Sustainable Entomophagy, Solar Gourmet Bugs

Since we're preaching Entomophagy as a sustainable and environmentally friendly practice, I wonder how solar cooked or dried gourmet bugs will fare?  If anything like ordinary foods prepared by solar cooking, they should be great!

It's nearly impossible to burn foods in a reflective solar cooker other than the parabolics with extremely high temperature focal points.  I have an old parabolic dish covered with solar reflective sheet material that will flame a stick in winter time in the evening sun!  That's more a death ray than a solar cooker but it's fun to play with and fries bacon pretty well.

Here's my idea of an inexpensive, durable, functional and sustainable reflective solar cooker that I built last year with coroplast, covered with solar reflective film and left out on the patio all fall and winter on purpose just to see how it would hold up under severe neglect.  It's been tossed about, piled under junk at times and covered with failed shiitake mushroom substrate, had ants nesting among the plastic fluting and crawled on by masses of crane fly larvae.  Sun, wind, rain and freezing cold.  How did it hold up?

A quick rinse & wipe and other than the wrinkled bottom panel resulting of heat from cooking last year there is no sign of peeling or anything I would consider negative to the appearance of the cooker!

I bought the adhesive backing reflective film at Solar Cookers at Cantina West and I guarantee you it's the best you can get for the right price.

One can make this any size they need and can even use mirror tiles from the hardware store for 1' square panels or glue them to a wood frame for a larger cooker but it would be heavy.  This uses four 18" coroplast panels joined with zip ties as hinges and folds up to an 18" x 1" thick flat stack that's lightweight and easy to carry.  Three are covered in the reflective vinyl film and one is left bare which folds under the bottom reflective piece and the weight of the cooking pot holds it steady.  I've had it cooking in 35 mph wind with no tip-overs, that of course is depending on the weight of the pot.

It's directional, which means it must be turned to face the sun for optimum, all day long cooking.  I found just by pointing it to the West just after noon and leaving it alone during late Spring, it will boil and cook four dry cups of beans in 5-6 hours in a half gallon canning jar that's been painted flat black on the outside, no stirring and no burning.

You can bet I will be solar cooking or dehydrating some bugs this year with this truly sustainable method, as long as the sun shines.

ALWAYS remember when using any reflective solar cookers to ALWAYS WEAR SUNGLASSES!  Can't stress that enough and though reflective cookers like the one shown aren't so bad at the hot spot if one should happen to stick their hand in by mistake but never stick your hand in a parabolic dish focal point. Pots in a reflective cooker get very hot and should be handled like any hot pot or pan.  :)

This is how to form a Tri-Flector Panel Cooker from cardboard that could be covered with foil or recycled mylar from potato chip bags.