Barilla passive cooker

The claim: reduces CO₂e emissions by up to 80%*<p>The asterisk: water boiling phase excluded<p>When I boil pasta, I use full heat to get the water boiling, drop in the pasta, then let it come back up to a boil, then drop the temperature as low as possible to keep a slow boil going--about medium-low.<p>Guesstimating that the boil takes about as long as the time to cook the pasta, I&#x27;d say that the pasta cooking portion only takes up about 1&#x2F;3 of the energy of the total (cold pot to cooked pasta).<p>The 80% savings only covers the pasta cooking phase, so overall, it&#x27;s only saving 4&#x2F;15 or 27% (roughly). If you use a lot more water, then that initial boil time further reduces your savings.

According to Kenji, you don&#x27;t even need boiling water to cook pasta:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boi...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;tips-for-better-easier-pasta" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;tips-for-better-easier-pasta</a><p>&quot;Want to get even more crazy efficient? Try soaking pasta in water as your prep your other ingredients. By the time your sauce is ready, you can just add the pasta (along with some of its soaking liquid) to the pan and, with a minute or so of cooking, your meal will be ready to go. One less pot to clean and a pretty satisfying magic trick to boot. Still skeptical? Here&#x27;s the science to back it all up. The one exception here is fresh pasta—because it contains eggs, it needs to cook in boiling water to set properly.&quot;

Backpackers have been using this technique to save fuel - I&#x27;ve got a cozy for my cookpot.<p>I also remember seeing this on one of the Victorian Farm shows - it was something like a pot roast brought to a boil in the morning, then put in a well insulated container to sit for the day.<p>Edit: Whoa, I just clicked through to &quot;The Product&quot; section, and it&#x27;s an open source design using an Arduino. Super cool!

How you like to cook pasta aside. This is so dumb. No one is going to solve the climate crisis with not boiling the pasta while certain companies is reaponaible for basically all emissions.<p>What is the word for this? When you try socialise problems like this to try shift blame? I’m still surprised how many people don’t know thar “climate footprint “ is invented by one of the bigger oil companies in a similar campaign.

A 145 year old pasta company just published open-source 3D printing models, Arduino circuit layouts &amp; code and a bluetooth-enabled smartphone app on its website, that too with a decent sized marketing push. All so that you can build an overengineered kitchen timer from scratch in your bedroom. This is exactly the wild future I imagined as a tech enthusiast building cheap PCs two decades ago.

How much of cooking protocol is to smooth over differences in heat flux? Recipes almost always seem to call for pre-heating an oven or bringing a pot to a boil before adding pasta&#x2F;noodles. But temperature is temperature (when it comes to slow cooked foods, ignoring searing &#x2F; maillard reactions). Are there any reasons not to just start cooking immediately while the oven&#x2F;water is still coming up to temp, if I control for doneness? I cook almost exclusively by doneness anyways (internal temp and&#x2F;or consistency), and it seems like for most foods, what matters most is area-under-the-curve (which is what the heat equation suggests).

Not really &quot;passive&quot; cooking as you&#x27;re just not actively pumping heat into already boiling water and just cooking pasta in steadily cooling water.<p>You can actually soften pasta and many other similar foods by just leaving them in room temperature water for a much longer period. Some backpackers do this to reduce weight and it&#x27;s been the only way I&#x27;ve ever prepared food while backpacking. Admittedly, cold noodles, oatmeal, rice, etc. is a lot more appetizing if you&#x27;re many miles from the nearest civilization and have worked up a huge hunger from hiking.

