On a sunny day last year at UNM-Gallup’s South Campus in Zuni, one of the major highlights of the open house being held was a jar of beans boiling in a solar oven. Passersby gasped at the sight of the percolating beans, as well as at a pan of brownies baking beautifully alongside.
Photo: John Welles (l.) and Jean Martinez-Welles proudly display their solar oven.
Unless you’ve cooked beans at 6,500 feet, and are aware of how much energy is required from the time the beans go in the pot in the morning until they’re done in the afternoon, you may not appreciate the sense of amazement with which the open house visitors regarded this demonstration of solar cookery. They listened incredulously when told they could put an entire meal inside the oven in the morning before going to work, and come home to find dinner ready—all without spending a cent on propane or electricity.
Promoting Better Health
And while saving money and energy may be the major hook for most who would acquire a solar oven, for Jean Martinez-Welles, the crusade to promote solar cookery has much deeper significance. A professor in Health Careers at UNM-Gallup, Martinez-Welles is the co-inventor, along with Gallup High School wood shop instructor John Welles, of the solar oven seen at Zuni last year. She’s also a strong advocate of alternative ways of cooking to help promote better health in the area.
The solar oven invented by Martinez-Welles and Welles was funded by a Center for Disease Control grant awarded to UNM-Gallup to develop a program to combat diabetes in this region. The ovens were distributed in the Pueblo of Zuni and on the Navajo Reservation for testing.
As Martinez-Welles explains, people of our region often favor the frying of food, not only as a matter of taste but also because of the high cost of fuel needed for baking. The solar oven project was developed to acquaint rural people with alternative and more healthful ways of cooking.
After introducing their solar oven during the diabetes initiative, the co-inventors were besieged by people asking for plans. It was at that point that Martinez-Welles began to wonder if their invention was patentable.
“There are a lot of different solar ovens out there,” Martinez-Welles said. “I wasn’t sure if ours was different enough to copyright.”
Something Unique
Over the last year, however, Martinez-Welles came to realize she and her co-inventor might have something unique. They were encouraged by Arizonan Barbara Kerr, a leading researcher in solar cooking, who praised the oven’s beehive door. The unique design of the door allows less air to escape than other designs, and allows the cook to set a stockpot inside. Paul Funk, an engineer with the U.S.D.A. Agricultural Research Service and an expert in solar cooking, also applauded the design, which is well adapted to the rigors of the Southwestern region. It has a large base and doesn’t have the solar “wings” that some designs feature—both factors contributing to design stability and making it less likely to become airborne during high winds.
The inventors also tout the oven’s sturdy design as being “rez dog-proof,” a must in a region where roaming canines would be likely to tear apart flimsier construction in search of a chance meal.
Such features helped convince the Science and Technology Corporation@UNM that the inventors did indeed have something patentable. The University began to work with Martinez-Welles and Welles on copyrighting the oven, and undertook the task of creating downloadable plans to be sold on www.foliodirect.net -- a site where the public can purchase technology, courseware, training materials and the like developed by personnel from UNM and other universities—a kind of eBay for universities, as it has been described. The plans were recently made available on this site for $30.
Keep It Simple
Martinez-Welles said that she and her co-inventor were mindful, as they developed the plans, to keep them simple.
“We wanted the plans to work for people with only basic skills and tools,” Martinez-Welles said. Some of the tools needed: power saw, hammer, caulking gun and a drill. Basic materials, which include plywood and either regular or tempered glass, she said, could be purchased for around $100.
“The plans are very tight—and anyone can do this,” Martinez-Welles said.
Some of the dishes that Martinez-Welles and other faculty and staff at UNM-Gallup have prepared: roasts, muttons, shrimp, breads, baked eggs, quiche, meringue and rice, as well as turkey breasts and spare ribs.
“It’s not hard to clean, everything is covered and doesn’t boil over,” Martinez-Welles said.
The oven bakes at a temperature of approximately 250 degrees, a little lower than a commercial oven, but more than adequate for a well-done repast. The inventors have tested the solar oven in various sites across the region, and have found that the intense sunlight at this elevation appears to compensate for the cooling effects of the persistent winds that blow across the Colorado desert plateau.
So what are the drawbacks? Well, on a rainy day, you might have to make alternative plans for cooking – but as folks in Dinetah and Zuniland know, that’s usually not an issue after monsoon season finishes.
For more information on how to obtain plans for this solar oven, go to http://stc.unm.edu/portfolio/solaroven, or contact Jean Martinez-Welles at 863-7515.
Media Contact: Linda Thornton, (505) 863-7565; e-mail: lthornton@gallup.unm.edu
Posted by scarr at August 14, 2006 04:29 PM