Environment

In 1993 LACA volunteers introduced the solar cooker to a rural Honduran village as an alternative to wood for cooking and baking. A local carpenter built a solar cooker to our specifications and we demonstrated it to the women of Esquias. Our plan was to cook rice and beans. After placing the rice and beans in the cooker we told the women to return in 2 hours with their tortillas for a feast. The rice was delectable, but the beans were hard as nails. Later we discovered the beans were too old and even after cooking them in the traditional method for 3 hours they were still inedible.

LACA actively encourages a change from traditional cooking to the use of solar cookers. In 1996 LACA and the Castro Valley / Hayward California Sunrise Rotary Club initiated a project to purchase sun-ovens. $12,000 was raised and 100 sun ovens were purchased and sent to Honduras. They were assembled there and are still in use, helping to reduce deforestation and make life easier for the people. The solar cookers / sun ovens were purchased from and are manufactured by Sun Ovens International, Inc. Please see their web site http://www.sunoven.com/ for more details.

(Another type of solar cooker is the solar stovetop cooker. Mr. Jack Howell will donate 40% of sales from the solar stovetop cooker to the LACA Foundation. Please mention LACA when contacting him. The book Cooking with the Sun, published by Morning Sun Press, shows how to construct solar cookers and includes some great recipes. For further information contact Jack Howell by email jdhowell@ix.netcom.com or by fax 925-932-1383.)