‘Clean cooking is cool’

Miriam Lifa’s homestead near Lunzu Trading Centre in Blantyre is a place to go.

She keeps it spotless and cooks smart using liquified petroleum gas (LPG).

“My home is tidy because gas cooks smart. No chopping firewood. No charcoal dust or ash. No smoke. No coughs. No itchy eyes,” she brags, boiling eggs for a late breakfast on her gas burner.

Lifa last used charcoal in December 2025, when a charcoal bag sold for K45 000 at Lunzu Market.

“The bag that lasts two or three weeks costs more than a three-kilogramme gas, which takes me two months,” she says

Lifa bought her LPG cylinder for K127 000, down from K140 000.

The Promoting Equitable Access to Clean Energy (Peace) project, funded by the European Union through Oxfam in Malawi in partnership with the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (Cepa), subsidised an array of clean cooking technologies to save forests and human health.

Lifa chose LPG to cut smoky fumes and energy bills.

“I cook in peace using gas, which is cheaper and

more reliable than an electric hotplate with frequent blackouts. Our electricity bill totals about K20 000 monthly, but gas, worth K11 500, takes longer,” she says.

However, a subsidised hotplate has become a difference between convenience and daily headache for Susanne Jafali and Samson Layison.

The couple with two children got the electric appliance at K15 000 instead of K79 000.

“I no longer worry about costly charcoal or firewood that depletes trees.  I just switch on and start cooking straightaway. A K1 000 electricity token takes a week. Previously, I was spending that amount on firewood for cooking a meal,” she says.

Nearby, Halima Suwedi uses less firewood to prepare meals for her family of four and zibwente (coated irish potato snack) for sale.

“The budget for firewood has dropped from K5 000 to K1 000 due to a Smart Home cookstove, but my profit has grown from K4 000 to K25 000 as I cook more, faster and cleaner.  The firewood burns completely, cutting sickening smoky fumes,” she says.

Suwedi says she spends more time selling her tasty bites than on the sickbed or nursing children bedridden by illnesses caused by air pollution.