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Cooking and Food Preservation

Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries

Using solar panels without backup infrastructure makes renewable energy production much more affordable, efficient and sustainable.

Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?

Wood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators can produce electricity that is more sustainable, more reliable, and less costly than power from solar PV panels.

Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire

The fire – which we have used in our homes for over 400,000 years – remains the most versatile and sustainable household technology that humanity has ever known.

The Messy World of Fermentation

When modernity meets its end-point and creates a world where everything is sterile, controlled, and known, there will be little space for fermentation.

Vietnam's Low-tech Food System Takes Advantage of Decay

Vietnam’s decentralised food system has low energy inputs and reduced food waste, giving us a glimpse of what an alternative food system might look like

If We Insulate Our Houses, Why Not Our Cooking Pots?

A fireless cooker doubles the efficiency of any type of cooking device because it shortens the time on the fire and limits heat transfer losses

Well-Tended Fires Outperform Modern Cooking Stoves

Despite technological advancements since the Industrial Revolution, cooking remains a spectacularly inefficient process.

How to Keep Beverages Cool Outside the Refrigerator

The Spanish botijo is a water bottle that cools itself, without electricity.