[Stoves] Eating out as an option (Re: Anil Rajvanshi)

[Traveller]

Moderator: I changed the subject line. This is continuation of the
discussion on "Advances in Cooking Science and Economics")


Anil:

As for that experiment in fuel preferences, I hope someone else also
ventures a guess about the date of that paper, but please first tell us
what you think of its approach to evaluating fuels compared to this "Lima
Consensus" brutality of pretend science - lab testing of boiling water.

I know the two are not comparable - the former is about different fuels and
stoves, and in a colder region of the world, the latter is about setting
Tiers of solid fuel stoves for God knows whom and where. It has
mind-blowing protocols of rocket scientists. Those stoves may only be good
for creating dry food packages for space stations.

I am afraid I won't live long enough to see the "future where all eating
will be in restaurants". There will be some cooking at home - I hope
roughly a third, because, I hope there will be "rich or people who have
servants." Or folks like me who love to cook and have people come over.

I am open to claims that eating outside is a luxury, and that the poor must
be saved - whether they like it or not - by "improved biomass stoves".
Improved BS for anything.

But the idea of "eating out" is not new, and its economics are influenced
by preferences, not project appraisal techniques. It is as old as
civilization - when men or women away from home and farm, they did not
always take food along with them. Outside food was for soldiers and
bureaucrats, priests and devotees, lords and laborers, prisoners and
police.

A young Indian student who just came in the US for grad school remarked
very perceptively, "Eating out takes away all my savings for the week. But
cooking well for myself takes in a lot of upfront investment in utensils
and ingredients" even though he didn't have to invest in the fridge,
stoves, or cleaning. His time - opportunity cost of foregone study time,
unless he is too tired or bored to study - is far more valuable for
anything but the minimum or the quickest food.

The cult of small biomass cookstoves relies on many convenient myths - that
we only need to worry about cooking, not cooks; that the cooks we seek to
save have zero opportunity cost of their time (i.e., in turn, it's
worthless to spend more time on studies, child care, earning
opportunities), and that they deserve no rest or respite.

Of course, we are so gender sensitive. We care so much about lungs, not
hearts and minds. Perish the thought that a poor woman could rest or,
heavens, learn to read so she can read to her children!

I hope USEPA devises a protocol for blood boiling test. Their WBT makes my
blood boil.

Outsourcing the kitchen - if not meals, then animal care, milling and
grinding, baking and roasting, washing and refrigeration, even chopping and
juicing (which should be done at home) - saves time. At least, cooks are
freer to make their choices. This may save marriages, excite and liberate
children.

More, outsourcing the kitchen provides adult employment opportunities in
the food preparation, service and delivery business. With sufficient and
rather inexpensive oversight, it can improve food quality and safety and
drive out child employment. (No more future PMs of India with Chaiwalla
boyhood.) I suspect - subject to more fact-finding - the savings in
production and delivery costs, from economies of scale and scope, outweigh
the labor costs as well as the investment costs in equipment for food
procurement, storage, preparation, and refrigeration.

And restaurant coupons for the poor may also improve nutrition as well as
choice. Those who cannot afford to spend time on cooking - or money on
ingredients and utensils for different kinds of foods than they are forced
to on a daily basis - will have better choices.

 Yes, new guidelines for nutrition and dietary habits need to be developed
and marketed. From what I can tell, people respond better to food
propaganda than "save the trees" or "save lives" propaganda. I cannot
accept that experts know best and cooks are all uneducated idiots who will
take in any BS (biomass stove).

A whole ancillary industry will emerge in the food chain - like Sysco
<http://www.sysco.com/> or US Foods <https://www.usfoods.com/index.html> in
the US,  there is now a new portal for restaurant management in India -
http://petpooja.com/. Of course, online meal orders are common all over the
world - http://www.petpooja.in/ is one. And then there are services to
deliver freshly cooked meals according to a fixed weekly menu - in the US,
http://outoftheboxfood.com/. Sometimes just the ingredients ready to cook -
in India, http://www.ootbox.in/.

---------

Above everything else, this "commercial cooking" - restaurants, cafeterias,
religious places, transport stops - presents an excellent market for BS.
(Why, commercial food industry can be an excellent source of waste biogas,
and even alcohols or gelfuel.)

