WEBVTT - How Refrigeration Changed the World 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.636 Pushkin the late twentieth and early twenty first century. This 0:00:23.836 --> 0:00:27.316 era we've just been living through has obviously been this 0:00:27.436 --> 0:00:32.836 period of incredible technological change. But in terms of technology 0:00:32.876 --> 0:00:37.996 transforming everyday life, our era is not unprecedented, which is 0:00:38.036 --> 0:00:42.476 to say our era is precedented, I would argue, In fact, 0:00:42.476 --> 0:00:46.156 I have argued that in terms of everyday life, there 0:00:46.236 --> 0:00:50.476 was an even bigger technology driven transformation in the period 0:00:50.676 --> 0:00:53.316 one hundred years earlier, in the period of the late 0:00:53.356 --> 0:00:56.676 eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. That period saw the 0:00:56.716 --> 0:01:00.116 coming of cars and planes, the spread of telephones and 0:01:00.156 --> 0:01:06.036 the electric grid, and the spread of refrigeration. Refrigeration allowed 0:01:06.116 --> 0:01:09.556 us to preserve and transport food like never before, and 0:01:09.596 --> 0:01:13.516 in fact wound up really completely transforming the way people 0:01:13.676 --> 0:01:17.916 eat the food we eat every day. I recently interviewed 0:01:18.036 --> 0:01:21.516 a journalist named Nikola Twilly who just wrote a book 0:01:21.556 --> 0:01:24.836 on refrigeration and how it changed us. The book is 0:01:24.836 --> 0:01:27.876 called Frostbite, and one of the things the book really 0:01:27.916 --> 0:01:32.156 made clear is how refrigeration changed daily life in this 0:01:32.636 --> 0:01:38.196 really profound way. Niki describes this transformation in microcosm via 0:01:38.236 --> 0:01:41.836 the work of this husband and wife sociologist team, The 0:01:41.916 --> 0:01:44.636 husband and wife visited a town in Indiana, first in 0:01:44.676 --> 0:01:48.636 eighteen ninety and then again in nineteen twenty five, and 0:01:48.676 --> 0:01:51.276 they talk about the different ways life has changed in 0:01:51.316 --> 0:01:55.396 this town, and Niki focuses on the way refrigeration changed 0:01:55.396 --> 0:01:56.436 the way people eat. 0:01:57.076 --> 0:02:01.076 In eighteen ninety, what they found is that the city 0:02:01.196 --> 0:02:05.036 had two diets. It had a winter and a summer diet, 0:02:05.476 --> 0:02:11.476 and then the winter diet was just really meet start carbs, pastry, potatoes, 0:02:11.516 --> 0:02:15.156 things like that, and the only sort of vegetables to 0:02:15.316 --> 0:02:20.876 enliven it were either root vegetables, turnips, cabbages, apples you 0:02:20.876 --> 0:02:23.916 could store in the root cellars, or things you had 0:02:23.916 --> 0:02:31.076 pickled or preserved from summer. But fresh fruit, green vegetables, leaves, berries, 0:02:31.636 --> 0:02:32.156 none of that. 0:02:33.236 --> 0:02:36.836 And you talk about how people would be sick essentially, 0:02:36.916 --> 0:02:39.276 like everybody in town would get sick by the end 0:02:39.316 --> 0:02:39.716 of winter. 0:02:40.076 --> 0:02:43.436 Yeah, they called it spring sickness. Today we'd call it 0:02:43.836 --> 0:02:46.636 sort of a prescore buttic syndrome. 0:02:46.796 --> 0:02:50.196 So like about to have scurvy, like about. 0:02:49.916 --> 0:02:53.276 To have scarvy, not full blown scurvy, but yeah. 0:02:53.076 --> 0:02:58.436 The mild scurvy that everybody got every winter exactly. And 0:02:58.516 --> 0:03:03.996 so then these academics, these sociologists come back in the 0:03:04.116 --> 0:03:07.876 nineteen twenties once, you know, refrigeration is clearly not ubiquitous 0:03:07.876 --> 0:03:10.316 by that point, but it's in the world. And what 0:03:10.356 --> 0:03:13.756 do they find, how do they find? The diet in 0:03:13.796 --> 0:03:15.156 this town has changed. 