Any "No Fridge!" Folks Near New York?

My old, old post here, on "No Refrigerator- for 30 Years" - (38, now...) continues to be one that gets very high attention, every day.

Today it's the BBC that's interested; and looking for a little help from you:

Chloe Hadjimatheou has left a new comment on your post "No Refrigerator- for 30 years...":

Hi there,
I am a BBC journalist working on a radio documentary about how fridges change people's lives around the world. We are in New York this week and looking to meet someone who has chosen to live without a fridge. Can you help? Please contact me either via FB (chloehadj@hotmail.com) or else via email chloe.hadjimatheou@bbc.co.uk or phone +447974105829.
Many thanks!!
Chloe

It would be a good thing for the BBC to get a little of the other side of the story!  If you are, or know someone who might be- able to meet up with Chloe and team- please do.

And share this on your other communications outlets; we should be able to find someone somewhere.

Chloe- 2 things to keep in mind on this subject; which the refrigerator manufacturers won't point out:

100 years ago- no one had one.  If it weren't possible to do without- your grandparents wouldn't have had any children, and no one alive today would - be alive today.  Sure, there may have been a few more cases of food poisoning- but those cases were mostly due to poverty and ignorance; just as they are still.  And;

100 years ago- the global obesity epidemic was not yet happening.  If you check - you will find that obesity tends to follow the advent of refrigerators...

Seriously.  You could do hard statistics on that point, with info on the internet.  I don't think it's been done.  Yet.

And, Chloe- if you don't wind up with anyone in the New York area who works out; you're more than welcome to just pop over to Minnesota.  :-)

Resurfacing

If you'll allow me to continue the conceit- when you're pushing on icebergs like that- over 4' of open water- when something changes (like the iceberg moving a tad) you're quite likely to- lose your "grip" (if you can ever HAVE a "grip" on an iceberg) - and slip - and fall into the water.

Not necessarily a disaster, but it takes time to climb out.  What I was doing was some intensive people stuff for 2 days, and I do mean intensive.  When it was over, I slept, essentially straight, for 56 hours.  That's tired.

Climbing back out of the icewater now, but it's slow.  Scanning the headlines and trends, there's loads of bad news to crow about still, and that's getting depressing.  So I want to point you instead to a lovely example of how to do "it" right.  This is a well written article, too- Irish town - and points out beautifully what even mainstream people are slowly coming to realize: we're unbelievably wasteful- and if we can just cut out the waste, we quickly discover we don't NEED nearly the energy we're already consuming.

Back, sort of-

Meeting over, but body systems and family systems are still recovering from the dislocations, so I'm not quite "all there" yet.

So this will be a bit short. But, I do want to continue with the topic of "refrigerators". Eventually here, we'll have a summary post, that kind of clarifies the whole conversation.

I'm suggesting that folks living in first world cities should all get rid of their refrigerators. Today, if possible.

You don't need it. You can buy any perishable foodstuff you want, today.

You'll be healthier, and wealthier without it. You won't have stockpiles of treats available 24/7- you won't buy them and you won't eat them. The extra walking you do to buy the perishables going into the spaghetti tonight will help, too.

You won't be paying for the electricity to run it. And- most refrigerators are outrageously inefficient.

And- you have to pump their heat twice- once to get it out of the fridge; and often again to get it out of the house. Especially during a heat wave...

A basic fact about current refrigerator design: they're made to attract buyers; NOT to be efficient at keeping food.

All of which means- refrigerators and airconditioners are a HUGE part of the reason power companies build new power-plants- and why the power blacks out during heat waves. Everybody is getting into the fridge to get cold drinks- so the fridge runs more- so the airconditioner runs more- so the power grid can't supply the demand. Hey, we need more power generation.

This is all a by-product of the UNSTATED ASSUMPTION we all make- "if I buy a new machine- the power will be there to run it, and the new power won't cost enough to notice."

Time's up, for that assumption. We still design everything we use as if its power consumption was a very minor consideration.