Not sure everyone agrees this is a good method<p>Quoting from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.finedininglovers.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;can-passive-pasta-reduce-energy-bills" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.finedininglovers.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;can-passive-pasta-r...</a><p>&quot;The response was swift, and it came from starred chef Antonello Colonna. The Roman cook rejected Parisi&#x27;s solution, claiming that with this procedure the pasta becomes &quot;rubbery&quot;, and impossible to serve in a high-level restaurant. Colonna considers the method a failure and proposes cooking on an open-fire grill, with pots that have fed entire generations like a cauldron. The chef claims this traditional low-temperature technique lowers electricity costs in his restaurant.&quot;

For a product focused on reducing emissions, it would be nice if the environmental impact of the product was addressed in the FAQ or product page. What are the CO2 emissions of the source materials, production, and shipping the product to me? How many servings of pasta do I have to cook with it before I break even? 10? 100? 10000?

Probably the best way to save both water and energy when boiling pasta is to avoid using excess water altogether.<p>With a bit of practice it&#x27;s pretty easy to make pasta in a similar way one makes rice - let almost all the water soak into it.<p>The trick is twofold: 1. One needs a pan that&#x27;s not too shallow (i.e. the pasta needs to stack up on itself, not just barely cover the bottom of the pan)<p>2. The first minute or so some stirring is necessary to avoid the pasta clumping together.<p>Works best if the recipe calls for some sauce to be applied in the end (pesto, carbonara, etc.). In that case it&#x27;s best to add the sauce when there&#x27;s still some residual starchy water, using it as a thickening &#x2F; binding agent for the sauce.

You can reduce the energy consumption drastically by boiling way less water than &quot;a large pot&quot; as every packet recommends. Just enough to cover the pasta + some evaporation margin is good enough.

The 80% less CO2 number is BS, since the claimed savings are only after &quot;water boiling phase excluded&quot;. Guessing this is more like 10% overall, assuming you turn your stove down to a low boil after the pasta is in.

My dirty little secret I&#x27;ve only dared to shared with my closest friends (fearing social ostracism) is that I cook by pasta by putting it in cold water and then turn the heat on.<p>Roughly when the water starts to boil I start periodically checking the doneness of the pasta.<p>Works just fine for me. Would never dare to it when cooking with friends however (only slightly &#x2F;s).<p>However, it would be neat with a device similar to the one in TFA, but more sophisticated. Having some internal model of pasta doneness as a function of the time in the water, and the water temperature over time.

I do something similar to boil eggs:<p>1) Put eggs in pot, cover with water.<p>2) Put pot with lid on stove on full heat.<p>3) Wait for the water to boil, then turn off the heat.<p>4) Wait 6 minutes (for eggs with slightly soft interior)<p>5) Cover eggs with cold water, wait one minute, peel.<p>Perfect eggs every time, and I am sure this saves a bunch of energy. They peel really well too.

The most reduction in CO2 could be achieved if all the people that regularly overcook the pasta would just take it out after the amount of time written on the package. (only partially &#x2F;s :-) )

Also works for eggs: But yeah, many wrong assumptions. Who blasts the water while it&#x27;s cooking? Nobody, you boil it, add pasta, bring it back to boil, turn down the heat significantly. That&#x27;s very far from 80% reduction, you only reach that without turning down the heat, in which case water splashes out of your pan constantly. Very misleading article.

Not sure what&#x27;s so special. I would assume everybody knows that most of the energy during cooking is wasted:<p>1. By the water evaporating<p>2. By the hot gasses escaping without actually heating up anything<p>3. With the water poured away after cooking<p>Which is why I:<p>1. Put a lid on the pot whenever I can. Once it boils it usually is enough to reduce the burner to absolute minimum to keep the simmer unless I am adding large amounts of ingredients.<p>2. I use induction whenever I can.<p>3. I try to avoid wasting water. I use minimum amount of water necessary to boil pasta (you really don&#x27;t need as much as you think you do). I also steam rather than boil vegetables like potatoes or carrots -- you get away with half of a cup to a cup of water at the bottom. Steaming does take a bit more time but I think it is still more efficient than poring huge amount of water into the pot.<p>I am still waiting for a real Dewar pot that would have double sided sides and also double sided lid. Probably would require precision heating (possibly with integrated heating element in the base as well as integrated temperature sensor).

