Some green changes are harder to make than others--for example, installing solar panels on your house or driving an electric car. Others are easy as pie--or in this case, a dozen cookies. Among the activities that I genuinely enjoy sharing with my children is baking. Unlike (just for example) playing "princess hair salon" or "crash-and-smash cars", we get mutual enjoyment out of baking together. My daughter puts on her chef hat and apron, her big brother proclaims he's my sous-chef, and they're off and baking.
From the green standpoint (of course), there is no plastic packaging with homemade cookies. Most store-bought cookies have at least two layers of packaging, and it's rarely recyclable, so it sits in the landfill forever. Also, homemade cookies contain only ingredients that I can identify easily. (I have a vague idea of what "high fructose corn syrup" is, but what is "resistant corn maltodextrin" anyway? Never mind--I don't want to know.) I can even use organic flour, organic sugar, organic eggs--you get the picture. So, recently, after handily churning out six dozen homemade sugar cookies with my kids and watching their enjoyment at the results, I wondered, "Why am I buying cookies?"
I don't want to lie to you and promise that I'll never buy another package of cookies from here to eternity, but since they're easy to make, a fun and creative activity with the kids, and a better choice for the planet (no packaging) and our health (no strange chemical additives), I plan on making them much more often and buying them far less frequently.
Here's a link to one of our favorite recipes for homemade chocolate chip cookies (from King Arthur brand flour) using organic white whole wheat flour. (Important step: You will need to scoop the dough into a tablespoon and mold it firmly onto it with your hand before putting each one on the cookie sheet., otherwise they are a bit difficult to manage--there are a LOT of chips.) Substitute as many organic ingredients as you can find--butter, eggs, sugar, even vanilla extract--most stores (near metropolitan areas, anyway) have gotten on-board the organic love train.
Food for thought (literally this time!): What are your favorite recipes using organic or otherwise healthful ingredients? As with a good batch of cookies, it's better to share!
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