Communal kitchens to reduce carbon footprint?

[LSP]

I know how we go on about how home-cooked food is better, but have we considered the carbon footprint left by each and every little family baking their own loaf of bread, roasting their own joint, boiling their own potatoes, etc? I ask because it suddenly occurred to me that buying ready-prepared food may not be that bad.

I remember a 90-something woman telling me proudly how she was eating duck roasted by her grand-daughter-in-law. The Chinese, you see, do not 'bake' or roast. I chuckled to myself when another older Chinese woman showed me the Chicken Kiev bought from 'Marcus Pencil' (as my son used to call it). She was going to steam it.

Baking/Roasting uses far to much energy. Much easier to chop up everything really small and stir-fry it in a big wok in a little oil for five minutes. When us Chinese steam food, it is usually over cooking rice, thus using the same energy source.

But we have our 'festive foods': roast duck, roast belly pork, roast char siu pork which we buy from shops/restaurants. These are made by 'experts' and roasted in special ovens.

While we're on the subject, why do we each need a washing machine, or fridge, etc. If washing machines, ovens, fridges and so on were shared more often (ha! in another world!) then less will be used to serve more, and less will be wasted.

So, back to communal kitchens or a variation then? Your thoughts please.

[red]

this is why I argue that self sufficiency isn't always the best way - society has its up points - in the olden days.... no one had an oven, apart from the village baker. that's just one large oven going making everyone's bread -and other items - in Dickens' 'A christmas carol' the goose is cooked in the bakers oven and fetched back. and the recipe 'potatoes boulangerie' has its origins again with taking your tray of sliced spuds in stock and getting the baker to put it in his oven.

I object to bread makers - (the electric kind, not the human kind!) mostly as i feel it's teaching an entire generation of kids that to make bread you must have a machine .... but also the environmental impact. I know that lots of people will say the energy used is very little, and other bread had to be transported, but they forget to put the manufacture and transportation of the machine into the equation! then some will call it being self sufficient to make their own bread in the machine, - the machine was made elsewhere, the electricity made elsewhere, and the flour imported. but I realise I am in a minority here, and other people love their breadmakers.


the problem with buying ready prepared food is the shear number of journeys involved. if you jsut walk to your local bakers and buy bread made on the premises, that fine, but if you buy somethng as simple as a sandwich from a supermarket, the bread, and other ingredients all travelled an extra journey to the place of manufacture, there is packaging, and then what is not sold, is thrown out. worse the more prepared a meal.

yes, we probably should go back to communal ovens, laundrettes etc - we have somehow learned to expect separate lives.

[Annpan]

Home made dishes have alot more goodness in them too(and I am talking more specifically veg based dishes) . As soon as you start preparing a vegetable the vitamins are reduced so the fresher it is the healthier it is.

I don't think that supermarkets selling mass produced crap can ever be a good thing.

I do agree that a community is almost definaetly better than self-sufficiency.

Maybe if I lived in a community with a communal laundrette, oven, etc it would be better. You could also justify having a nice big wood burning oven (great for pizzas) and an heated indoor drying area for clothes.... ahhh dream on.

But general society would most likely be uncompliant. Think of the pee smells on trains and buses (in big cities), they are communal, 10% of society abuse them, 70% don't want to use them because they are abused. It's a cultural thing I guess.

[wulf]

As well as the problem of abuse, there is also the problem of time. For example, washing clothes would be harder if I had to go to the local laundrette and much harder if everyone else was also relying on going there.

To some extent, that is a symptom of an unsustainable society but the path away from there has to be taken in small steps, especially as most of us rely on so many others for almost every part of our lives. A clean break from society would be almost impossible and, anyway, no man is an island...

Wulf

[Martin]

I can think of one possible problem area - the territorialism of the female of the species when it comes to their kitchen space!

[Annpan]

Well I don't know any men who are territorial . Thank goodness we aren't suggesting we have communal sheds or garages, or greenhouses, or workshops, or dens

[Thomzo]

I can think of one possible problem area - the territorialism of the female of the species when it comes to their kitchen space!

My first thought was "share a kitchen - ooh no thanks"

My main concern is hygiene - as obviously I am the only person in the world who can keep a kitchen clean - I couldn't possible trust anyone else to keep a communal kitchen as clean as I do

Zoe

[snapdragon]

I can think of one possible problem area - the territorialism of the female of the species when it comes to their kitchen space!

nooooooooooooo!!! Anyone can have mine - please - I've been cooking for a family (mine and my mother's) for forty years and I've had enough of it - am so tempted to be a fruit and nutter

[Chickenlady]

Actually, communal kitchens and living spaces make perfect sense in environmental terms - I am not sure about ready meals though!

I love the idea of eco communities - people living together and supporting each other (instead of side by side but never talking to each other), sharing facilities like kitchens and laundry facilities, working together to grow food, but still having their own spaces to retreat to.

However, I am now in my forties and would have hated this idea when I was younger - although I did spend some time on a kibbutz in my twenties and enjoyed that experience, but I knew it was only temporary.

I am not sure anybody I know would like the idea of shared kitchen space. Most of them wouldn't use the bus because they would have to share the air.

Jane

[Wombat]

The idea of a communal kitchen is a good one but not the baked goods that come out of commercial premises. I don't know about over there, but here they are fullof colours, flavours, trans fats, and other assorted crap. So I try not to, but sometimes fail!

Nev

[LSP]

When I said 'communal' I didn't mean 'factories'.

My picture (vision?) is people cooking large batches of healthy food from locally-sourced ingredients where possible, and shared/sold to within a short distance from home.

So if you have loads of apples and make a wicked apple pie, you turn on your oven, make apple pies to feed 5000 (metaphorically) and share/sell these to those living near you.

Someone else might have something else (cottage pie, lasagne, bread, etc) they could cook and exchange in the same way. I just thought it was a bit energy-wasting to turn on the oven to cook one meal for a small family in my case.

Wouldn't work, would it?

O! and my article in Ethical Junction here ('editorial'): http://www.ethical-junction.org/ethicalpulse/

[Stonehead]

As well as the problem of abuse, there is also the problem of time. For example, washing clothes would be harder if I had to go to the local laundrette and much harder if everyone else was also relying on going there.

I have fond memories of using a laundrette. It was just behind Kirra beach on the southern end of the Gold Coast, in Queensland (Australia).

It might have been hard work and I might had have to wait, but I never minded. No, not when it was always packed with women in bikinis or mini-skirts and bikini tops.

I'd get in big trouble if I went to a laundrette like that these days...

[Stonehead]

The idea of a communal kitchen is a good one but...

It all depends on the cooks. Navy scran aboard ship was invariably good back in the '80s, while army food was a bit hit and miss. Mining camp food in the outback was also good, shearer's tucker would choke a a goanna, but the absolute worst was hippy commune food. Bleuch! I've eaten food from several communes and for some reason the worst cooks always found their way into the kitchen.

[ina]

I've seen too many micro-biological experiments in shared kitchens to get terribly excited about the idea...

[hamster]

this is why I argue that self sufficiency isn't always the best way - society has its up points - in the olden days.... no one had an oven, apart from the village baker. that's just one large oven going making everyone's bread -and other items - in Dickens' 'A christmas carol' the goose is cooked in the bakers oven and fetched back. and the recipe 'potatoes boulangerie' has its origins again with taking your tray of sliced spuds in stock and getting the baker to put it in his oven.

Which is also why you have your roast on a Sunday. The baker's oven would be off, but still quite warm, so people used to drop off their joints to cook in a slow, cool oven while they were at church. (According to legend, anyway.)