The idea of Passive cooking has always been interesting, but the device itself really feels like an April Fools bit.<p>It&#x27;s basically just an alarm.. That needs to be paired with a smart phone. Really ?

I feel like we perhaps still have some bigger levers we can pull to reduce emissions before we meddle with our linguine.

The concept is definitely not new. Another keyword to search for is Thermal Cooking. I have a Shuttle Chef Thermal Cooker &#x2F; Thermo Pot for that. It&#x27;s basically an insulated pot to retain the heat. You heat up your food for a short time on the stove, then you put the pot into the insulating pot and let it rest there for some time. But you have to get the timing right, otherwise everything just ends up being mushy.<p>See also * <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thermal_cooking" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Thermal_cooking</a> * <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haybox" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haybox</a>

Could someone with more graphic design skill than I try to squeeze their &quot;full table&quot; down to 1 page that looks good coming from a B&amp;W laser printer?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.barilla.com&#x2F;&#x2F;-&#x2F;media&#x2F;images&#x2F;shared&#x2F;passive-cooking&#x2F;download&#x2F;passive-cooking-timing-guide.pdf?la=en-gb" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.barilla.com&#x2F;&#x2F;-&#x2F;media&#x2F;images&#x2F;shared&#x2F;passive-cooki...</a><p>Here&#x27;s my first attempt, but I don&#x27;t have any stylish art <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;spreadsheets&#x2F;d&#x2F;1OV0yfGyWSfzKrwKYGg91a7TMPX2HwV-6vHDWBfV29ZI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.google.com&#x2F;spreadsheets&#x2F;d&#x2F;1OV0yfGyWSfzKrwKYGg91...</a>

&gt; *water boiling phase excluded<p>Why is the part of the process that consumes the most energy arbitrarily excluded from this, am I missing something or are they just being dishonest so that they can include a bigger number in their marketing?

Reduce CO2 by introducing a plastic smart device whose manufacturing costs a tree. I love these eco-friendly measures!

Low-energy prep of steel-cut oats for several breakfasts:<p>1. Boil water in an electric kettle — we have a gas stove-top but we buy wind power for electricity; it&#x27;s a Texas-grid thing.<p>2. Pour boiling water into a pot, add oats, bring back to a boil on the gas range, then immediately turn off the gas.<p>(I use a ratio of 1 cup of steel-cut oats to 3 cups of water.)<p>3. Put a lid on the pot, put the pot on a trivet, cover with a dish towel (to keep heat in), tip the pot lid a bit to open it (to let steam out).<p>4. Come back in an hour or so — the oats are cooked and still hot; eat some, save the rest in a container to go into the refrigerator once cool.

It&#x27;s wild that they have an accessibility sidebar with a gajillion accomodations, but the carousels, which are the main content on this page, break after the second item in Chrome for Android.

And here I was imagining that the Barilla passive cooker would be a thermal cooker -- a vacuum-insulated sleeve for a pot that can hold cooking temperature for hours. Several companies make these.

I&#x27;ve always done this because I don&#x27;t like pasta boiling over into my electric elements. The emssivity of stainless steel and the enormous heat capacity of even the small amount of water I use and the fact that water cannot exceed boiling temperature means spegetti is done in 10 minutes even with no power at all after boiling has been achieved. Do not waste precious oil in the water. Just stir for a minute to prevent sticking.

There are a variety of no-boil pasta methods which use much less CO2. Haven&#x27;t tested them yet but plan to next time I make pasta.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=259MXuK62gU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=259MXuK62gU</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=lJHfXKvBHTA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=lJHfXKvBHTA</a>

And how much CO2 is going to be produced manufacturing and shipping the device they&#x27;re selling you? Not to mention the batteries it needs.

I highly doubt that, even if everyone did this religiously, it would have any measurable impact on emissions, given how emissions from residential energy usage make up only a relatively small fraction of all emissions (and emissions from cooking only a small fraction of that). Am I wrong?

