EP 909 Refrigeration Changed the World and Now Threatens It

Refrigeration is considered to be the most impactful invention in the history of food and drink.  And while we focus on our personal refrigerators there is an entire ‘cold chain’ of cold storage warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, and display cases, keeping foodstuffs fresh until we can purchase them.  It’s a labyrinth never documented in the way that Nicola Twilley, our guest, and the author of “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves” has done in her meticulously researched book.  There are stunning statistics in the book, including the fact that three quarters of the food Americans eat has been refrigerated and the American family opens the refrigerator 107 times a day on average.  And like many technological advances that have made life easier and better with, say, the ability to eat tomatoes in the winter in New England, there are downsides, which threaten the actual growth of those plants in no small part because of the mechanics of cooling and its contributions to global warming.  It’s a fascinating story and we present it to you today.

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