If we insulate our houses, why not our cooking pots?

A good article by Low Tech Magazine.

Why not?

And why just cover it, when you could put a glass lid over everything and leave it out in the sun?

I've made a wooden box that is 20" x 24" and 9" high. The walls are scrap pieces of 2x10, and the bottom is a sheet of 1/4" plywood. It's spray painted black on the inside and near the top of the walls I've milled a slot so I can slide a glass cover over it (I got a scrap of tempered glass from the local glass shop). It gets plenty hot inside the box when it is sitting out in the sun. It also helps to have some jet black bowls, cups, and saucers (from the dollar store) to put the food on.

My next project is to put a mirrored lid on it so that twice the sun's rays hit the inside of the box.

I liked the fact that they included rocket stoves in their efficiency experiments.

I also loved the fireless cooker:

A Norwegian "self-cooking apparatus" received an award at the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris. It was a simple yet elegant container with four layers of felt for insulation.