Sure thing. When you slice broccoli into tiny florets, you’re just turning one plant into a bunch of little pieces that cook faster. Faster cooking means less gas or electricity spent, so that’s a win for your carbon budget. But the chopping itself—your knife, your prep time—uses a tiny bit of energy and maybe a dash of water if you rinse. On the flip side, leaving the broccoli whole means the plant stays intact, so you’re not disturbing the soil or the plant’s structure. That can reduce the chance of waste if you only use a portion and freeze the rest. The difference is usually razor‑thin, maybe a few grams of CO₂ per meal, but if you’re doing it for thousands of servings, it adds up. So yeah, small details matter, but don’t stress over every floret. Balance the energy of cutting with the energy saved in cooking, and you’re doing fine.

Sure, let’s crunch a quick ballpark. A kitchen knife’s motor (if it’s a handheld electric chopper) is about 10 W. If you slice a head of broccoli for 3 minutes, that’s 0.5 kWh—roughly 0.5 kWh × 0.45 kg CO₂ per kWh equals 0.225 kg CO₂, but that’s for the whole chopping job, not each floret. Now a stove at 1.5 kW running for 5 minutes to cook a whole head is 0.125 kWh, so about 0.056 kg CO₂. If you split it into florets and cut again, you spend another 0.5 kWh chopping but save maybe 2 minutes of cooking, cutting the stove time to 3 minutes: 0.075 kWh. Total 0.575 kWh versus 0.125 kWh—roughly 4.6 times more energy. But that’s a worst‑case with an electric chopper. A manual knife uses almost no electricity, so the chop is basically zero‑energy, while the stove savings are still real. In short: micro‑cutting energy is tiny if you’re manual, but if you’re electric, you can offset that by chopping in bulk or using a faster cooker. So, leave it whole if you’re all‑manual and care about every watt, or slice if you’re saving cooking time and the difference is negligible.