138 comments on The Oil Intensity of Food
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138 comments on The Oil Intensity of Food
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What are the least energy-intensive ways to store food?
What are the most practical alternatives to refrigeration, and are there any simple, step-by-step instructions for "how to" available on the internet?
I'll do some googling -- does anyone have suggestions readily at hand?
As Airdale and Dryki have mentioned recently, a big option should be to rely much more on UNRefrigerated foods. Canning and Jarring, Dried Foods, Storing Whole Grains, and grinding/preparing them when needed. As Pollan says, only buy the foods around the outside edges of the Store. Produce, Dairy, Fresh Stuff.. and don't bother with anything that has the budget to promote and post its claimed 'Health Benefits'
As another Northerner, you might consider setting up a basement "Ice House" that would be a heavily insulated 'Walk In Fridge' that stores Large Blocks of Ice Through the Winter, and hangs onto them as far into Spring/Summer as possible. Ideally (and it would prob be in a more suitable, ie, 'Dream' house..), this would be entered via a stairway, with the door only above, so the cold has nowhere to escape to..
I've also toyed with dissecting a retired fridge, and relocating the Compressor into a WindTurbine, and adding enough Storage of refrigerant, so that wind provides direct power to compression when available, and the fridge (then also SUPERinsulated) draws on the coolant reservoir as needed. A parallel or backup to grid would probably be needed, depending on your location.
(To get even more complex, I've wondered about 'precooling' the compressor, which is also prewarming that water supply before it heads to the regular water-heating equip.)
Bob
Canning is very energy intensive and takes place at a time of year when the extra heat is unwelcome. I wonder if food destined for canning could be frozen until cooler weather and then canned when the waste heat could warm the house.
A lot of canning happens in a rush, while the fresh food has it's nutrition most intact. We just packed up a bunch of Strawberries this weekend, and I worked a couple late nights to get them before they got skanky. Organic, self-picked at $2/lb.. Hope that Freezer is as efficient as it claims! We just ate the last baggie from last summer, too!
It's not too hard to envision some Autumn Canning using a bunch of Mirrors and Sun to offer a lot of process heat.. but in either case, I'd be interested in seeing the comparison of Storebought, Processed Fridge Food with one-use containers, as compared to our old Glass Jars, Garden Produce, a bit of StoveTime and TapWater, and a few boxes of rubber seals every year. Then, the mirrors go to work sending heat in your windows come winter.
Sauerkraut is a good low-energy method of canning.. and very healthy, so I keep hearing!
Bob
Right Jokuhl!
Krauts, and their Korean equivalents, Kimchis, require NO heating. The raw, fresh food straight from the garden is preserved, using sparing amounts of salt, and sometimes vinegar, to cut salt quantities even further.
The classic preservation process is a lactic acid ferment, done at low temperature. Food is never cooked or heat-treated.
The resulting gravies, as the krauts/kimchis mature, are reckoned to be health foods in their own right.
Literally all sorts of vegs and fruits can be included, together with all sorts of flavouring herbs and spices. Kimchis in particular are hugely varied, with a wide range of flavours, going from savoury to sweet.
This is my second year at practical preservation of food by krauting/kimchiing. Google Sandorkraut's site for a good intro. Sharon Astyk also has a good deal of practical information on traditional low-energy, low-tech methods of preservation. I'm also in my second year of drying in a passive drying cabinet, driven only by sun power. (No mirrors or lenses needed. Just a regular air-flow, and fine-grained excluder meshes to keep small creatures out while the sliced food dessicates.)
My experience is that this has huge potential for cheap, lowtech/energy storage, with excellent food-value preservation. But of course, traditional ways of storing root crops, such as clamping, plus the other way that I use a lot -- just letting hardy leaf-food vegetables continue to stand in the garden through the Winter, picking a little as needed, also works well. Always something fresh, to go with something cheaply preserved.
Next year, as my duck flock expands to the poit where culling becomes essential: smoke-dried pemmican/jerky/biltong. Jesus, I can't wait, especially with the delicious flavour of Muscovy-Duck meat, even before it gets the spiced salting and smoke flavour! Some biltongs are sold as savoury treat-snacks hereabouts, and no wonder!
Has anyone attempted solar canning?
It's doable but only recommended with high-acid foods:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Canning
Canning plums in a solar oven
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n41_lSRd1fg
I'll remind people of the link in my profile to the Scheffer style dish.
http://www.geocities.com/%7Edmdelaney/scheffler-precis/scheffler-precis....
And repost the link from last week.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/OddProjects/odd_project_refs.htm
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/OddProjects/AutoClaveFirstplace_2.pdf
Yes, a solar powered veggie canner.
As to canning and the time of year vs temperatures.
Well the simple, easy way to can your vegetables is to do it all outside. Under a shade tree or a porch overhang. I do mine in the aisle of the barn,,which is oriented that a nice breeze is caught thereby.