Save water and the planet<p>Perfect passive cooking works, years tested: 500g of pasta + 1-1.2 L of water cooked in a pressure cooker under high setting for 2 mins with natural release. (edit: setup is defunct Fagor + induction cooker)<p>It&#x27;s just that simple and no water to discard except through GI tracts.

Interesting there are so many different names for these types of cookers. I&#x27;ve always heard this referred to as a haybox: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haybox" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haybox</a>

I&#x27;ve been cooking like this for about 15 yrs or so when I discovered stainless steel and I couldn&#x27;t recommend them more, if you don&#x27;t have any please buy some now, they also last for a lifetime. Get some good stuff, the kind of thing that feels heavy on your hand.<p>Stainless steel takes ages to cool down, so I usually cook vegetables in a similar fashion to this &quot;passive cooking&quot; technique, the taste is much better and even the colors pop up much more. Actually everything just tastes better because Aluminum does change the flavor of food for the worse, it makes it taste more &quot;acidic&quot;, idk, when you switch to stainless you will notice the difference immediately.

Let’s save the planet…<p>…Here is one more single-purpose device! Filled with batteries and plastic, that does what? 2 minute timer and nothing else your generic kitchen thermometer can’t do. If you are nearby it’s obvious when things start boiling even without one.

I wasn&#x27;t expecting this from an Italian pasta brand. It just feels wrong. Barilla has poor appeal among Italians for what it&#x27;s worth. I prefer &quot;La Molisana&quot; pasta instead and I make sure I cook it the right way.

This device isn&#x27;t really needed. When the water boils put in the pasta and turn off the heat, with the lid on. Wait the usual amount of time. This doesn&#x27;t work well with pasta that has lots of starch (barilla hasn&#x27;t much).

How about not pouring the hot water down the drain immediately, but leaving it in a pot with a lid on until it is cooled down? This way the erergy that you used to heat the water can contribute to heating your kitchen.

This works for rice and other grains too.<p>Another trick is that you don&#x27;t need a giant pot of water, just enough to cover the pasta, especially for smaller pasta like penne&#x2F;fusilli etc.

Better still, put it in while the water is cold. Start you timer when the water reaches 180°F&#x2F;80°C or so, and — when it reaches the boiling point — turn it off &amp; cover.

Put your pasta in with cold water in a skillet with just enough water to cover. By the time the water boils, the pasta is cooked. Save even more co2, cook faster.

I&#x27;ve cooked a lot of pasta in my life and most pasta will be fine in usually 1&#x2F;3 to 1&#x2F;4th the typical amount of water, though often better with frequent stirring to prevent the pasta from sticking together (which is the reason for the large amounts of water and boiling water in the first place).<p>If you&#x27;re heating up 1.5 quarts (instead of a gallon) for pasta you&#x27;re saving almost 3x the energy for the initial heating.

Surprised no one&#x27;s mentioned &quot;one-pot pasta&quot; recipes yet, where you cook veggies &#x2F; sauce, and just drop raw pasta into the pot while the water is cooking off.<p>The pasta comes out starchier since you&#x27;re not throwing away the starch water, and it tastes great, but definitely &quot;different&quot; from a &quot;real&quot; Italian pasta dish. Still great though! Italians view this as sacrilege but it&#x27;s great fwiw.

One of the best Italian chefs in the world, known for his pasta, showing five ways to cook dried pasta:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DK3FC1cQPKg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DK3FC1cQPKg</a><p>The last method is the one described on Barilla&#x27;s site. Use YT&#x27;s CC feature to translate.

Better yet, use a large flat pan and just enough water to cover the noodles. You don’t even need to wait for the water to boil. It’s faster this way and uses less water. Kenji Lopez-Alt of The Food Lab has a few videos covering the topic. It’s a real win-win.

I might just be getting old and cranky, but I get the feeling we&#x27;re re-inventing common sense, but replace sense with technology. Can I get an app that tells me to stop letting the water run while I brush my teeth as well?

