Food Without Fire: Nutrition Impacts from a Solar Stove Field Experiment

Abstract

Population pressure is speeding the rate of deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa, raising the monetary and opportunity costs of meal preparation. Many people rely on firewood or charcoal to prepare food. Using a field experiment in Western Zambia, we investigate the impact of solar cook stoves on compositional changes in diet when constraints to cooking nutritionally diverse foods (e.g., legumes) and the cost of meal preparation are removed. We find no impact on diet for those households assigned to the solar stove treatment. We do see a significant result for the average number of dishes per household meal. These results offer valuable insights into program development for the provision of solar stoves to reduce the cost of meal preparation.