The Kaleidoscope of Cooking: Understanding Cooking Behaviour and Stove Preferences in Rural India, 2014. GIZ.
This study conducted an empirical comparative evaluation of six different types of ICS models exploring the following themes:
- main features that households like or dislike in traditional cookstoves and in ICS;
- households’ preference for different types of cookstove technologies/models;
- users’ preferences in different socio-economic and geographical contexts.
Users perceived ICS to be superior to traditional cookstoves and they liked their portability, reduced fuel consumption and smoke emission and aesthetics of ICS. However, households also suggested several improvements in particular regarding the ability to accommodate a larger range of local fuels, making the cooking experience easier and reducing the cooking time required. It was also evident that ICS with only one burner were not a proper replacement for the traditional cookstoves with two burners, which are commonly used.
The following main points describe users’ perception towards ICS: • Stove users’ preferences varied significantly among households. There was no clear favourite ICS model.
- Cooking was perceived easier with ICS than with traditional cookstoves. Stove users highlighted that ICS were easy to light and that there was no need to constantly blow air for the flame to be strong. However, they did not like small combustion chambers in ICS, which filled up with ash and fuel residue very quickly.
- Stove users appreciated the reduced fuel consumption by ICS. The majority believed that fuel consumption was significantly reduced.
- Stove users perceived that ICS produced less smoke than traditional cookstoves; however, very often the reduction was not perceived significant.
- Due to the availability of multiple burners, traditional cookstoves were often perceived to cook faster than a single ICS with only one burner.
- Rural cooks did not rate stove performance based only on reduced smoke emissions and biomass consumption. Portability, aesthetics, and the ability to accommodate different types of utensils also played very important roles.
