Fagor pressure cooker set
People might think that trading in their gas-guzzler for a Prius would be a good way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is a simpler and less expensive way of achieving similar reductions: eating less meat and using a pressure cooker to cook legumes.
Everyone knows that driving cars is bad for the environment, as is making oil out of tar sands and generating electricity using coal. Eating beef and other livestock is bad for greenhouse gas emissions because domesticated livestock eat a lot, belch a lot and create huge clouds of methane from their manure. They also degrade the land on which they graze and pollute water systems. Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, a UN report warns. Clearly, livestock are furry versions of the obnoxious SUV. It is time that people replace their meat with something more ecologically and nutritionally responsible.
One alternative to eating large quantities of meat is to eat legumes, a food category that includes beans, peas and lentils. It is what most of the world eats and what we in the West ate before we got on the bandwagon of eating unsustainable quantities of meat protein. Legumes are classic ingredients in any Diet for a Small Planet. Legumes can be bought in any middle-eastern food store for next to nothing and they are so colourful and beautiful you will want to keep them around just for decoration.
The problem with legumes is that they take a long time to cook — they usually require overnight soaking and then must be boiled on the stove, sometimes forever. This is inconvenient for many cooks, plus they can smell up your house. Solution: use a pressure cooker to cook them.
Modern pressure cookers are completely safe, relatively inexpensive and take only a short time to learn how to use. The advantages of a pressure cooker are many:
- They reduce cooking time
- They reduce energy used during cooking
- They increase the convenience of cooking dried, hard-to-cook foods such as legumes
- They ease dramatically the preparation of stocks and broths — essential ingredients in any good kitchen
I had to look all around the region to find where to buy them. I discovered that Macy’s in Buffalo — of all places — was the best and cheapest place for me to buy one. It may sound ridiculous but it was actually worthwhile for me to travel an hour each way and cross an international border to buy a pressure cooker set from Macy’s. Since then, I have discovered a basic eco-truth of which Al Gore or David Suzuki would be proud: every cook (even those with no interest in vegetarianism or legume-eating) should have a modern pressure cooker.
At first people ridiculed my theory of pressure cooking, sensing that it was yet another attempt to solve through gadgetry the burdens of helping to cook food for our family. That is until they witnessed the unholy speed in which I could convert an unimpressive pot of dried ingredients into a tasty pot of steaming stew or stock.
Note that pressure cookers are not slow-cookers. Pressure cookers use less energy while slow-cookers use more.
For those with the fear the their pressure cooker will blow up in their face you can be assured that modern pressure cookers appear to be foolproof (unless you are intent on creating an explosion). They have clever interlock mechanisms that prevent opening the pot when it is under pressure. The brand I bought was a Fagor, which is a Spanish company that I can highly recommend. They don’t make the most expensive cookers but also not the cheapest.
I would recommend stainless steel cookers over aluminium. Buying a new, modern one is preferable to resurrecting an older one.
Pressure cookers are not something you will use every meal, but I find I use it several times a week. I have been startled just how useful and basic a kitchen utensil it is.
