1. Solar cooking is free.
After making or paying for a solar cooker, there’s no other cost. There’s no need for gas, briquettes or any other fuel. Imagine how much longer your gas bottles will go when you’re not using them every day? There’s no cost for electricity – our cooker is electric so we have to be plugged into marina mains or run our generator to cook. There are no moving parts that might break requiring expensive repairs. With a solar cooker, there’s no running cost.
2. Solar cooking is quick and easy.
Although it takes food longer to cook in a solar cooker, the time it takes to prepare and clean are vastly reduced. For every meal I’ve made, I simply chop up a variety of things, throw them in the pot and let them cook. And due to the slow nature of cooking food never gets burnt on the pots/pans. Cleaning up is quick and easy. Furthermore, by the end of the day I’m usually tired and don’t want to cook. When using the solar cooker, I prepare the pot or pots around 10am when I’m full of energy and by 5pm – 6pm all I have to do is move the pots from the solar cooker to the cockpit table, serve and eat.
3. Food cooked with a solar cooker is healthy.
When cooking food with low heat, vitamins and other nutrients don’t break down. Furthermore solar cooked foods are free of mutagens and carcinogens produced by high-heat methods.
4. Solar cooked food tastes amazing!
Thus far I’ve made 16 dishes in my solar cooker and only one had to be poured out to the sea. The reason for my disaster was the seasoning rather than the food – I added too much red Thai curry powder making my Butternut Squash Coconut soup too spicy to swallow. Aside from that one mishap, however, everything else has been flavorful, moist and delicious. Time after time, my family, guests and I rave about the flavor – with the slow nature of cooking the flavors are fantastic.
5. Solar cookers make no noise.
As mentioned before, we have to use our generator when we need to cook. With the solar cooker there’s no noise and no smelly diesel fumes.
6. Cooking with sunshine is kind to the environment.
There’s no fumes, no use of fuel or electricity. It’s the greenest cooking option available. Most sailors love to sail because Mother Nature takes us from point A to B with only the use of the wind (errrrr…usually sailors end up at point D rather than B but you get the point)!
7. Solar cooking ovens are portable.
You can put a solar cooker anywhere. Usually I have ours on the aft deck as it’s easy for me to keep and eye on it but as long as it’s in the sun it can be on the aft deck, forward deck, coach roof or heck, you can take it to the beach and set it next to you while you enjoy a lazy day on land. When you’re not using the cooker, some of them fold up and others can be stowed away in a locker or even attach it to the safety rail.
8. It’s rewarding for the whole family.
Every time we eat a solar cooked meal we’re all excited with the results. Our daughter helps put the ingredients in the pot, my husband makes sure to keep the cooker facing the sunlight and I spend time finding new recipes to try. Cooking with the sun is a family event and when friends join us they’re blown away at the possibilities!
9. Anything can be cooked in the solar cooking oven.
It’s not just for vegetables – you can cook meat, make breads and enjoy experimenting with different kinds of desserts. Furthermore, the solar cooker is great for heating up last night’s leftovers. As long as your not hangry (hungry + angry) and are willing to wait ½ hour it’s amazing how well the solar cooker heats things up. Want a cup of coffee or tea – just put mug of water in the solar cooker!
10. Cooking with the sun empowers you to be more self-sufficient.
I love the idea of being off the grid. Eventually I hope to have our whole boat running on solar/wind/water power. There’s nothing more amazing that sustainable energy that you can create yourself! We’ll always have to buy most of our food but it feels great that it doesn’t cost us a thing to make it