Why does your new TV pull 100 watts of power? ONLY because to use the slightly better components they could have installed, so that it would pull 50 watts instead, would increase the initial cost of the TV by $30.

And the economists will always say, "Look, it would take you 10 years to get your $30 back just from the electricity you'd save; this isn't worth doing."

Except the electricity is ENORMOUSLY more expensive than the bill from the power company states. Cheap power is what's causing climate change- if we were honest, we'd add the cost of rebuilding New Orleans, and burying the dead there, into the electricity bills for the world.

And refrigerators are a key piece of the whole picture.

More coming.

No Refrigerator- for 30 years...

The topic of green living is vast and variable. It would be quite easy to get lost in the details. I don't really want this blog to turn into a discussion of my lifestyle on a farm. Most of the people on the planet don't live on farms; and aren't going to, any time we can see in the future. We are now a city based species.

My life here is relevant to city life, however; I hope. I want to start one such conversation here today.

I live without a refrigerator. Have for 3 decades. If you live in a city- you do not need a refrigerator. AT ALL.

-->> It would be easier to do without one in the city than it is in the country.

A great deal of what's in your fridge absolutely does NOT need to be there. If you're interested in trying this, just start by taking all these things out of your fridge, and putting them in a pantry type situation:

Butter/margarine - shelf life about 2 weeks
Eggs -shelf life at least a week
Cheese - keep covered, shelf life variable- taste when unrefrigerated hugely better
ketchup/mustard - shelf life - forever
honey - shelf life - forever
onions/garlic - shelf life - 2 weeks
tomatoes - shelf life - 4 days
cabbage - shelf life - 1 week
cooking oil - shelf life - months
peanut butter - shelf life - months

Ok, long enough list for now, though of course there's more. Some of you are saying "he's crazy, I never keep cooking oil in the fridge!" True, I'm sure; but I know plenty of people who do; just to "be safe". And every time they take it out to cook dinner- the bottle warms up, the door is opened twice, and somewhere, some coal is burned to re-cool it when it goes back in.

What about meat? Milk?

Yeah, refrigeration is a good idea, if you have to keep it more than 6 hours or so.

So don't.

Here's what we do, out in the country; we buy a little meat when we go in to town, use it immediately. Sometimes, if it's a bigger cut like a pot roast, we keep it for 3 or 4 days- cooked on day one, and re-heated whenever eaten- then carefully simmered with the tight top on the pot. And we're very careful NEVER to open the pot- until ready to re-heat. It's just like sterilizing a petri-dish, or hospital equipment- heat it, keep it closed, it stays sterile. Soups- same thing.

Milk- we buy in town sometimes, or use powdered milk in cooking or for kids if they need it. No, it's not as tasty usually- but we all live through it. Can't tell the difference in cooking, I think.

Much of the rest of what folks use refrigerators for clearly comes under the category of "luxury". Ice cream; beer, pop.

Would you be better off if they weren't so handy? If you're like me, if the ice cream is there- I'll eat it. Then buy more. How much of our obesity epidemic is due to having a handy supply of treats in the fridge- all the time?

In a city- it's dead easy to "stop off" somewhere, and just buy - a little ice cream; a little meat; one cold beer.

On days when you aren't going out - do without. Won't kill ya to have potatoes and canned peas for dinner, or a cheese omelet.

This, potentially, is a big deal. Refrigerator lust is one of the things driving huge energy use increases in the developing world- everybody wants one; it proves you're modern.

If we start a movement here in the Overdeveloped World to get RID of them in homes (sure, the restaurants, the stores, need them) - some folks in the OverdevelopING World would pay attention- and perhaps put the brakes on their country's rush to refrigerate. Maybe.

I've worked in China- in places where the nearest refrigerator was probably 100 miles away. Guess what? They manage just fine- and don't "need" it, until you tell them they do.

It would be relatively easy for them to KEEP their healthy habits-rather than try to recover them, after a little romance with refrigerators.

More on this coming. Please send this around- and let me have your comments.

(OH, and true confession - I HAVE rented a locker at the "freezer plant" in town, from time to time. Not at the moment.)