We don&#x27;t need to live our lives in low-power mode. There&#x27;s another way.

I&#x27;m tired of cutting these weird corners to save energy. My wife won&#x27;t even let us use the oven anymore. I don&#x27;t think these things are gonna save the planet, or even save us that much money

Yes, run around anxiously in circles to make sure your <i>carbon footprint</i> is as low as possible so you don&#x27;t have time to look at what the corporations pushing this bullcrap are doing.

It&#x27;s the ideal cooker for me. I take shower only once per week and most of my gas cost went to cooking. It will save ~75% of by gas meter reading (but only ~15% on my gas bill though).

Don&#x27;t cook on gas if you really care about that kind of stuff.

&gt; When the water boils, pour in your pasta.<p>Why even wait for the water to boil? I always pour my pasta into the cold water right from the start, and it doesn&#x27;t seem to make any difference.

you can save way more time and electricity by boiling in a electric pressure cooker . your pasta will be done before the time it takes to boil a cauldron of water on the stove

This is the epitome of what is - unfortunately - wrong with capitalism.<p>Lofty claims of CO2 saved, while the marketing and production of a single device alone emmitted X times of cooking pasta without it.<p>Makes me truly question if technology &amp; capitalism, for all the massive good they have achieved so far are the solution or our doom.

I didn&#x27;t realise that making my pasta cooking more efficient would stop China and India from polluting both the air and ocean like there&#x27;s no tomorrow.

Scroll down a bit and you get white text on a bright yellow background.<p>Seems to be the modern take on animated rainbow-color backgrounds from the geocities days...

I put the pasta in the water immediately, not waiting for boil. I also don&#x27;t time it. You can see and feel when pasta is cooked.

Why boil any water at all? You can just let the pasta soak in cold water overnight. It will be nice and soft in the morning.

Any benefits of passive cooking must be offset by encouraging folks to 3d print some (non) biodegradable junk piece of plastic.

OP probably wanted to share the arduino based passive cooker, but it can&#x27;t be deeplinked. You need to scroll a bit.

I’m sorry, what does this device do? Is it really just an “internet of junk” kitchen timer claiming to save the planet?

How big a lens does one need to focus sunlight onto a cooking pan to boil water and cook pasta without emissions?

* by buying our device that wasted a bunch of CO2 to produce<p>* also it isn&#x27;t actually 80% when you do the math correctly

Water is really a great thermal mass. I&#x27;m surprised it makes that much of a difference. 80% is significant.<p>Now the important question: Can China Coal and Saudi Aramco cook their pasta like this too?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.activesustainability.com&#x2F;climate-change&#x2F;100-companies-responsible-71-ghg-emissions&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.activesustainability.com&#x2F;climate-change&#x2F;100-comp...</a>

I sometimes make rolled oats in cold milk. Just give it some 30 minutes to an hour to get soft and fluffy.

Never heard it called this, but this is similar to the way my grandmother taught me to cook pasta.

Here&#x27;s another simple way to reduce your pasta cooking CO2 emissions: cook with nuclear electricity

Passive cooking also works well for other boiled foods such as vegetables, eggs, and dumplings.

&gt;environmentally friendly AAA batteries<p>oh come on

Laughable when one flight from $CELEBRITY nukes the efforts of thousands of people for a decade.

Why not put the pasta in from the beginning instead of waiting for it to boil?

I honestly can&#x27;t tell whether that whole page is satirical or not.

This is definitely going to turn the climate problem on its head.

This is the best way to hard boil eggs as well.

Cooking*<p>Doesn’t look to me like this is selling a new cooking device.

what da... isn&#x27;t this what everybody do? why there&#x27;s a website full with huge eco banners dedicated for this? :&#x2F;

That web page doesn’t render without JavaScript.

Passive cooking; great idea Building electronics + app to help people measure some time? terrible solution

Hey, c&#x27;mon, this is advertising and must be removed