Currently I use a propane tank tapped into my large two castiron burners on my fish cooker. Easy to move, handy as well.
Tomatoes are easy. You only need to water bath can them IF your using good heirloom varieties with sufficient acid to keep extremely well. The cabbages I turn into sauerkraut. No heat required. Shred and pack with salt in a airtight container with a water trap on the top. Then just store the whole contain(like a gallon or larger jar) and really easy to do.
So what to can? Thats about it for me. I no longer freeze corn. I might can some cucumbers to make pickles.
Corn is extremely easy. I leave it on the ears and hang in large sacks from the rafters to keep vermin out. Grind it as I need it.
Important: I have found the hard way that ground corn meal even brought fresh and stored in plastic freezer bags will still allow the insect eggs in it to hatch. I have moths trapped in double lock freezer bags where a full 3 lbs of store brought meal sits.
So one must never grind more meal from his own corn crop until its needed. Say 3 or 4 lbs at a time. Corn will keep extremely well on the cob or in the kernel. But I never shell mine all at once. I have corn in bags(pillow cases) that was harvested over 3 years ago. Wheat as well......so to prevent weevils and the rest do NOT grind you corn into meal until necessary.
All the rest I dry. Potatoes and onions on a shelf in the barn then hung up. Peas and beans left in the pod or shelled and stored in large 1 gallon glass jars..think pickle jars. Or large mayo jars. Perfect storage.
So I once canned green beans. No more. I can get by with just purple hulled peas, pinto beans and great northern beans. Never much cared for green beans anyway.
So yeah tomatoes are work and you use heat but if I can stay away from the pressure canner I am a happier camper. And believe me good home canned tomatoes are really worth the effort. Really.
I have tried canning potatoes. Lot of work for nothing. Stored right they will last most of the winter and you then have your seed stock for the very early spring planting.
Had no fruit this year but I like to dry it when I got it. Dried apples and peaches make excellent 'fried pies'. Easy to do with a solar dryer.
Take that back. My blackberries are coming in right now and a bumper crop. I cook them down to syrup and store in jars after water bath. Don't need a lot of jelly really. A quart jar will last me almost two months.
Airdale
PS. A well built root cellar is a godsend BTW. I don't have one as yet but plans are afoot.
All good thoughts. Another possibility of energy saving down the depletion road would be to reinstitute cooking the way the Roman commoners did. Only the wealthy had their own kitchen. Commoners took their food to a neighborhood commercial kitchen where their dishes were cooked for a fee, or they could buy some of whatever was being served that day. You don't need try to preserve the goat if it is all consumed.
Someone that is a refrigeration engineer need to run the numbers with you.
My understanding is, any runs of refrigeration lines longer than 10 meters and you are going to get sizable losses from the trip back.
The refrigerant is "hot" and under high pressure as it leaves the compressor. Here, the long run actually helps if it allow the heat to escape and chill the refrigerant more before it reaches the condenser.
However, the return line is "cold", and if it heats up from the long line run, you lose.
What is needed is to see:
a) are you better off to generate electricity and run off the electricity
b) whether you can find a compressor that will work with intermittent power (wind, etc.) and still have reasonable efficiency.
c) what are the tradeoffs of refrigerant line losses vs. power transmission / storage losses.
Do get back to us with some numbers....
....after first deciding how much lagging you want to put on that cold return pipe.
Super high efficiency refrigerators:
http://www.sunfrost.com/
There are some European brands that are highly efficient also. (perhaps someone can provide names?)
Sunfrost has been in business for years. They started making high efficiency DC refrigerators for PV applications, but now make AC models also. Their refrigerators are far more efficient than Energy Star certified major brands.
Refrigerators only consume 10% of household electricity. Upgrading to a high efficiency HVAC system can save more energy than replacing a refrigerator.
I feel the need to also plug their main competitor, Sundanzer.
http://sundanzer.com/
I'm looking into getting a Sundanzer instead of a Sunfrost, mostly due to higher efficiency of chest-based refrigeration as opposed to cabinet based. (Cold air rushing out as soon as you open the fridge/freezer on cabinet based systems.)
~Durandal (http://www.wtdwtshtf.com)
Or build one yourself. See http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Conservation/chest_fridge.pdf. This one uses about 0.1 Kwh/day.
Hi Benedictus,
I am constantly amazed at how much I learn from this site. Your chest fridge is fantastic and I can see exactly what I'm going to replace my old cabinet fridge with when it dies. Your mods are simple, non-invasive and cheap, which are just fantastic. If you want to package up the kits, let me know and I'll flog a few for you although i suspect it is really easy to replicate with a quick vist to Jaycar or Dicksmith. Well done. How amny beer fridges, humming away in garages is this ideal for.
Eliminating the HVAC system altogether and using solar exhaust fans will save much, much more energy...
Or, live in a house that is naturally moderating the temperatures (south facing, etc.) and simply not use the HVAC until it gets very hot or cold.
