Living the American Green

Not…that we’ve ever had one of these “daily” tips before. But no matter! Today is Earth Day and it’s a great to start (and realistically, finish) such an initiative.

Tip: For huge water savings over the long term (the next big thing, remember?), a phenomenally easy thing we can do is boil less water while cooking pasta. Some statistics for whcih I did virtually no fact checking suggest that Americans consumed 4.5 billion pounds of dry pasta and 500 million pounds of frozen or fresh pasta in 2000 alone. I personally probably consumed about 300 million of those pounds (I love me some pasta). And on those pasta packages, the recommended amount of water is 6-8 quarts per pound. Meaning….30-40 billion quarts of water used in 2000 to cook pasta in the USA.

i miss my italian family

Now. I’ve been trying a little experiment in the weeks leading up to Earth Day. Every time I cook pasta (which is, as a bachelor on a budget, frequently), I have been using incrementally less water, to try to find a sweet spot where the water savings are big without yielding sticky or undercooked pasta. And such a sweet spot exists, at about 3-4 quarts of water. Half of the recommended amount. And we’re not talking about sacrificing quality, here – I still end up pouring some down the sink when I drain it, and with just a little bit of oil the pasta doesn’t cling any more than usual.

But the water? A full 50% saved. On a national scale, this little experiment would save 15-20 billion quarts of water annually. And even though we don’t (yet) have to ration water this way, why not volunteer a bit of metaphorical belt-tightening? Doesn’t hurt the food, but it helps the lilies of the field (or something).

See kids? Math is fun! That or guilt inducing. Or fun!

Who wrote this one?  Me: Cook, hiker, mushroom hunter, snowball fighter, lover of good coffee and cheap wine, enjoyer of the taste of tap water, wannabe Sicilian goatherd, comrade of big hairy spiders. You: widespread sustainable agriculture, bioregional community structures, innovative green-collar workforce policy, pesto sauce made by an Italian grandmother. Come over for dinner sometime. --- “A gastronome who isn’t an environmentalist is just stupid, and an environmentalist who isn’t a gastronome is just sad.” -Carlo Petrini, Founder, Slow Food Read more from this author