0:03:15.876 --> 0:03:20.716 It has changed utterly. They can buy oranges and lettuce 0:03:20.876 --> 0:03:24.636 shipped from California, and bananas shipped all the way from 0:03:24.676 --> 0:03:25.556 Central America. 0:03:25.956 --> 0:03:28.236 All but the very, very poorest. 0:03:27.876 --> 0:03:30.476 Are beginning to be able to enjoy some of the 0:03:30.636 --> 0:03:33.996 sort of what I call the supermarket in the US today, 0:03:34.156 --> 0:03:37.236 permanent global summertime. You know, you can have anything you 0:03:37.276 --> 0:03:40.916 want at any time. Spring sickness has been alleviated. No 0:03:42.076 --> 0:03:46.396 one speaks of spring sickness anymore. And it's totally a 0:03:47.316 --> 0:03:50.116 you know, the older generation remember it, the younger don't. 0:03:56.156 --> 0:03:58.556 I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is what's your problem. My 0:03:58.636 --> 0:04:01.556 guest today is Nikki Twilly. Her new book, Frostbite is 0:04:01.596 --> 0:04:06.356 full of useful insights into science and markets and technological change. Also, 0:04:06.556 --> 0:04:09.716 the book has just a bunch of good stories, including 0:04:09.876 --> 0:04:12.956 but not limited to the central role of beer in 0:04:13.036 --> 0:04:17.276 human history, the shockingly complex technology that goes into the 0:04:17.316 --> 0:04:20.196 bags of salad greens on the shelf at the grocery store, 0:04:20.716 --> 0:04:24.916 and why the technological frontier and refrigeration may mean that 0:04:24.956 --> 0:04:27.836 we don't need to keep so much stuff so cold. 0:04:28.796 --> 0:04:32.036 My conversation with Nikki started more or less at the beginning. 0:04:33.316 --> 0:04:37.076 Humans have been able to control fire since before we 0:04:37.076 --> 0:04:40.436 were even modern humans. That goes way back heat. 0:04:40.636 --> 0:04:43.116 Heat we got, heat came early all. 0:04:42.956 --> 0:04:45.916 Over it, and some people argue that's what made us human, 0:04:45.996 --> 0:04:48.236 you know, the ability to cook and then feed our 0:04:48.316 --> 0:04:49.436 big brains, et cetera. 0:04:50.556 --> 0:04:52.596 Cold much trickier. 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:58.916 All the great minds you know, Newton, Galileo, Robert Boyle, 0:04:59.076 --> 0:05:02.716 all of the scientists that you've heard of. Leonardo da 0:05:02.796 --> 0:05:08.116 Vinci tried to figure out where on Earth cold came from. 0:05:08.676 --> 0:05:12.516 But yeah, seventeen fifty five, a Scottish doctor, almost as 0:05:12.516 --> 0:05:17.756 a party trick, figured out how to freeze water. His 0:05:18.436 --> 0:05:20.756 A pupil of his had noticed that if you put 0:05:21.316 --> 0:05:26.636 a thermometer in ether, which evaporates very quickly, and when 0:05:26.676 --> 0:05:31.356 something evaporates it pulls heat away. The energy of turning 0:05:31.396 --> 0:05:34.876 that thing that liquid into gas pulls heat away, so 0:05:34.916 --> 0:05:37.676 you get a cooling sensation. He used a bunch of 0:05:37.756 --> 0:05:40.076 different liquids to try and make this work. He used 0:05:40.636 --> 0:05:45.996 chili oil, he used brandy, he used menthol he you know, 0:05:46.036 --> 0:05:47.836 he was going for all the sort of ones that 0:05:47.916 --> 0:05:52.956 give you a tingly sensation logic. But in the end 0:05:52.996 --> 0:05:56.836 he did manage to create a setup that froze water 0:05:57.036 --> 0:06:00.036 for the first time. First it was this was the 0:06:00.076 --> 0:06:02.436 first time seventeen fifty five that humans were able to 0:06:02.476 --> 0:06:06.516 make cold on demand. And he was just like, well, 0:06:06.516 --> 0:06:08.396 this seems kind of interesting, but I don't really know 0:06:08.436 --> 0:06:11.076 what to do with it, so others should investigate. And 0:06:11.116 --> 0:06:13.516 no one did anything for one hundred years because it 0:06:13.556 --> 0:06:14.716 was like, what are we going to do with this? 0:06:14.756 --> 0:06:15.676 It's a party trick. 