I would agree that there are many low-tech solutions to refrigeration. One of my pet projects that I may be able to get to some day would be a microhydroturbine from one of my springs, with the water flowing through a springhouse after the turbine, and going from there to the cows' water trough. Just out of curiosity, what percentage of Vietnamese have refrigeration today? How does the increase in life expectancy correlate to rise in available refrigeration? I would do without night lighting before a refrigerator. We use very little ice. I don't drink beer or soda, and Black Bush is just fine served with--a glass. Roots are stored on the cellar steps. I have a book somewhere that details how to build a larder, which is cooled by air pipes running underground. I'm afraid, however, that many people no longer cook. They reheat. I'm a little curious about how aseptically-processed milk would fit into your philosophy. It is my contention--and I could be wrong!--that one of the reasons that people are so susceptible to digestive diseases is lack of exposure to small amounts of bacteria and killing off beneficial bacteria by pasteurization. Pegi
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:00:46 -0800From: [email protected]: RE: Why not just dump the 'fridge altogether?To: [email protected] --- On Thu, 12/25/08, Pegi Ficken <[email protected]> wrote: Doing without refrigeration would be an excellent means of effecting population control. Spoiled food is a superb disease vector. Really? If so why has the world's population, concentrated primarily in the Third World where refridgeration is practically non-existent, increase by 1.5 billion people since 1990? In the Third World country that I am most intimately familiar with, Viet Nam, population has grown by another 16 million residents in the past 15 years, an increase of 24%. The fact is that in the Third World residents rely on many low-tech, non-energy intensive practices to protect themselves from food poisoning that we here in the "advanced" United States have forgotten about or don't even know about. Moreover thanks to their constant exposure to many pathogens, and our constant exposure to innoculations, antiseptics and antibiotics, their digestive systems appear to be far more robust than ours when it comes to fighting disease. That's why I have to drink my beer and soda warm while my friends and relatives get to drink theirs with ice, and why we can't even brush our teeth with tap water there, and why we have to carry around environmentally damaging bottled water everywhere we go. "What is the energy comparison for aseptic milk in single-serve packages versus refrigeration?" I never saw any single-serve aseptic packaging on my journeys in the Third World. That's another American aberration. The smallest aseptic packaging I encountered was the one-liter box. Also, because milk is not a regular part of traditional diets after the age of 2 or 3 in Viet Nam, the milk sold in aseptic packaging also represented a very tiny component of any store stock I saw. Generally it was limited to few boxes for sale to westerners. Fruit juices, sodas and beer are not refridgerated. People generally drink them warm or sometimes with ice in the glass. I agree with all the concerns raised regarding the environmental implications of aseptic packaging and the questions regarding its potential to be recycled. But given the enormous amount of energy that is consumed by refridgeration in this country, from the factory, to the shipping, to the supermarket shelf, to the home refridgerator, I would not be so fast to dismiss the idea that Aseptic may be the better router in terms of energy efficiency and environmental costs. Over the past two decades we have developed a substantial infrastructure for recycling in this country that with tweaking may be able to accommodate aseptic containers. George Frantz _________________________________________________________________ Send e-mail anywhere. No map, no compass. http://windowslive.com/oneline/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_anywhere_122008 _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
