Chronicles of Climate Action: Adventures in Climate-Friendly Cooking

Read this and other success stories of climate action chronicled every Friday from now through mid-October!  We are currently gathering teams of households eager to take on Season Four of our Home Energy Challenge. We hope these success stories inspire your household to join!

Debbie Wong of the Just Chillin’ team (above) took on the Veganuary Challenge in—you guessed it, January— to primarily cook vegan for the entire month. While she is a meat eater, cooking with meat had resulted in previous kitchen disasters, resulting in both over- and under-cooked dishes. Vegan cooking seemed like it could be a more successful option. For Debbie, recipes provided by vegan cooks seemed to reflect a thoughtful analysis of ingredients that work well together. Though the primary impetus for taking on the Challenge was to cook more successfully at home, the climate and health benefits were certainly additional incentives they know could also help their team and community!

Taking on a vegan cooking adventure during a challenge like Veganuary was especially enticing to Debbie because of the social support and short (and therefore “doable”) timeline. She found online forums of people sharing recipes, interesting articles, and enthusiasm for vegan cooking and eating. With these resources, Debbie was able to take on the Challenge with some minor exceptions including cooking with eggs and taking advantage of non-vegan options when eating outside of the home.

The most obvious outcome to Debbie’s new cooking approach, besides the delicious meals, was the drastic reduction in grocery costs. By sticking to primary ingredients like whole grains, vegetables, and beans and avoiding processed options, she found vegan cooking to be very economical and noticed her grocery bill was about 30% less than usual. Many of her new recipes were provided by online resource Vegan Richa, www.veganricha.com. She especially recommends the instapot recipe for coconut chickpea curry.

Photo from Veganricha.com

What an inspiring story for taking on a new climate-friendly habit!  By eliminating meat from her cooking ingredients, Debbie could eliminate her annual carbon emissions by over half a ton of CO2.

We have just one last question: when can we come over for dinner?

Read about the Purdue Household or the McElwain Household. And if you or someone you know is interested in joining the Home Energy Challenge, contact andrea@theclimatecollaborative.org.