At the other end of the scale you can also use solar energy simply to cook a meal.
How can you use solar energy to cook food.
If you ve ever seared your legs on a hot metal slide you understand the cooking potential of the sun.
Solar powered camp cooking.
You can even pasteurize water simple solar ovens made of cardboard boxes can reach 325.
A solar cooker can cook anything that can be cooked in a conventional oven.
Using stoves and ovens we can cook foods like meat vegetables beans rice bread and fruit in just about any way.
You can t rely on precision temperature control so you have to stick with foods that aren t fussy.
They can roast meat steam vegetables and even bake bread.
Just start your dinner in the morning and turn the oven a few times to make sure it s facing the sun.
We constructed one by using 70 mm thick insulation all round and this gave good results.
And this heat energy is then retained by the pot and the food by the means of a covering or lid.
The food will take longer to cook but that s no problem.
We can bake stew steam fry and braise.
But plenty of foods fit the bill.
It is not the sun s heat that cooks the food nor is it the outside ambient temperature though this can somewhat affect the rate or time required to cook but rather it is the suns rays that are converted to heat energy that cook the food.
If you plan to use your solar cooker on a regular basis to ensure healthier cooking and energy savings or only intend to use your cooker on lovely sunny days to replace your weekly braai sustainable co za has the solar cooker for you.
All you need is a device that can help in converting the solar energy into electricity so that you can carry on with your chores with that.
The second good thing about using solar energy to cook is that it does not use any of the limited sources of energy non renewable energy which makes our environment a safer place to live.
They use a free renewable energy source and do not pollute the environment.
Solar cooking with stored energy unlike conventional slow cookers which use around 300 watts this one had to run at a power of 50 to 60 watts so required max insulation.
Sunlight isn t hot in and of itself.
A solar oven can bake at temperatures above 350 f.
This means that you can use a solar oven anywhere that has lots of sun.
You can t broil in a solar oven but you can bake boil and roast.
To green up your life you can build and cook with a solar oven.
You can make almost all.
With a box pan aluminum foil a cooking bag duct tape man s best friend styrofoam insulation and a thermometer you ll be cooking in no time at all.
You can set a solar oven anywhere you.
Although it is something of a novelty exercise cooking with solar energy is much easier than you think.
And while many people joke about frying an egg on a sidewalk with the use of a solar oven you can easily harness the sun to prepare food at home or when you are camped miles from civilization.