Better yet, abandon central heating and cooling except to the extent that it is needed to keep pipes not frozen.
Dry foods like grains and beans are easy to store and efficient with space. Cooking from scratch has lots of benefits over packaged foods, but a lot of the inefficiency in storage and preparation come from small households. A fridge for a one or two person household doesn't use much less power than a fridge for a large family. I will give the singles and couples credit for not overpopulating the planet, but I think in a future of economic decline, we'll have more communal living arrangements and hopefully save some energy in refrigeration and cooking that way.
A vented root cellar is on my list of wants, its best if you have a winter where you live. Plenty of stuff on the web, I recommend this book.
What are the most practical alternatives to refrigeration
But, why do we care?
The SUN FROST RF16 typically consumes 15 KWH per month. That's 21 watts, on average. That could be supplied by 60 watts of wind power, which would cost about $120 in upfront capital costs - that's an annual amortized cost of $12 per year! Or, by 100 watts of PV, which at the moment, might cost $800 before subsidies (or $80 per year). Surely, these are better alternatives than labor-intensive storage schemes.
Again, sometimes a labor-intensive investment pays off down the road. an 'Ice House' for a big family center has a lot of stability, where the HiTech fridges (which I'd love to get, just the same), won't run for too many decades.
PS, How much are they? I think $2000, $2500, right?
Bob
the HiTech fridges (which I'd love to get, just the same), won't run for too many decades.
Ah, you're afraid of relying on any tech that you can't personally maintain. Well, that's a whole different kettle of fish than energy/CO2 concerns.
PS, How much are they? I think $2000, $2500, right?
Good question. That might argue for a more conventional fridge: that might need 90KWH per month, which could be supplied by $720 in wind power investment, for a total of well below $2,000. On a societal level, that might be the more efficient investment.
Hey Nick,
You seem to have a handle on the electronics and energy calculations for alternative systems. Have you considered a post on alternative energy for the home, whether grid-tied or off-grid? I, for one, would love a semi-DIY post on how to do the calculations for your consumption and for designing a system, all in very simple, plain language.
How many cells --> panels does it take for a given latitude to run a BAU household? What about a BAU household where the residents conserve aggressively, i.e., turn off anything not in use? Etc.
How do you put a DIY panel together from parts to finished product?
Etc.
If you'd be up for such a post, I'd be willing to help track down some DIY resources, internet vids, what have you.
Cheers
That's a great idea. My first reaction is that it would take more time than I have right now to do right, but I'd love to do it.
Let me think about, ok?
Honestly now, how many decades do you think you will run? Or, even give a crap about refrigeration in ten years? Pie in the sky, need a fridge to last 50 years......sheesh! Tell us where your solar powered freezers are, so we can come "visit" when the juice goes down....
This place is going to hell in a handbasket, I would suggest you use the time to make a good hand basket. Not to play around with BAU.
Mother told me never to talk to zombies, but I'll try.
1) My main suggestion was for a glorified RootCellar/Icebox, which should easily run for a century, since it doesn't run, it just sits there. A few water tanks in it would be allowed to freeze in the wintertime via some simple plumbing to an outdoor radiator.. and then you just keep it shut in, hanging onto the cold for as long as you can.. Compression/Decompression is a great and simple way to make things cold (and make otherthings warm if you want to tap both ends of the process and boost efficiency) ..
2) The Sundanzers or Sunfrosts are really solid units, and have a great rep.. I'd get one if I had the chance, and treat it lightly enough that I'd hope to get 20 years from it.. hopefully I could figure out how to get or make parts as repairs came up.. but that insulated box should be fine for a LONG time.
3) I fully expect to still be excited about refrigeration in 10 years. I will probably make my handbasket so that it fits right on the shelves.
'This Place' consists of a LOT of places, and each will do differently as Peak Oil brings out various advantages and disadvantages. Hope you're looking for the ways your area can take advantage of whatever benefits it has.
Bob
"What are the least energy-intensive ways to store food?"
"Store" vegetables in the vege garden just outside (apart from what you have to store over winter-spring-summer till next harvest).
"Store" eggs by having your chicken house just outside and collecting the eggs that day.
"Store" your goose by not killing it till when you want to cook it.
""Store" your goose by not killing it till when you want to cook it."
But then your goose is cooked
Traditional means of food preservation:
salting, curing, etc.
Make preserved meats like salami, salt pork / beef, preserved vegetables like pickles, and eggs.
We do home solar drying of food. I have built two types of dryers.
After building the first, I realized that the dryers don't have to be as complicated as the first one which had a plenum to collect the hot air feeding a box of food racks.
The second type I built is just a clear plastic box (Safeway cake box) in which I cut holes for air flow and glued in screening to keep out the bugs.
Setting out food on the roof or pavement would work
See photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/acomfort/SolarDehydratorsOvens#
- Acomfort