Cooking
I was shopping for dishwashing liquid the last week and they didn't have the size and type I wanted, so my eye wandered over to some other brands. I noticed one that claimed to be environment-friendly, so I picked it up and took a look at it's back label. I was immediately sucked in... "blah blah, blah-blah-blah! Blah blah... we could save 81,000 barrels of oil... blah blah - blah..." As you may surmise, my critical thinking skills were on sabbatical at that moment. My interpretation of the claim was that by using this vegetable based detergent I would save the world a significant amount of oil. I plopped a bottle in my basket and didn't think to examine their claims more carefully until just last night.
What the label actually says is: "If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with our 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year!" Hmmm... so how many households are there? And what will my purchase of one bottle do?
The U.S. Census estimated that there would be approximately 110,000,000 households in the U.S. in 2006. So the bottle I bought (taking their claim at face value for the moment) will save .000736 of a barrel of oil.
But how big is a barrel of oil and how does that equate to something I can understand - like gasoline? A barrel of oil has 42 gallons of crude oil which translates to 19.5 gallons of gasoline. So the claim would be that by using this bottle of dishwashing liquid instead of a petroleum based product, I could save .0144 of a gallon of gasoline. I think my car averages about 20 miles per gallon, so using one bottle of this product is about the same as not driving .287 of a mile, or about 505 yards (five football fields). Not quite as impressive, huh?
The thing is, this product is more watery than the product I usually use. I doubt one bottle of this vegetable based detergent will last as long as my regular brand, which ultimately means more packaging. Plastic packing. Petroleum based - right? In all fairness, the packaging for the vegetable based product "contains a min. 25% post-consumer plastic", but still... I'm switching back.
- Mondays With Maida - 24-karat Cookies
Page 50 in the old book / page 83 in the new book I swear it was an honest mistake. I forgot to give Phil his cookies this week. It had nothing to do with the fact that these were the worst cookies I've ever made from this book - bland and not at...
- Real-deal Tortilla Soup For Souper Sundays
I am such a bad food blogger. I made this soup three weeks ago. I had every intention of posting! ...And then I didn't. Ah, well. No time like the...blah blah blah. I've become such a fan of Serious Eats over the last year. I think a third of...
- How Blogging Has Effected My Life
That, while sick, I think one of the worst things I have to deal with is the lack of post-able material! Feeling blah, no interest in cooking or eating, therefore, no posts. Oh, yeah...the coughing and achiness really stink, too....
- Peanut Butter Bread
Because breakfast is the most important...blah, blah. For Matt to take to work this week: a dense, incredibly peanut butter-y, loaf bread. He hasn't tried it yet, but I expect an update from him later. Butter creamed with both sugar and brown sugar,...
- White Wine Vinegar
Homemade white wine vinegar has always escaped my grasp. For almost four years, I've been making red wine vinegar. Every few months, I pull a new batch of ruby red, fruity and complex vinegar — better than any commercial product I've had...
Cooking
According to my calculations...
I was shopping for dishwashing liquid the last week and they didn't have the size and type I wanted, so my eye wandered over to some other brands. I noticed one that claimed to be environment-friendly, so I picked it up and took a look at it's back label. I was immediately sucked in... "blah blah, blah-blah-blah! Blah blah... we could save 81,000 barrels of oil... blah blah - blah..." As you may surmise, my critical thinking skills were on sabbatical at that moment. My interpretation of the claim was that by using this vegetable based detergent I would save the world a significant amount of oil. I plopped a bottle in my basket and didn't think to examine their claims more carefully until just last night.
What the label actually says is: "If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with our 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year!" Hmmm... so how many households are there? And what will my purchase of one bottle do?
The U.S. Census estimated that there would be approximately 110,000,000 households in the U.S. in 2006. So the bottle I bought (taking their claim at face value for the moment) will save .000736 of a barrel of oil.
But how big is a barrel of oil and how does that equate to something I can understand - like gasoline? A barrel of oil has 42 gallons of crude oil which translates to 19.5 gallons of gasoline. So the claim would be that by using this bottle of dishwashing liquid instead of a petroleum based product, I could save .0144 of a gallon of gasoline. I think my car averages about 20 miles per gallon, so using one bottle of this product is about the same as not driving .287 of a mile, or about 505 yards (five football fields). Not quite as impressive, huh?
The thing is, this product is more watery than the product I usually use. I doubt one bottle of this vegetable based detergent will last as long as my regular brand, which ultimately means more packaging. Plastic packing. Petroleum based - right? In all fairness, the packaging for the vegetable based product "contains a min. 25% post-consumer plastic", but still... I'm switching back.
- Mondays With Maida - 24-karat Cookies
Page 50 in the old book / page 83 in the new book I swear it was an honest mistake. I forgot to give Phil his cookies this week. It had nothing to do with the fact that these were the worst cookies I've ever made from this book - bland and not at...
- Real-deal Tortilla Soup For Souper Sundays
I am such a bad food blogger. I made this soup three weeks ago. I had every intention of posting! ...And then I didn't. Ah, well. No time like the...blah blah blah. I've become such a fan of Serious Eats over the last year. I think a third of...
- How Blogging Has Effected My Life
That, while sick, I think one of the worst things I have to deal with is the lack of post-able material! Feeling blah, no interest in cooking or eating, therefore, no posts. Oh, yeah...the coughing and achiness really stink, too....
- Peanut Butter Bread
Because breakfast is the most important...blah, blah. For Matt to take to work this week: a dense, incredibly peanut butter-y, loaf bread. He hasn't tried it yet, but I expect an update from him later. Butter creamed with both sugar and brown sugar,...
- White Wine Vinegar
Homemade white wine vinegar has always escaped my grasp. For almost four years, I've been making red wine vinegar. Every few months, I pull a new batch of ruby red, fruity and complex vinegar — better than any commercial product I've had...