Top | Sift

Food waste, worldwide

(article, Culinate staff)

In a recent New Yorker article, '"The David Owen writes that the trouble with increased efficiency is increased waste. He gives several examples before alighting on refrigeration:

bq. The steadily declining cost of refrigeration has made eating much more interesting. It has also made almost all elements of food production more cost-effective and energy-efficient: milk lasts longer if you don't have to keep it in a pail in your well. But there are environmental downsides, beyond the obvious one that most of the electricity that powers the world's refrigerators is generated by burning fossil fuels.

Owen quotes James McWilliams and Jonathan Bloom before noting, "Coincidentally or not, the growth of American refrigerator volume has been roughly paralleled by the growth of American body-mass index." Now that's a chilling thought.