Ways to
keep food
cool
AFRICAN WOMEN UNITE AGAINST
DESTRUCTIVE RESOURCE EXTRACTION
Main mission
WoMin’s main mission is to:
• support the building of women’s movements to
challenge destructive extractivism
• propose development alternatives that respond to the
majority of African women’s needs.
Our approach
Our approach to making change happen includes:
• political education
• participatory research
• women-led grassroots-driven campaigning
• alliance and women’s movement building
AFRICAN WOMEN UNITE AGAINST
DESTRUCTIVE RESOURCE EXTRACTION
WoMin is an African gender and
extractives alliance. We work
with more than 50 allies in 14
countries across East, Southern
and West Africa.
• solidarity.
Our focus
Our focus areas are:
• fossil fuels energy and climate justice
• extractivism, militarisation and violence against
women
• women’s rights, consent and democratised
socioeconomic decision-making.
Publisher
The WoMin African Gender and Extractives Alliance
Postnet Suite 16, Private Bag X4, Braamfontein, 2017, Johannesburg, South Africa
Phone: +27 (11) 339-1024
Email: [email protected]
www.womin.org.za
This booklet was published in October 2016
Free to use
This is an open access resource with no copyright. Organisations are invited to make use of these resources so long as
they acknowledge WoMin as the source.
Thank you
WoMin thanks these funders and partners: Both Ends, Bread for the World, Ford Foundation and the Open Society
Foundation.
Text and content development: Muna Lakhani, Samantha Hargreaves and Liziwe McDaid
Reviewers: Muna Lakhani and Samantha Hargreaves
Project coordination: Jayshree Pather and Karen Hurt
Editor: Karen Hurt
Proof reader: Diane Stuart
Design and illustrations: Quba Design and Motion
Why keep food cool?
When you store food at lower temperatures, you:
• can store harvested food, like grain and vegetables, for longer
• can store cooked food for longer without it going bad
• cut down on illnesses, like runny tummy and vomiting, you get from eating food that has gone
off
• cut down on illnesses you get from insects, like flies, or vermin, like rats, after they have
touched your food
• waste less food
• save money from your food not going to waste
• help keep your family (or food business) healthier.
Keeping medicines cool
Some medicines need to be kept at lower temperatures. Ask your healthcare worker whether
any medicines they give you need to be kept cool. Talk with them about using the methods in this
booklet.
Important things to know about keeping food cool
• All the methods in this booklet will work better if you keep your cooler in the shade.
• They work better when there is a breeze.
• They all need water to work. But not too much.
• Always put a lid on your food container. This helps the food to stay cool and also keeps it safe
from insects, like flies, and rodents, like mice and rats.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
1
Build your own food cooler
Some of the food coolers in this booklet are easy to make. Some
are more difficult. We all start at the beginning when we are
learning something new. We learn by making mistakes, as well as
getting something right first time. Our mistakes help us work out
how to do things differently next time. Everyone can learn. When
you are not sure, ask someone to explain things to you.
How coolers work
When you’re hot and you sweat, your sweat starts to
dry up and your skin cools down. Why? The droplets of
sweat take in heat energy from your warm skin. The air
around your skin uses heat energy to change your sweat
from a liquid to a gas that you can’t see. Your skin cools
down because heat energy is being used up. This is called
evaporation. This booklet explains different ways to use
evaporation to keep your food cooler and fresher for a
longer time.
What words mean
Evaporation: When a liquid
(like water) changes to a gas
(water vapour). Evaporation
uses heat energy and so
cools things down.
water evaporates
when the air
outside the cooler is
hot and dry
damp cloth
outer clay pot
wet sand
HEAT TRANSFER
stored food
inner pot
as the water evaporates
the pot gets colder
Which pots to use when you make a cooler
Unglazed pots are the best to use for keeping food and water cool. Unglazed
pots are not shiny. They are usually made from earthenware, like clay.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
2
Janata cooler
This drawing shows a Janata cooler.
closed food storage container
water
earthenware bowl
wet sand
Step 1
Put water in an earthenware bowl
that is bigger than your closed food
storage pot. Keep the bowl off the
ground by putting it on wet sand.
Step 2
Place your food in the food pot and
put the food pot in the earthenware
bowl.
Step 3
Cover the food pot with a damp
cloth. Wet the earthenware bowl too.
The water will evaporate and keep
the storage pot cool.
damp cloth
Step 4
If the cloth begins to dry out, dip it
in water again and put it back on
the food pot. As the water in your
earthenware bowl and on the wet
sand evaporates, add more water.
Keep the cloth, the
earthenware bowl
and the sand damp by
wetting them as they
dry out.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
3
Zeer pot cooler
The Zeer pot, also called the pot-in-pot, was created by Mohammed Bah Abba, a teacher in
Nigeria. It works in a similar way to the Janata cooler.
