Enviro-Girl lives in a charcoal briquette family — nothing screams summertime like the smell of that grill firing up. Her family gathers around the Weber in lawn chairs and cracks open a cold beverage of choice while waiting for the coals to be ready. Even the sharp scent of lighter fluid gets Enviro-Girl’s juices flowing.
Mr. D and Enviro-Girl get a lot of ribbing from their neighbors for sticking with this old school method of cooking out, but everyone agrees, the taste is worth the wait. Food cooked over propane is nothing special. Might as well use your oven. Who cares if it’s fast? Cooking out is an event, so they love to slow it down and wait for their food. And the ribbon of smell winding its way through the air is like a party banner announcing the intent to barbecue. A gas grill never gives such simple pleasures — it’s silent, odorless, quick, efficient and uneventful.
But are the environmental benefits or problems with Enviro-Girl’s grilling method? Charcoal briquettes produce more emissions than gas grills, but in the greater scheme of things, grilling emissions are negligible when compared to transportation and manufacturing emissions. Charcoal trumps gas in one regard — it comes from wood which is a renewable resource and the very forests that produce the charcoal briquettes suck up the CO2 through photosynthesis. Lump charcoal is a more sustainable and healthy choice for the environment, so Enviro-Girl will try them next time her family has a hankering for steak or chicken on the grill.
The bottom line? Taste matters to Enviro-Girl, so she’s sticking with the Weber grill and chalking up her lust for a perfectly cooked ribeye to her list of Eco Sins without apology.
