This simple action shown above can reduce your fuel cost by up to 25% compared to cooking on high heat throughout (see details in the tables below). Once the cooker has reached full pressure, high heat is a waste of fuel. The pressure can be maintained as well at lower heat.

Over the life of a pressure cooker, this simple tip will save around Rs. 6,000/-. It also saves precious fuel and energy resources for India. Even if 10% households in India change their habit of cooking on high heat throughout, the country can save more than Rs.5 crores per day.

How are these savings worked out?

We know that a cooker saves over Rs. 2.5 per hour of cooking on LPG using a simple action of reducing heat from high to medium after full operating pressure (FOP), as compared to leaving the heat on high throughout (see table below). If the average home uses a cooker for 2 hours each day, this works out to Rs. 5 each day. Assuming 300 days usage each year, over 5 years, the savings will be = Rs. 5 x 300 x 5 = Rs. 7,500.

As per MOSPI, the number of households in India is 29.4 crore. 10% works out to 2.94 crore households. We have seen that each houshold can save about Rs. 5 each day using a pressure cooker. So, 2.94 crore households will save Rs. 14.7 crore each day! Taking a very conservative assumption (some of these households may have less than average usage, or go some days without home cooking) we reach a saving for the nation of over Rs. 5 crore per day.

Fuel Saving with Pressure Cookers

Many housewives cook in their pressure cookers on high heat in the mistaken belief that high heat cooks faster. So the Hawkins Test Kitchen tried the method of keeping the cooker going on High heat throughout. This is Method 1. In Method 2, the heat is reduced from High to Medium after the first whistle. This is the sign that the pressure cooker has reached Full Operating Pressure (FOP). From this point, the remaining time at pressure is called the Pressure Cooking Time (PCT). The results are tabulated below.

METHODOLOGY: The Hawkins Test Kitchen did various trials in the 5 Litre Hawkins Classic Pressure Cooker on the large burner of a domestic gas stove to establish how much time is taken to cook a variety of Indian dishes − rice, dal, vegetables, meat and poultry.

The Hawkins R & D Department established through separate trials how much fuel is consumed on average when cooking on the large burner of a domestic gas stove at High and Medium heat settings.

So we know how much gas is used per minute using different heat settings of the large burner of a domestic gas stove. Applying these facts to to the cooking trials gives us the following comparison of fuel consumption between the two Methods: