[Narz]

Most everyone cooks & yet probably most of the energy involved in cooking is wasted? Also cooking is very polluting. I've heard something like 75% of the pollution in certain parts of SE Asia come from cooking fires. There's got to be ways to use this wasted energy (whether from burning wood, gas or electric burners.

[kpeavey]

Part of the farm plan here is to convert the 2 car garage into a commercially licensed kitchen. The farm pays for the fuel (tax deductable as a business expense), produce from the garden is processed into value added goods and into canning jars (preps-food storage, tax deductible canning jars/lids), with the heat from the wood stove adding considerably to the house.

[frankthetank]

A lot of areas they use animal poops to cook their foods. I can imagine its heavily polluting, but what choice do they have? Uncooked rice is pretty nasty. Some sort of solar oven would probably save a heck of a lot of fuel, but they are expensive.

Here is one i've been thinking of.

Canning vs Freezing vs Drying... What is most energy efficient keeping the items for say 1 year?

I always thought canning, but after doing some now i think freezing has it beat. Drying beats them all if you use a homemade solar dryer. Freezing probably saves most of the nutrients.

[kpeavey]

Dehydration of foods can be done with solar thermal energy at temperatures which will preserve most of the nutrients. It is important to keep the drying temperatures in the 120-140 range or nutrients will be damaged by the process. 130 degrees will pasteurize the foodstuffs. Keeping the food out of direct sunlight also preserves nutrients. This can be done with a collector for direct sunlight and a drying box above the collector where the food is kept shaded. Suitable and effective solar dryers can be constructed with simple construction skills and reclaimed materials. With reclaimed materials, the only energy input in the system is the process energy, and its renewable. I gotta get a camera going over here.

Freezing will do the job, but the food must be blanched first. The blanching destroys enzymes which will break down the food, even during freezing. Winter can offer freezing temperatures outside. All that is needed is a container to keep the animals out. While seasons limit the time this method can be used, I have a neighbor who harvests ice from a pond down the road. He stocks his ice house, keep things cold. In the summer and fall he can use it for refrigeration only as freezing needs 0-20 degrees. The ice house tends to approach 30 degrees by the end of summer. What happens is the time it takes to freeze a product lengthens, allowing water to separate and ice crystals to form.

Canning involves massive amounts of energy to produce the jars, lids, equipment, ship the goods, and finally process the jars. Sure is a nice way to store goods, though.