Energy use of conventional cooking methods + I got my thermal cook pot today!
Found this really useful article which compares the energy use of various baking methods: Electric oven, gas oven, toaster ovens, crock pots (slow cookers) and microwaves.
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooking.html
It was interesting to see the relative costs (though of course in reality, YMMV)
Even though it's only one household (and according to the information in the link above, the actual $$$ savings are minimal) imagine the difference to the environment it would make if everyone cooked using the retained heat / thermal / insulated method!
Anyway, it arrived today - I can't wait to try it out tonight! It's only a small one - 2.5 litres, and a cheapie too. I've filled it with boiling water here at work and am going to see how hot it is at the end of the day. Since it's only a cheap one, I'm interested to see how well it is going to perform. The instructions say that it should still be warm after 8 hours, but it also says I should reheat the pot every 6 hours. Hmmm.
Anyway, this is what it looks like (kinda cute, eh?):
(It's called a Magic Cooker - not sure whether that is the actual brand name or not. The text underneath says - thermal insulated cooking pot)
Note: it's been sitting on my desk for about 1 1/2 hours. The outside is cool, but where the lid meets the main part of the cooker, it's a little bit warm. Not very, but just enough for me to know that it is losing some heat, gradually. Might scout around for one of those styrofoam sheets that you find in packing materials and use it to put between the inner pot and the outer lid for some extra insulation.
After 5 1/2 hours: water is still very hot (but not boiling) - I couldn't put my finger in it for very long. But then, water will cool faster than the same volume of a thickened soup because of less resistance to the convection currents in water. So, things will cool in this order: The amount of convection decreases in the following order: water > chicken soup > creamy soup > thick onion soup > porridge. Source: http://blog.khymos.org/tag/heat-transfer/
I also noted elsewhere (can't remember where now) that the smaller pots are not quite as good at retaining heat as the larger ones - probably to do with volume and surface area, which I don't really know a whole lot about.
In any case, it's all very interesting! Will have to try it out with actual food very soon!
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooking.html
It was interesting to see the relative costs (though of course in reality, YMMV)
Even though it's only one household (and according to the information in the link above, the actual $$$ savings are minimal) imagine the difference to the environment it would make if everyone cooked using the retained heat / thermal / insulated method!
Anyway, it arrived today - I can't wait to try it out tonight! It's only a small one - 2.5 litres, and a cheapie too. I've filled it with boiling water here at work and am going to see how hot it is at the end of the day. Since it's only a cheap one, I'm interested to see how well it is going to perform. The instructions say that it should still be warm after 8 hours, but it also says I should reheat the pot every 6 hours. Hmmm.
Anyway, this is what it looks like (kinda cute, eh?):
(It's called a Magic Cooker - not sure whether that is the actual brand name or not. The text underneath says - thermal insulated cooking pot)
Note: it's been sitting on my desk for about 1 1/2 hours. The outside is cool, but where the lid meets the main part of the cooker, it's a little bit warm. Not very, but just enough for me to know that it is losing some heat, gradually. Might scout around for one of those styrofoam sheets that you find in packing materials and use it to put between the inner pot and the outer lid for some extra insulation.
After 5 1/2 hours: water is still very hot (but not boiling) - I couldn't put my finger in it for very long. But then, water will cool faster than the same volume of a thickened soup because of less resistance to the convection currents in water. So, things will cool in this order: The amount of convection decreases in the following order: water > chicken soup > creamy soup > thick onion soup > porridge. Source: http://blog.khymos.org/tag/heat-transfer/
I also noted elsewhere (can't remember where now) that the smaller pots are not quite as good at retaining heat as the larger ones - probably to do with volume and surface area, which I don't really know a whole lot about.
In any case, it's all very interesting! Will have to try it out with actual food very soon!