach solution, which kills all the bacteria — and some people think this is creating strains of super germs that are resistant to such methods of cleaning.
However, you also have to consider the energy it takes to get to the restaurant though. Your traveling for one meal, as opposed to if you were buying groceries for many meals. Plus, it also has a lot to do with what restaurant you are going to and the amount of energy in the food itself.
So, what do you think? Is dining out greener than cooking at home?
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if there weren’t so many preservatives and other garbage in ‘public’ food- it would be and interesting thought. the biggest reason to eat at home is health reasons. perhaps cooking multiple meals for the week at once- so maximizing energy use. i don’t care for cooking either- but i am getting better. :)
Cook multiple meals at once, and then keep them in the fridge and reheat them later for consumption? Aww.. I’d prefer dining out, because then, I’d make sure that my food is cooked on the spot, and not reheated from some meals cooked 5 days ago!
This post is excellent, pelf! It really made me think about the energy cost of my food. I would guess that eating out is better in terms of energy consumption but costlier on my pocket?
Dining green is something that varies according to the circumstances. It all depends on making a conscious effort to eat more socially, physically and mentally responsible. You can make these efforts in your own kitchen or you can find restaurants which are making these efforts. I recommend you check out Pizza Fusions business model. They are an up and coming pizza franchise responsible for creating a whole new genre of eating. They have fused organic gourmet pizzas, salads sandwiches, wines, and beers with environmentally friendly practices. Just to list a few of their practices:
*Delivering in hybrid cars
*Offsetting a 100% of their energy usage by purchasing renewable energy certificates
*Giving customers discounts when they return their pizza box to recycle it
*Building their restaurants according to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification standards set forth by the United States Green Building Council by utilizing a variety of unique energy efficient tactics and eco-friendly products
These are just a few of the environmental initiatives they implement into every store they create. If more restaurants followed these practices, we would never have to feel guilty about eating out again.
As malandete hints at, you ask some hard questions in this post. It all depends on the restaurant and how you cook at home. I eat mostly at home because I can eat healthier. I also make my own bread, but I am fussy when it comes to bread. The only bread I buy is from a local “Old World” style bread bakery. All organic, whole wheat, or hemp, with seeds etc. Just like the bread I make!