We have invented false problems - "solid fuels are dirty" - and false
solutions - small BS for the rural poor. My suspicion - based on a tiny bit
of presumptuousness that comes from watching and talking, instead of the
sterling fatuousness of RCTs and articles in peer-reviewed journals - is
that the rural poor want a whole range of solutions to relieve the drudgery
of cooking. These include lighting and fan, small non-electric and electric
appliances, fuel delivery at home (and if self-collected from own lands
nearby, storage for several months), a clean enough (perhaps well-vented)
stove if not also a controllable one, a pressure cooker (if the stove is
right). Or prepared meals from outside, processed and partially cooked
foods.

Whatever the method, lower the burden of cooking, the time a young girl or
a young mother has to spend in the kitchen and/or fuel collection and waste
management.

A simple, humble request to all - forget about the burden of emissions or
loss of trees. Intellectual smoke is a horror. Pay attention to reduction
of drudgery and desires of the cooks.


Nikhil

---------
(India +91) 909 995 2080


On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Anil Rajvanshi <anilrajvanshi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From the English, the way of writing and use of coal it should be 1930
> vintage. There are some tables deleted. If you have them then can you
> please send them to me?
>
> I still believe that cooking is for rich or people who have servants.
> The future is eating outside something that is happening all over the
> world. Together with high tech container agriculture I see a future
> where all eating will be in restaurants. This will also be a place to
> socialize again something that happens all the time.
>
> All the best.
>
> Anil
>
> On 8/18/16, Nikhil Desai <ndesai at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > Nikhil Desai again.
> >
> > The Washington Post 16 August 2016 news item - By 2085, most cities could
> > be too hot for the Summer Olympics
> > <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2
> 016/08/16/by-2085-most-cities-could-be-too-hot-to-host-the-s
> ummer-olympics/?utm_term=.8cc19abaab69>
> > got
> > me thinking of  heat in the kitchen.
> >
> > In many poor people's homes around the world, the kitchen can at times
> get
> > unbearably hot. I remember getting an electric fan placed in the kitchen
> > was one of the first luxuries at my home (getting a radio and then a fan
> > was the first; we already had electric light.)
> >
> > How likely is it that climate change, heat island effects, increasing
> > population and building density, and outdoor air pollution will tax the
> > health of the next two billion energy poor, over and above the supposed
> > PM2.5 "premature mortality"?
> >
> > Are there diseases that are particularly susceptible to heat? Conversely,
> > in linking air pollution to disease incidence, has the role of heat
> > exposures been overlooked?
> >
> > We go on messing with pretend metrics of average emission rates and cook
> up
> > exposures, disease, and death, for the sake of maintaining "consensus".
> >
> > Anil Rajvanshi had the brightest idea - rural restaurants and meal
> coupons
> > for the poor.  With air-conditioning, I will add, for some parts of the
> > world some times of the year.
> >
> > At least fans. I have seen such eateries grow throughout the world over
> my
> > too long a life.
> >
> > Those who still cook at home should have gas or electricity. Induction
> > stoves and kettles waste very little energy in heating the air.
> Commercial
> > cooking could use advanced biomass stoves - at a larger scale and higher
> > utilization rates - plus commercial wages, not domestic slavery - the
> real
> > market for biomass cooking is outside the home.
> >
> > If stove designers don't know how to think of cooks, dwellings, cuisines,
> > and instead mess around with fictional stove, cook, dwelling and air
> flow,
> > I think they should be kicked out of the kitchen.
> >
> > As in Harry Truman's dictum, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the
> > kitchen."
> >
> > Or as I would say, get our heads out of the fireboxes and stop smoking
> our
> > intellectual airs. Do the donors a favor - tell them we have fooled them
> > because they were ready to be fooled.
> >
> > Speaking of experiments with cooking and room temperature change, please
> > see the attached report. I think it is a considerable advancement on the
> > current state of stove testing.
> >
> > Make a guess about source and date.
> >
> >
> > Nikhil
> >
>
>
> --
> Anil K Rajvanshi, Ph.D.
> Director and Hon. Secretary
> Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
> Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road,
> P.O.Box 44, Phaltan - 415523
> Maharashtra, India
> Ph: 91-2166-222396/220945
> www.nariphaltan.org
>
> http://www.nariphaltan.org/writings.htm (AKR's articles)
> AKR's new book www.nariphaltan.org/mylife.pdf (Life of an ordinary
> Indian...)
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-anil-k-rajvanshi/ (Huffington Post blogs
> of AKR)
>
> alternate e-mail:
> nariphaltan at gmail.com  <nariphaltan at gmail.com>
>
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