Can cooking with friends help stop global climate change?

Over my kids’ spring break, I headed into New York City to visit with my parents and spend a few fun-filled days enjoying theater, museums, great food and new neighborhoods. One of our adventures included a visit to the American Museum of Natural History and a stroll through its Climate Change exhibit. It proved to be an educational and worthwhile outing as my kids learned about ways to help stop global warming.

After pondering photos of devastation and natural disasters, the exhibit ended with a request for answers to the following question: “What can you do to help stop global climate change?” My kids, always eager to help save the world, grabbed a pencil and paper and scribbled down their answers. My almost four-year old gave it some good thought and had me write: “People live on this earth. Don’t ruin it.” And my nine year old daughter cleverly punned: “Recycling makes cents.”

As they thought about their answers, I thought about what I can do to help stop global climate change. And then it dawned on me: Those of us who regularly cook with friends are already doing something and that something is actually quite big.

By coming together in one kitchen, don’t we use one less oven and several fewer burners–conserving energy and wasting less? An oven doesn’t work any harder with two meatloaves in it than with just one, does it? As more people start cooking together and this communal cooking trend gets even greater traction, more and more people will turn off their lights, close their refrigerator doors, leave their own kitchens and combine forces with someone else. Within the global effort to make kitchens greener and more energy efficient, doesn’t communal cooking just fit?

See, Cooking With Friends can help stop global warming by allowing us to use less energy. How’s that for another reason to give it a whirl?