0:06:16.236 --> 0:06:18.916 Yeah, that part is wild, right, It's like, here's this 0:06:19.036 --> 0:06:22.276 giant breakthrough, We're ready, and then crickets. 0:06:22.876 --> 0:06:26.716 It's you know, there's I quote a line from Robert 0:06:26.756 --> 0:06:30.196 Browning in the book, humanity's reach had exceeded its grasp. 0:06:30.676 --> 0:06:32.796 We could we had figured out how to do something, 0:06:33.116 --> 0:06:35.596 but we didn't know what to do with it. You know. 0:06:35.716 --> 0:06:38.436 It just that, yes, the picture of what you could 0:06:38.516 --> 0:06:41.436 do with cold wasn't there yet, right. 0:06:41.356 --> 0:06:43.916 And and you write about that, right. You point out 0:06:43.916 --> 0:06:48.116 that in the eighteen hundreds, the first kind of industrialization 0:06:48.196 --> 0:06:51.036 of cold that emerges is not from this new technology 0:06:51.076 --> 0:06:54.236 but from a guy just selling ice, just like cutting 0:06:54.356 --> 0:06:56.516 ice out of frozen lakes and putting it on ships 0:06:56.836 --> 0:07:00.516 and sending that around the world and selling that. And 0:07:00.556 --> 0:07:04.196 it's not until like one hundred years after that Scottish 0:07:04.236 --> 0:07:09.676 doctor inventing refrigeration that this guy in Australia, James Harrison, 0:07:09.956 --> 0:07:13.756 who you write about, He's like, oh, maybe refrigeration could 0:07:13.756 --> 0:07:16.996 be you know, a business, So tell me about that 0:07:17.036 --> 0:07:18.916 piece of it. Tell me about James Harrison. 0:07:19.436 --> 0:07:22.196 So, as with many things with technology, a few different 0:07:22.196 --> 0:07:23.996 people are fiddling about with us at the same time 0:07:24.036 --> 0:07:27.676 and making prototypes, and it's to do with who actually 0:07:27.716 --> 0:07:31.156 gets it going. But James Harrison, son of a Scottish 0:07:31.196 --> 0:07:35.796 salmon farmer, went to emigrated to Australia, as many British 0:07:35.836 --> 0:07:38.196 people did at the time, worked as a printer. He 0:07:38.276 --> 0:07:42.196 was actually a journalist, wrote and printed the local newspaper 0:07:42.556 --> 0:07:49.196 near Brisbane, and he printing in Australia's summer heat. He 0:07:49.356 --> 0:07:53.076 noticed that if he wiped ether over the type, then 0:07:53.156 --> 0:07:56.596 the ink didn't smudge because of that cooling effect. Again, 0:07:56.596 --> 0:07:59.996 it would evaporate off and at the time natural ice 0:08:00.316 --> 0:08:03.756 was reaching Australia, but it was expensive, the amount that 0:08:03.796 --> 0:08:05.836 had melted by the time it had got to Australia 0:08:05.836 --> 0:08:08.556 in the distance, etc. It was expensive and it was rare. 0:08:09.196 --> 0:08:11.356 It was like, I bet I could use this either 0:08:11.436 --> 0:08:14.636 thing and build a refrigeration machine. I mean, he blew 0:08:14.716 --> 0:08:18.436 himself up several times. There was many sets of eyebrows 0:08:18.476 --> 0:08:22.316 were lost, but he ended up with a functioning machine. 0:08:22.396 --> 0:08:26.876 And he was the first one to sell a refrigeration machine, 0:08:26.916 --> 0:08:30.956 something that was capable at first, not of cooling things, 0:08:30.996 --> 0:08:34.316 but of cooling water, of making ice. This is another 0:08:34.356 --> 0:08:36.596 funny thing, like humans didn't think, oh, we could just 0:08:36.676 --> 0:08:39.196 cool a room. They thought they were only used to 0:08:39.316 --> 0:08:40.036 natural cold. 0:08:40.156 --> 0:08:42.796 Ice is cold. If we want something to be cold, 0:08:42.876 --> 0:08:45.476 let's freeze water and make it ice. Right, That's like 0:08:45.596 --> 0:08:50.196 step one exactly. And who is his who is his market? 0:08:50.196 --> 0:08:52.316 Who's he selling ice to brewers? 