Step 1
Get two pots, a bigger one and a smaller one. Put one
inside the other, like in the drawing above.
sand
sand
Step 2
Fill the space in between the pots with sand.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
4
Step 3
Put your food, fresh fruit, vegetables or
even meat, into the Zeer (inner) pot.
Step 4
Wet the sand with water. Put a wet towel or
wet fabric over the two pots.
damp
towel or
damp cloth
More about a Zeer pot
A Zeer pot keeps produce, like fruit
and vegetables, fresh for up to 3
weeks. Spinach will stay fine for up
to 12 days. Tomatoes and peppers
will last up to 3 weeks.
You can use a Zeer pot to store sorghum and millet for long periods. It keeps food dry inside.
This helps stop fungi (moulds) from growing on the food and turning them bad. You can store
water (and other drinks) at about 15˚C. You can even keep meat fresh for much longer.
This table shows you how well a Zeer pot can work in keeping food fresher for longer.
Produce
Normal shelf life
Shelf life in Zeer pot
Tomatoes
2 days
20 days
4 days
17 days
4 days
20 days
Okra
Carrots
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
5
Frame cooler
A frame cooler is easy to make. It will help to work with someone when you build it. Below is the
list of things you need.
You need:
• a flat water container
• long thin, bendy pieces of wood or wire
• a few bricks or flat rocks
• a wide piece of hessian or other thin,
loosely woven fabric (you can use a
hessian sack)
• sand
• 10 pieces of bamboo (or other wood)
Step 1
Put bricks or flat rocks in the bottom of the water container.
flat, shallow water container
bricks or flat rocks
sticks
Step 2
Put your sticks around the bricks. Put sand in the
container to help your sticks stand up straight.
sand
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
6
Step 3
Weave long thin strips of wood (or wire) that bend
easily to join the wooden sticks and make a frame. The
frame must stand straight and steady.
sticks or wire that
can bend easily
Step 4
Put your food in a pot with a lid. Put it into the
middle of the frame. It will stand on the bricks.
Step 5
Put the hessian cloth over the frame. It must be
able to dip into the water. This allows water to
go further up the frame.
the cloth dips into the
water in the container
so it stays damp
Step 6
You will need to add water – probably at least
twice a day – to keep your food fresh for longer.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
7
Charcoal food cooler
A charcoal cooler takes time to build but it’s worth it. It can last a long time. This drawing shows
you what it looks like as you build it. You might need to get help in woodwork if you are not
experienced at it.
You need
This is what you need to make a charcoal food cooler:
• wood for the sides
• metal plates for the top and bottom of the cooler
• mesh (chicken wire)
• screws and hinges for the door (or you can use strips of leather or rubber; use nails to fasten
the strips to the wood)
• hammer and nails to make the box
• charcoal
If you want to, you can put a metal box inside the mesh box to keep the charcoal off your food. If
you don’t use a metal box you must rinse the food before you use it.
Try to find things that you can use to make a charcoal cooler, like a table or a wooden box, or
pieces of wood you can use to make a frame. You can make the cooler any size you want.
How it works
After you put your pot of food into the metal container inside the mesh box, spray the charcoal
with water. You can make it really wet. The water will evaporate and keep the metal box cool.
Your food stays fresh for longer.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
8
Step 1
Step 2
Build a wooden frame.
Fasten a double layer of chicken mesh to three
sides of the box. Fill the space between the two
layers of chicken mesh with charcoal. Make
sure all the space is filled with charcoal.
Step 3
Cover the top and bottom of the cooler with a piece of wood, thatch, metal or fabric.
Add a door. The door must also have two layers of chicken mesh filled with charcoal.
Step 4
You can line the space inside the door with
metal sheeting. Or you can put your food in a
metal pot or box. If you don’t use either, then
remember to wash your food before you eat
or cook it.
WAYS TO KEEP FOOD COOL
9
Fossil Fuels Energy and
Climate Justice Campaign
This series of energy information booklets supports a regional womenled, women’s rights, grassroots-driven fossil fuels energy and climate
justice campaign. The campaign aims to build a women’s movement
to make deep change in the way energy is produced and distributed
in our countries and in Africa more widely.
WoMin’s geographic focus for 2016–2017 is Uganda, Nigeria,
Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa. The campaign
will include more countries in late 2017.
The booklets
We hope the booklets in this series will help women and their
communities address energy hunger right now. When we use some
of the simple renewable energy methods in the booklets it will help
ease the burden of work on women. In the meantime, we continue to
organise for the bigger changes we want and need.
Ways to
cook
with less energy
Let the
sun
heat your
water
How to
make
water
safer
AFRICANWOMEN
WOMENUNITE
UNITEAGAINST
AGAINST
AFRICAN
DESTRUCTIVE
RESOURCEEXTRACTION
EXTRACTION
DESTRUCTIVE
RESOURCE
AFRICAN WOMEN UNITE AGAINST
DESTRUCTIVE RESOURCE EXTRACTION
AFRICAN WOMEN UNITE AGAINST
DESTRUCTIVE RESOURCE EXTRACTION