Batch cooking? A way to save energy
Cook is an everyday activity, especially if you live alone and are a student. Every day we think about what I going to prepare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we never think how much energy we going to waste cooking 3 times per day, this challenge makes me reflect on that.
I tried to calculate the amount of time and energy we use to cook normal food, and if we cook for around 10 minutes for breakfast, 1 hour for lunch, and 20 minutes for dinner. It will take 1 hour and a half every day.
According to some research that I did, the induction stoves that is what I have at home, are normally rated between 1500 and 2500 Watts (1). The induction stoves use magnetic induction to create heat and heat metal pots. Electricity passes through a copper coil which creates magnetic currents that generate heat (2). If my stove is 2000 Watts and I cook for one hour and a half every day it will consume 3kWh each day, approximately. That amount covers a big part of the amount of energy that I have to use for the challenge.
And now imagine how much energy it will take in an entire month if all the days I cook at home for the same amount of time… It will consume 90kWh! That’s a lot of energy! But of course, our energy consumption cooking will change depending on how we cook, how much time we invest, what kind of food we prepare, and many other variables.
Consequently, I started looking for a solution and found the Batch Cooking. That is “the practice of cooking large amounts of a type of food at one time and keeping some to eat at later meals”(3). I read that it has multiple benefits which we could find:
To save time on daily cooking.
To have access to healthy, homemade meals every day.
To prepare and cook a lot of food in advance for an event and more benefits. (4)
So I started step by step. The first week I cooked potatoes, but the change was that I did not just cook 2 potatoes for just one meal, this time I cooked more, some to make french fries and the other ones to make mashed potatoes for the next day. I noticed that cook that takes the same amount of time and helped me to save time the next day.
Thus I continued with more recipes, so I made some typical Colombian rice with chicken for the weekend. For this preparation, I cooked a chicken breast but I didn’t need it all, so I saved it for another day and made more rice just to save in tappers for more meals. An important tip is to let the food cool and then save it in the refrigerator to keep it for more days. It worked well, and during the next few days, I didn’t cook for a long time.
In conclusion, this technique helps a lot with the management of time, reduces the stress of thinking about what I should prepare for dinner, and the best part is that saves a lot of energy.
References
(1) https://letsavelectricity.com/induction-cooktop-power-consumption-calculator/?utm_content=cmp-true
(2) https://solococinar.com/cuanto-tiempo-tarda-el-agua-en-hervir/
(3) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/batch-cooking
(4) https://cpdonline.co.uk/knowledge-base/food-hygiene/batch-cooking/
