Students develop recipes for the power outage

As part of a practical project in the fifth semester, students on the bachelor's degree program in Energy and Sustainability Management put together a cookbook of recipes that can be prepared without electricity or natural gas. For this, camping stoves were primarily used. It is important that the cooking time is short and that only ingredients that are available at home are used. First of all, the various scenarios of a power and gas supply failure were examined and discussed with regional risk managers. This raised some unusual questions: is fresh water available, can missing ingredients be obtained, is it possible to cook healthy food with a camping stove? Finally, the students put together 40 recipes and prepared them under the restrictions described.

AVOID FOOD WASTE

In the course of the work, it became increasingly clear that the deciding factor in the end is what food is in the refrigerator in the event of a power outage. The concept of a sustainable lifestyle presents a very similar challenge – here, too, food is processed before it perishes.

As a practical benchmark, the working group visited friends unexpectedly and tested the collected recipes using the random supplies found in the refrigerator to prepare a meal together using simple means. Project supervisor Prof. (FH) Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Woyke is also convinced of the importance of the project work: “I was initially critical of the approach. But when you delve deeper into this topic, you first notice all the issues involved. We will certainly pursue this topic further.”