In the Akelos documentation, it states that you can define var $serialize = 'meta'; Then the meta field will automatically be serialized before saving to the database.
I tried this, made a text field called meta, and defined it as serialize in the model. But in the console, when I try it out: >>> $user->meta['color'] = 'blue'; >>> $user->save(); Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /root/uskyldig/trunk/akelos/lib/AkActiveRecord/AkDbAdapters/AkMysqlDbAdapter.php on line 80
So as you can see, it doesn't try to serialize before trying to add the data to the database.