Development and assessment of a home eco-sustainable pasta cooker

Abstract

To minimize the great carbon footprint of pasta cooking (CFPC), a novel home eco-sustainable pasta cooker (EPC) was developed. It was controlled via a low-cost, open-source electronic platform and piloted via smartphone. Its performance was assessed with six commercial dried pasta of the short or long shape using not only the high conventional water-to-pasta ratio (WPR) of 10 L kg-1, but also the so-called minimum water-to-pasta ratio WPR*. A rule of thumb was used to estimate WPR* as a function of the geometric characteristics and water uptake for each pasta shape examined. The relative water uptake, main textural properties, as well as thickness, of all the cooked pasta shapes appeared to be independent of WPR at the 95 % confidence level. On the contrary, as WPR was reduced from 10.0 to as low as 2.1 L kg-1, the specific cooking energy consumed per unit mass of raw pasta dropped from 1.43 to 0.46 W h g-1, and consequently the CFPC from 0.43 to 0.19 kg CO2e kg-1. In all cases tested, there was no shortage of cooking water. The EPC may be regarded a low-price system capable of providing high quality cooked pasta in a very reproducible and quick way, while reducing CFPC by more than 75% with respect to the average European home pasta cooking carbon footprint.