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After my grocery run for homemade chili, I'm not convinced home cooking is always the climate win
I keep hearing that cooking at home is the best way to cut your carbon footprint, but my last meal prep made me doubt that. I wanted to make a pot of chili from scratch to avoid takeout containers. To get all the fresh stuff, I had to hit two different stores across town because my local market didn't have everything. That meant extra miles in my truck, which isn't great. At home, my oven is from the 90s and it sucks up power like crazy just to simmer for hours. On the other hand, the cafe near my work gets big shipments from one supplier and uses a high-efficiency kitchen setup. For me, with my old appliances and spread-out errands, grabbing a bowl there might actually use less energy overall. It's not about ditching home cooking, but we should talk about more than just the idea of 'homemade' being better.
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the_charlie6mo ago
Honestly, the math on this gets super specific. A 2019 study from Carnegie Mellon found the supply chain for food is often a bigger deal than the cooking itself. So your truck trip for one chili recipe might tip the scales, but your old oven running for hours probably doesn't use as much as you'd think compared to all the energy used to grow and ship the beans and beef.
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quinnc986mo ago
Consider whether your energy weighing the pros and cons even matters that much, probably not a huge deal.
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