Wonderbag Portable Slow Cooker

The Wonderbag is a $50 cloth-and-foam insulating bag. The idea is that you can slow-cook your food by boiling it in a pot and then bagging it up inside the Wonderbag, where it’s insulated from cooling and continues to slow-cook for the next few hours, like a crock-pot, without power consumption.

Unfortunately, not only is this a $50 cloth bag, but it doesn’t insulate well enough to keep food above the minimum required temperature to stop bacterial growth (140 F.) One reviewer measured her Wonderbag food at 128 degrees after 5 hours of cooking, which suggests not only that it’s not a safe way to cook food, but that you likely can’t leave your food in it for 8 hours (a typical crock-pot recipe cooking time) as it would be nearly cold and riddled with bacteria.

The company does promise to donate a Wonderbag to a family in Africa for every one you buy, though, so if your goal is to wipe out the population of an entire continent through food-borne illness, this may be the fifty-dollar bag for you.