Dr Hector Perera‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚  London‚ 

I am sure that anybody can understand energy can be saved with low fire cooking. There are many acceptable reasons why one should cook on low fire. Then only juice in foods such as vegetables and meat come out slowly, ooze out then slowly react with the spices or margarine or butter etc. Many people just put fire at full blast and cook then likely to burn the whole thing because the liquid evaporates quickly. Sometimes I leave the food to cook very slowly then does some work in the kitchen or else go to the computer or watch the TV. The other thing is if anyone puts high fire, the spices and oil vapours escape quickly and deposit on the person who cooks. When they walk about they might smell like a mobile kitchen. My method helps to cook food better, slowly, save electricity and gas, have time to do other things and you do not get curry smell or oil smell on the clothes and on the face and hair. The Sri Lankan ladies open the boiling curries such as chicken, beef and fish then they are likely to get a shower of curry and spicy smell. I have witnessed their cooking so I am aware of the mistakes they make.

Would these people understand that cooking involves lots and lots of chemistry, chemical reactions and science? To me all foods are nothing but chemicals such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen combined to form different chemicals. What chemical elements are in carbohydrates? Mainly it is nothing but carbon, hydrogen and oxygen combination then meat or fish is protein. Proteins are large biological molecules consisting of one or more chains of‚ amino acids.

Elements in food

That again has carbon, hydrogen, oxygen then nitrogen and some phosphorus plus other chemicals in small proportions. To me cooking means a series of chemical reactions.‚  In the synthesis of organic chemicals some chemicals are reacted together then certain bonds break and new bonds are formed in the new compounds. Take a very simple day to day chemical reaction such as making pickle. You add vinegar, a little sugar, salt and warm with some vegetables such as green chillies, onions and carrots. Remember it-â„¢s warmed but not cooked then they are bottled or put in a large clay pot, sealed and left for few days. One cannot forget about the appetizing smell of pickle after a few days due to the formation of an ester called ethyl ethanoate. Some TV cooks come and hastily just add this and that without any chemical knowledge, hardly any qualitative and quantitative aspect. They put too much heat while cooking but those chefs don’t understand that foods are bad conductors so heat goes through them slowly. You need to put medium or low heat then only some juices ooze out of the food and other spices absorb in then there is an inter change of juices that ooze out. Some gets in while some get out. Cinnamon and cloves each has 18 different aromatic chemicals which are very sensitive to temperature. I am not going into the other chemicals in other spices or what-â„¢s in vegetables and meat because too many to mention over here. The spices and the cooking ingredients have complicated different chemicals. They react with the food in many different ways, some absorb some stay on the surface and we call it adsorp for both these terms we call it chemisorption.‚  I am sure some chemical bonds break while new ones are formed due to interactions. After a while that results a nice tasty dish. Why boiling curries are opened?

When a cooking pan with boiling food is opened, all the chemical vapours that are supposed to be reacted with the food or supposed to be reacted together escape then it is likely to get deposited on the face of that person who cooks. Our so called Sri Lankan ladies open these boiling chicken curries and get a shower of CHICKEN COLOGNE and SPICY COLOGNE then walk up and down as if they walk on CAT WALK but smelling like a MOBILE KITCHEN. Who would like that? You must not open boiling curries, leave it to settle the steam then open if they wanted to mix it. When these curries are boiling these ladies get a high temptation to open so they wait desperately to open, perhaps to get a shower of beauty therapy aroma, OK if not why they open them while they are piping hot? If they wanted to mix them, just give a few minutes to settle down then do it. In science we call the molecules have high entropy when it-â„¢s boiling and very hot. At that time molecules have higher molecular speeds due to gain of heat that means they have high kinetic energy. A microscopic interpretation of Gay-Lussac-â„¢s law is as the temperature of a gas is increased, the velocity of the molecules is also increased. More molecules hit the sides of the container, each with a greater impulse, so that the‚ pressure‚ increases. If the container has something like rice, cooking curries like chicken or vegetables then they hit on them as well with that speed. That is how they get cooked.

Speeds of molecules are faster than jets

The quantity‚ u_rms‚ is called the‚ root-mean-square (rms) velocity‚ because it is the square root of the mean square velocity. The rms velocity is directly proportional to the square root of temperature and inversely proportional to the square root of molar mass. Thus quadrupling the temperature of a given gas doubles the rms velocity of the molecules. Doubling this average velocity doubles the number of collisions between gas molecules and the walls of a container as well as with the contents in the vessel.‚  It also doubles the impulse of each collision. Thus the pressure quadruples. This can be indicated graphically but not shown here. Pressure is thus directly proportional to temperature, as required by Gay-Lussac-â„¢s law. When you open the lid of a boiling curry or even rice, the vapours escape, temperature is lost, pressure decreases. Perhaps it takes a longer time to cook and energy is wasted.

They have results for oxygen and hydrogen molecules speed at 27 C. It is interesting to find out that the rms velocities 1927m s^-“1‚ and 484ms^-“1‚ corresponds to about 4300 miles per hour and 1080 miles per hour, respectively. The O₂‚ molecules in air at room temperature move about 50 percent faster than jet planes, and H₂‚ molecules are nearly 4 times speedier yet. Of course an O₂‚ molecule would take a lot longer to get from New York to Chicago than a jet would. Gas molecules never go far in a straight line before colliding with other molecules.

Cooking and chemistry are interconnected

You may have thought you left physics and chemistry behind when you left school, but if you want to eat well, you need to understand that cooking is all about physics and chemistry, with a little magic mixed in. Here are some foundation concepts every outdoor cook needs to know.

What is cooking? Cooking is the process of changing the chemistry of food usually by transferring energy in the form of heat to the food long enough so that it is safe and digestible, and achieves the desired flavor, texture, tenderness, juiciness, appearance, and nutrition.‚  There are five ways heat cooks food.‚ Food gets hot when molecules vibrate so fast that their temperature rises. Heat is transferred to food by means of‚ conduction, convection, radiation, excitation, and induction.

What ever it is I will let the public know the technique of energy saving. I am able to save about 60% energy wasted in cooking certain things only but not baking and grill cooking. How many people in Sri Lanka, India, England, Europe, Australia and America eat pasta, rice, spaghetti then chicken curries and vegetable curries? If I am not mistaken many millions of people eat that kinds of food. In that case I am able to show the people how to cook these things with 40% gas or electricity and save energy and time as well. How do I know because I practice the technique at home that is I cook that way? May be a small amount gas and electricity is used for cooking in cold weather countries the rest is for heating. If they eat nothing but junk food no gas or electricity are used for cooking so they are not worried about energy saving cooking. In countries like Sri Lanka and India no energy is used for heating houses but used gas and electricity mainly for cooking only. If anybody needs to know how to cut down energy wastage then please contact me. Why these so called energy experts are do not come forward and inquire what I am talking about? Here I am trying to help and if the authorities are not interested then the general public also cannot benefit from my eco-friendly scientific cooking.‚  May be the authorities are not interested due to political, economic and other hidden reasons. Your comments are welcomed perera6@hotmail.co.uk