The act of cooking food from scratch necessitates using water. We use water when we boil pasta, scrub potatoes, wash dishes, steam vegetables, and thaw frozen items. Here are five 'wise water ways' to reduce pressure on the water treatment facilities, reduce your water bill, and keep our access to water plentiful:

1) Turn off the tap. If you step away from the faucet while washing dishes, turn off the tap. As soon as the pasta pot is full, turn off the tap.

2) Reuse water. When you thaw meat*, water bath can or steam vegetables, you are left with a big quantity of useful water. Cool the water to room temperature and use it to water plants indoors or out, pre-soak dirty dishes, or fill the dog's water dish. *Only reuse water from meat if the meat was sealed in a package.

3) Consider the rinse. Do your dishes really need a pre-wash rinse before they go in the dishwasher (assuming you have one)? My dogs do the pre-washing in our house which has the double benefit of not using water to rinse dishes. If you don't have beasts, most dishwashers can handle dishes that have scraps scraped into the garbage or compost bin.

4) Scrub in a tub. Rather than run water over root vegetables or fruits to wash them, fill a small bowl or pan and scrub in the pan. Give them a final quick rinse in clear water.

5) Wash a full load. If you are running the dishwasher or filling up the sink for washing dishes, loading it up to the max makes best use of the water.

What else do you do to use water wisely in your kitchen? Share in the comments!

This year's Blog Action Day theme is Water. You can read thousands of other posts on the topic here. You can read my previous Blog Action Day posts on Poverty (2008) and Climate Change (2009).