Prep guys, and all others who wish to jump in,

Hello. I've been listening to the podcasts for a while, and have been noodling different low-profile ways to cook in a grid-down situation. I'm in a semi-urban area, and even wood heat may be dicey, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I've done a smidgen of research on solar, and DC power sources, etc, but am wondering how practical it would be to have somewhat of a portable solar panel hooked up to a couple of deep cycle batteries, and those batteries powering.....a hot plate? a toaster oven?

I listened to podcast #38 today, about cooking, and how much fuel one might need for a coleman stove at 5000 BTU's an hr, a day, etc, and for the different fuel accomodations, white gas, unleaded gas, propane. I know about fire efficiency with containing it and directing all heat upward in a vented cylinder, and also having three layers of methods. The solar would be one of those varied methods.

I have food storage to a degree(working on a one yr complete store), we are dehydrating things as fast as we can get them, and trying different methods of reconstitution, I've done the water cubes and have a combi filter, we have a grain mill, now we are working on methods of preparing what we've stored.

I really am new to the preparedness vein, and am grateful for the expertise. I know of passive solar, and that may be good for some things, low heat and all that, but am wondering if the scenario's been run by anyone out there for a heating element being powered, even in short bursts, by a few batteries, that would then be recharged by the good ol' renewable energy source that never goes away (I'm not living in Alaska).

Andrew

If you live in an area that has a good amount of sun, like the southwest, solar can be a viable alternative. The neighbor behind me routinely uses a solar oven.

The biggest issue with cooking in an urban survival situation isn't the method used to cook, it's the smell of food itself. If people are hungry, the smell of food will alert them that someone has food and they will hunt you down. Cooking inside is definitely going to keep the smells down, so long as you're not cooking in the fireplace where the smell can drift out of the chimney.

I'm sure we've all smelled someone else grilling meat and know how hungry it makes us. Think what that smell would do to people that haven't had food for about a week.

Keep up the good job on getting prepared.

Rob, thanks for the reply, and the info. I'll look into other alternatives.