Test Drive: The Huffington Post Canada's Living team will try out something that has sparked our curiosity, and as long as we live to tell the tale, we'll let you know all about it.
Test Drive Subject:Food Cycler: Home, a "state of the art solution to your food waste problem."
What It Is: An electronic unit, about the size of a computer system unit (or to be most accurate, 15"x15"x15"), that takes your food scraps and dries them out, creating compost you can put right into your garden — in under three hours.
Price: $529
Trying It Out: I was skeptical of the Food Cycler at first, because it's heavy and looks intimidating and is basically the opposite of the all-natural approach I thought was required to create "real" compost. But using it was literally as simple as plugging it in, putting on the filters that keep odours away (a one-time thing), tossing in the remains of my dinner and letting it do its thing.
According to the company, the food waste is broken down into small particles, heated up in order to decompose and sterilize it, and then ground up.
This is what my food looked like before:
And here it is three hours later, in my garden:
Our Thoughts: I love the idea of actually putting my cooking and meal scraps to good use — the "green bins" for organic waste provided by the City of Toronto are great, but leave a little to be desired in terms of transparency as to where the food goes. And I, like so many others, am guilty of wasting food every week when I forget about it in my fridge, so at least this alleviates the guilt somewhat.
I did, however, feel like I was cheating a bit by using an electronic device in order to get results that are meant to come about via natural processes, albeit within weeks and months, not hours.
The unit itself, which is relatively cute for its purposes, only uses about 2kWh per month (that equals about $0.25 in Ontario), but it does take up a fair amount of space on my counter.
The Warning: The price is high. There's no getting around that. This is basically a high-end option for people with space to spare and money to (kind of literally) burn. It doesn't require anything except electricity, though the filters should be replaced every three to four months, and that will cost you $40 each time.
Tips: The awesome thing about the Food Cycler is that you can toss in pretty well anything, including bones and shells. I even put in yogurt, though the company does warn against only putting in liquid, as well as only putting in starches — basically, you want to make sure there's a balanced compost mix, every time. You should also avoid large bones and corn on the cob.
The resulting organic mixture doesn't smell at all and is easy to distribute into your herbs, flowers, etc. I didn't perform an entirely scientific experiment to see if adding the compost to my garden made some tomatoes grow faster than others, but I do know I haven't had to contend with the smells of my food rotting in my green bin for the month that I've been trying this, and that alone may be worth it.
Do you think you'd try out an electronic composter? Let us know in the comments below:
ALSO — Other things the Huffington Post Canada Living team has tested:
Products We Have Tested
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