Clean Cooking Matters Zambia

Does food cooked on a mbaula taste better than that cooked using other energy sources?

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Clean cooking and rural areas...

My true appreciation of the need for clean cooking in rural areas began in 2018 when, as part of my work with the Ministry of Energy, I visited Chitambo District in Central Province. I had been in the sector for 8 years then and thought I had seen it all through my work with low income households in Lusaka who relied a lot on charcoal for cooking.

In Chitambo, I saw the effects of using firewood upclose. The roofs of the kitchens where the women cooked from were blackened from the soot and tar from using firewood. Normally cooking is done outside but during the rainy season, they moved indoors into these improperly ventilated huts. Quite a number of the women were coughing and they explained it away as being normal for them. Quite a number had red/brownish eyes from being in the room with all the smoke for long periods. And while cooking, small children hang around their mothers, also breathing in the smoke in the rooms. The area still had a lot of forest around so people did not need to go too far to collect firewood but it still took a considerable amount of time for the boys and girls who were tasked to collect firewood for their homes.

I call this time my awakening as it was the first time I put a human face to the issue and this brought about my dedication to the sector. While a lot of efforts have gone to urban areas that use a lot of charcoal, a lot of work remains for rural areas. Electricity access remains low in rural areas. There are a number of alternatives available each with their merits and limitations. Fixed Mud Stoves with chimneys directing smoke away from kitchens are a good alternative but adoption remains low. The cost of constructing biogas digesters remains a barrier to many households. Improved cookstoves that use firewood and/or twigs as a fuel seem to be promising in areas where they have been deployed but again, the price can still be a barrier.

This is a challenge to my fellow clean cooking practitioners, a lot of effort is needed in the rural areas.

What alternative income generation activities can our friends be encouraged and/or supported to take up?

Get yourself one of these Improved Cookstoves if you use charcoal for cooking. Those who use them consistently say they moved from using as much as 90kg to 50kg bags of charcoal per month! Thats a huge saving if you ask me. If you can pair the stove with briquettes and do away with charcoal altogether, even better.

Prices range from K100 - K150 depending on size and where you find them.

We have changed our name from Charcoal Matters to Clean Cooking Matters Zambia to widen our scope.

If you have any clean cooking product that you would like us to review and share on our page, please inbox us.