CAUTION: Remember not to touch the hot surface because you can burn yourself, and protect your eyes with polarised lenses against UV rays.
Depending on the age range
- Level 1 - You can experiment with simple processes, such as melting chocolate on cookies and heating drinks (tea, coffee, milk, etc.), but if you want to carry out more complex activities, you can do so.
- Level 2 - Make a small dish, a meal with a level of elaboration, not only heating, as in level 1 , but also preparing and cooking a dish, adding different elements, such as the drink, garnish and main dish, in at least a personal portion.
- Level 3 - Like level 2, carry out more complex elaboration processes and prepare portions for a small group; they can be family members, a scout work team, a school work team, etc. As a recommendation, you can join and work as a team to be able to have more than one solar oven or cooker working at the same time, and if you cannot, then you can also have more than one solar cooker or oven team to cook several things at the same time.
In all cases, you must consider that the processes are slow and, therefore, you must plan your dishes, but you will have a significant advantage in that you can do other things while your cooker or oven works. It is safe, so try to check from time to time how your dishes go so that it is not damaged by excess heat, depending on each case. You can just open the lid of your cooking pot only when necessary, as you will lose the stored heat inside. There are no exact times for solar cooking, you will see the progress as time goes by, and you are on the lookout. The sunnier the day, the faster it will be. If it is a cloudy day, we recommend you refrain from doing it because it will most likely not cook, even after a long time.
Evaluation
At the time, you can consume your food and eventually share it with others.
THEORY
The use of energy is not only reduced to electricity; there are many ways to take advantage of these different forms of energy for our benefit and without causing damage to the environment. One of these forms is using the sun's heat energy in two possible forms: With greenhouse-type solar ovens or cookers (solar box cookers) or with the refraction of the sun rays at focal points (parabolic or panel-type cookers). In both cases, the processes are friendly to the environment and are beneficial ways of cooking in a safe, nutritious and planet-friendly way. Remember that solar cooking is slow, so you should have enough time to wait. However, it is also important to note that simmered foods preserve their nutritional properties better.
Fun facts
- At 49°C, the bacteria are inactivated.
- At 65°C, the water is pasteurised.
- An egg is boiled at 69°C.
- At 71°C, foods are pasteurised.
- At 71°C, the egg is cooked (including its presentation in omelette, soufflé, etc.).
- At 72°C, beef, pork, veal, and lamb are cooked as ground meats and meat mixtures.
- At 74°C, cooks chicken and turkey.
- At 82°C, all foods are cooked.
- At 100°C water boils.
- Some seafood products do not have a fixed temperature, but physical data such as colour change (shrimp, lobster, etc.) and shell opening (clams, oysters, etc.) are evaluated.
Additional activities
- Practice will give you experience, try cooking more meals and even make a solar cooker recipe book with approximate times and portion sizes, so you can share your knowledge and thus help more people. Remember that you can use these methods in any circumstance, including a family picnic at your school.
- The pictures could be used in a step-by-step instruction to make it easier to understand
- Good sunglasses
- Level 3 is only possible if you have a large and well-working solar cooker or a lot of smaller ones in parallel.