0:08:52.436 --> 0:08:55.876 One hundred percent brewers? You know some people credit beer 0:08:55.996 --> 0:08:59.636 with being you know why humans got into agriculture and 0:08:59.676 --> 0:09:05.276 domesticating grain and settling down forming civilization because we wanted 0:09:05.276 --> 0:09:05.756 to drink. 0:09:06.196 --> 0:09:08.396 Yeah, you mentioned that in passing in the book. That's 0:09:08.436 --> 0:09:10.836 like one sentence in the book. And I read it 0:09:10.876 --> 0:09:13.676 and I thought, is it true? I mean, nobody knows 0:09:13.716 --> 0:09:15.836 if it's true, but like, how plausible is that theory? 0:09:15.956 --> 0:09:17.316 It's a pretty plausible theory. 0:09:17.396 --> 0:09:19.796 Like this is a theory that is subscribed to by 0:09:21.116 --> 0:09:27.236 many archaeologists and reasonably backed up by residue in pots. 0:09:27.436 --> 0:09:31.036 People were definitely making alcohol almost the first thing they 0:09:31.116 --> 0:09:32.716 did with their grains. 0:09:33.396 --> 0:09:37.036 What is the Homer Simpson line? Beer the cause of 0:09:37.236 --> 0:09:40.236 and solution to all of our problems? Pretty much but 0:09:40.516 --> 0:09:44.116 perhaps historically true, right if you think of the rise 0:09:44.156 --> 0:09:47.756 of agriculture, as you know, the creation of many many 0:09:47.796 --> 0:09:51.196 problems and then the solution to many many problems exactly. 0:09:51.236 --> 0:09:52.556 And ditto refrigeration. 0:09:53.236 --> 0:09:56.796 So yeah, so why are brewers the first market for 0:09:57.756 --> 0:09:58.756 artificial refrigeration? 0:09:59.436 --> 0:10:05.796 So you can make beer without refrigeration, it's just and 0:10:06.116 --> 0:10:08.236 if you can drink it warm. I grew up in 0:10:08.276 --> 0:10:12.676 England and people do still it's not my taste, but you. 0:10:12.636 --> 0:10:16.356 Know, technology, one hundred years of technology notwithstanding. 0:10:15.756 --> 0:10:19.676 Notwithstanding it, did you know why? It's actually a flavor thing. 0:10:20.836 --> 0:10:24.476 Things taste more bitter when they're warmer, and if you 0:10:24.556 --> 0:10:27.236 are looking for that taste in your beer, as British 0:10:27.236 --> 0:10:29.156 people are, like oh, I'll have a pint of bitter. 0:10:29.276 --> 0:10:33.916 They say, well, then warmer is better. But the point 0:10:33.996 --> 0:10:37.116 is that lager was having a boom in popularity, in 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:41.076 particular because Germans were emigrating everywhere and bringing with them 0:10:41.116 --> 0:10:44.876 their love for lagger and lagger yeast doesn't really function 0:10:44.956 --> 0:10:49.076 particularly well above fifty degrees and so in the Laggering 0:10:49.156 --> 0:10:52.516 caves in Saint Louis and Brooklyn it was getting too 0:10:52.596 --> 0:10:56.116 hot in summer to make beer. And I mean summer 0:10:56.156 --> 0:11:01.676 is when beer tastes best. So this was a crisis. 0:11:02.236 --> 0:11:05.836 And the brewers were huge consumers of natural ice. But 0:11:06.036 --> 0:11:10.516 then you know, there would be natural ice famines. If 0:11:10.516 --> 0:11:13.356 there was a warm winter, there wouldn't be enough natural 0:11:13.396 --> 0:11:15.796 ice to go around. The price would go up, and 0:11:15.916 --> 0:11:19.956 also increasingly as cities got bigger, and in an era 0:11:20.156 --> 0:11:25.676 before you know sanitation, the natural ice was getting polluted 0:11:25.716 --> 0:11:26.556 and really dirty. 0:11:26.676 --> 0:11:27.716 So yes, it. 0:11:27.796 --> 0:11:30.716 Seeing of ice in a cave in a basement in 0:11:30.756 --> 0:11:33.916 Brooklyn in eighteen seventy like that is nasty. 