How refrigeration changed our food
nytimes.com
How refrigeration changed our food
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#2Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#3(2024) Related: Remembering the First 'Cold-Storage Banquet' (33 points, 8 months ago, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41150879
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#4Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food?
The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#5Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?
Yeah, frozen is pretty good and quite often better nutritionally as it is more ripe than the "fresh" stuff since it doesn't have to be cosmetically appealing or to stay "fresh" while going on the trip through the cold chain.
The general problem is with "fresh" as it is specifically optimized for the time spent in the cold chain. Produce has less water as that would bruise. Stuff is picked while unripe and then "ripened" in warehouses. Characteristics that cause degradation are bred out (like the enzymes in roses that give you the scent that is the defining characteristic of a goddamn rose). etc.
And, you are quite correct that the overarching problem is the consolidation of the food chain into a small number of giant "agribusiness" entities.
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#6The home refrigerator is barely a century old
When the article was written, it turned 110: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOMELRE
I somewhat follow the vintage refrigeration community (owning a mid-30s Frigidaire myself) and still believe this is the only one of them known to be in existence today: https://www.coolingpost.com/features/ashrae-displays-first-e...
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#7Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?
Yeah, frozen is pretty good and quite often better nutritionally as it is more ripe than the "fresh" stuff since it doesn't have to be cosmetically appealing or to stay "fresh" while going on the trip through the cold chain. The general problem is with "fresh" as it is specifically optimized for the time spent in the cold chain. Produce has less water as that would bruise. Stuff is picked while unripe and then "ripen…
Yes exactly - and more broadly pretty much all food consumed globally is automatically selected by tolerance of storage + packaging + shipping. Many varietals and whole specimens have been lost to the annals of history because they cannot make it to a Walmart in North America from Mato Grosso in a scalable (and profitable) way.
Bananas, for example, are practically a miracle fruit for scalable production and distribution. They are incredibly consistent - have resilient skins, have lots of structure that prevents damage from packing, come in easily managed bunches, and (if temperature controlled) the ripening process can begin on demand at point of delivery.
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#8Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?
I've worked in a "fresh" vegetable packing factory once... I'll go with frozen food. Stuff like broccoli came in from the fields in crates on pallets and were put in cold storage, probably not frozen but close enough, and stayed there until they were individually wrapped. Frequently one of the crates or a whole pallet was moldy and had to be discarded. I have no idea how long it must've been in the cold storage for that to happen.
The place burned down a few years later, anyway; they stacked up pallets as high as the factory itself right next to it, iirc someone lit it.
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, frozen is pretty good and quite often better nutritionally as it is more ripe than the "fresh" stuff since it doesn't have to be cosmetically appealing or to stay "fresh" while going on the trip through the cold chain. The general problem is with "fresh" as it is specifically optimized for the time spent in the cold chain. Produce has less water as that would bruise. Stuff is picked while unripe and then "ripen…
Yes exactly - and more broadly pretty much all food consumed globally is automatically selected by tolerance of storage + packaging + shipping. Many varietals and whole specimens have been lost to the annals of history because they cannot make it to a Walmart in North America from Mato Grosso in a scalable (and profitable) way. Bananas, for example, are practically a miracle fruit for scalable production and distribu…
And thus, this monoculture became susceptible to a single fungal plague that is killing the plantation!
And a replacement species is not available.
Re: How refrigeration changed our food
#10Hmm isn't frozen food - even veggies - very close in content to fresh food? The real problem being not how the veggies are stored on their way to us, but how they're grown industrially?
A friend started growing vegetables, and I got some as a gift at the end of the season.
Just regular stuff like potatoes, carrots, celery root, parsnip and such.
Now when I got them I was very busy, so they sat in a cool and dark place for a couple of weeks before I had time to use them.
First thing I did was make a simple vegetable soup using only the vegetables I got from her, and it completely blew me away with the flavors.
I enjoy food and making food, and that soup was one of the best dishes I've ever tasted. Each spoonful was a feast.
I told my friend this, and she replied that she had noticed it right away herself, and like me was taken aback by how stark the difference was to what was in the grocercy stores.
I've made soups and stews with fresh and frozen vegetables, but nothing has come close to those homegrown ones.