Yeah, I was mainly talking about the heat once coupled to the pot. If "23%" means 77% of the heat goes straight past the pot, I'm still wondering if this is a

Yeah, I was mainly talking about the heat once coupled to the pot. If "23%" means 77% of the heat goes straight past the pot, I'm still wondering if this is a heat 'delta' or quiescent heat flow required to keep a pot at a temperature. Taking a spherical-cow approach, exactly how much energy would be required to (pressure?) cook 1kg of meat in an utterly lossless container? I'm picture stove-top pots more akin to helicopters that hot air balloons -- you're paying a lot of energy to keep the pot at a given temperature only because most of the heat is convecting and radiating out even after it manages to couple into the pot at some low factor. A tiny, tiny bit actually goes into changing the chemical state of the food. So, an electically heated pressure + vacuum pot would surely be the most efficient (at making probably entirely untasty food.)