The BYU Funnel Cooker/Cooler can:
-Cook food without the need for electricity or wood or
petroleum or other fuels.
-Pasteurize water for safe drinking, preventing many diseases.
-Save trees and other resources.
-Avoid air pollution and breathing smoke while cooking.
-Use the sun's free energy. A renewable energy source.
-Cook food with little or no stirring, without burning.
-Kill insects in grains.
-Dehydrate fruits, etc.
-Serve as a refrigerator at night, to cool even freeze water.
(Try that without electricity or fuels!)
The burden for gathering the fuel wood and cooking falls mainly
on women and children. Joseph Kiai reports from Dadaab, Kenya:
"Women who can't afford to buy wood start at 4 am to go collecting
and return about noon... They do this twice a week to get
fuel for cooking... The rapes are averaging one per week."
From Belize: "Many times the women have to go into the forest
dragging their small children when they go to look for wood.
It is a special hardship for pregnant and nursing mothers to
chop and drag trees back to the village... they are exposed
to venomous snakes and clouds of mosquitoes." (Anna K.)
(Quoted by Solar Cookers International from a newsletter.)
And the forests are dwindling in many areas. Edwin Dobbs noted
in Audubon Magazine, Nov. 1992, "The world can choose sunlight or
further deforestation, solar cooking or widespread starvation..."
Americans should be prepared for emergencies, incident to power
failures. A Mormon pioneer noted in her journal: "We were now
following in their trail traveling up the Platte River. Timber
was sometimes very scarce and hard to get. We managed to do our
cooking with what little we could gather up..." (Eliza R. Snow)
Now there's someone who needed a light-weight Solar Cooker!
Here's another reason to use a solar cooker. Many people in
developing countries look to see what's being done in America.
I'm told that if Americans are using something, then they will
want to try it, too. The more people there are cooking with
the others will want to join in. A good way to spread this
technology is to encourage small local industries or families
to make these simple yet reliable solar cookers for others at
low cost. I've used this cooker for three summers and I enjoy it.
Cooking and making ice with the funnel cooker/cooler will permit
a significant change in lifestyle. If you think about it, this
could help a lot of people. The BYU Solar Funnel Cooker uses
the glorious sunshine -- and the energy of the sun is a free
gift from God for all to use!