Oracle

As saturated fats, sugars, and artificial chemicals are pumped into foods, especially “delicious“ fast food, the health implications can be quite questionable. Especially as young adults opt for fast food and less healthy dining options over home cooking mainly due to a lack of time or individuals not finding much value in cooking, a need to encourage better eating appears. If individuals develop cooking skills early in adulthood, this can result in more beneficial eating habits and dietary intake for years to come if not the majority of their adult life. Home cooking also comes with the added benefit of a feeling of accomplishment of cooking your own meals, and having control over what goes into your food, and can be much cheaper than regularly eating out.
To provide a quick, easy-to-operate, easy-to-clean, method of cooking, the Oracle Cooker was created. Driven by ohmic heating technology, the cooker sends electrical currents through ingredients such as meat, fish, and vegetables, that are submerged in a liquid such as water or stock, in turn cooking the food using the ingredients’ own electrical resistance to generate heat. This results in a consistently cooked product with less energy consumed, shorter cook times, and less nutrition lost during cooking. Due to consistent cooking, items like meat only need to be heated to their recommended internal temperature, ranging from 50-80°C, allowing for much less energy needed than conventional cooking making for a more sustainable and eco-friendly method of cooking.
The Oracle Cooker can blanch, dough proof, pasteurise, and can cook meat, fish, soups, stews, various vegetables, eggs, rice, and more.

Using the oracle cooker

To use the Oracle Cooker, firstly add your food items and liquid to the cooking container and ensure the food is submerged in the liquid, to ensure optimal electrical contact, but does not exceed the height of the stainless steel side panels. Then open the cooker’s lid and insert the container into the cooker. Once the lid is closed the Oracle Cooker is then only able to function as an added safety measure. As there are vents in the back of the lid to allow steam to escape, a mesh on the underside of the lid prevents any object from coming into contact with the electrical current when in use.

The Oracle Cooker uses two spring-loaded electrodes inside the centre space to ensure when the ceramic-coated cooking container is inserted, that contact is made and maintained between the electrodes and the stainless steel panels on the sides of the container. Once the time and temperature have been set and the start button has been pressed, an electrical current flows from one end of the container to the other by using the food and liquid to complete the circuit and cook the food in the process.

materials and manufacturing

The majority of the cooker’s panels are made from an injection moulded black HDPE with a near-polished finish on the exposed surfaces to achieve a sleek gloss look to match other kitchen appliances. HDPE was chosen for its strength and rigidity in this application. The touch panel display includes a 3 7-segment display in between touch panel buttons. The brass electrodes and the spring is separated with a plastic cap to avoid unintended electric current travel, and a top pin for electrical wires to be attached to.
The cooking container is made from die-pressed aluminium, and stainless steel conductive panels held in place with a rubber sealing ring to keep the container water-tight and to avoid electricity running through the inside of the walls of the container. The main aluminium body and top handle are riveted into place and are ceramic coated to provide scratch resistance and electrical insulation from the current.

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