0:11:34.076 --> 0:11:38.596 There was a certain in the summer, certain funkiness, certain funkiness, 0:11:38.676 --> 0:11:41.516 let's put it that way. So they were the early 0:11:41.556 --> 0:11:47.436 adopters of this, this refrigeration technology. The first refrigerating machines 0:11:47.556 --> 0:11:51.356 ever sold were both to breweries, one in London, one 0:11:51.396 --> 0:11:56.676 in Australia, and they are the ones who also pioneered 0:11:56.716 --> 0:11:59.156 the whole idea of like, wait, we don't have to 0:11:59.196 --> 0:12:02.916 make ice, we could just cool the cellar. And that 0:12:02.996 --> 0:12:05.556 was actually a brewer in Brooklyn figured that out. 0:12:05.476 --> 0:12:08.036 Sort of cutting out the middleman. Right, there's this moment 0:12:08.396 --> 0:12:10.516 which is kind of beautiful in a like history of 0:12:10.556 --> 0:12:12.996 technology way, where they're like, we want the room to 0:12:13.036 --> 0:12:15.716 be cool. We know ice is cold. We've got this machine, 0:12:17.276 --> 0:12:20.316 and it just takes what years? How long does it 0:12:20.356 --> 0:12:22.836 take before anybody figures out that you don't actually need 0:12:22.876 --> 0:12:25.396 to melt water into ice put the ice in the room, 0:12:25.476 --> 0:12:26.836 you can just cool the room. 0:12:27.116 --> 0:12:28.676 About five years? 0:12:28.756 --> 0:12:32.876 Wow? Yeah, like a generation. Yeah, the technology is right there. 0:12:32.996 --> 0:12:35.556 It's just like an insight problem exactly. 0:12:35.636 --> 0:12:38.036 They did just I mean, if you're used to thinking 0:12:38.076 --> 0:12:41.516 of cold as a property of ice, yea, then seeing 0:12:41.556 --> 0:12:44.076 it as not is sort. 0:12:43.836 --> 0:12:46.676 Of a leap. Yeah. No one in history has ever 0:12:46.796 --> 0:12:50.196 used a machine to cool air exactly until somebody. 0:12:50.236 --> 0:12:54.276 Yeah, until until you know, this brewer in Brooklyn came 0:12:54.316 --> 0:12:57.836 along and did that. And it was a huge improvement. 0:12:57.916 --> 0:13:01.396 You can imagine like ice melts, it's funky, it's disgusting. 0:13:01.996 --> 0:13:06.876 Now you have this clean, dry refrigeration machine just cooling 0:13:06.876 --> 0:13:10.956 the room. The only problem was these were all prototypes. 0:13:11.116 --> 0:13:16.236 They're massive, they use very explosive chemicals, and they're steam powered, 0:13:16.276 --> 0:13:20.836 so they're constantly blowing up. They're unensurable, they're unreliable. Every 0:13:20.876 --> 0:13:25.396 single one is unique because they're all prototypes. So it 0:13:25.676 --> 0:13:28.756 just took Whenever I sort of look back at this history, 0:13:28.756 --> 0:13:30.796 I have to remind myself it took a long time 0:13:30.876 --> 0:13:33.436 because there was a lot to figure out. It was 0:13:33.476 --> 0:13:36.796 a French monk who eventually figured, oh, if we put 0:13:36.796 --> 0:13:40.196 the compressor, the thing that sort of compresses the refrigerant 0:13:40.276 --> 0:13:42.916 so that it can evaporate again, if we put that 0:13:43.276 --> 0:13:47.516 in an enclosed container, that's going to work much better 0:13:47.516 --> 0:13:50.036 because then it won't you know, keep breaking down. And 0:13:50.076 --> 0:13:52.316 he did that because he wanted, you know, to chill 0:13:52.356 --> 0:13:56.756 the communion wine in the south of front, so you're adjacent. 0:13:57.396 --> 0:13:58.876 It's all alcohol in the end. 0:13:59.276 --> 0:14:02.756 And by the way that you know, that insight that 0:14:02.836 --> 0:14:06.916 the monk had of using a hermetically sealed compressor, like 0:14:07.196 --> 0:14:10.796 that's basically the way referreerators work today, right, Like, that's 0:14:10.836 --> 0:14:11.916 the basic idea. 0:14:12.036 --> 0:14:18.476 Still, everything about the early refrigerator is basically the same 0:14:18.556 --> 0:14:21.436 as the refrigerator we use today, except we're using electricity 0:14:21.516 --> 0:14:25.436 rather than steam, and the chemicals we use are you know, 0:14:25.476 --> 0:14:29.036 we're not using ether anymore. We're using various things with 0:14:29.276 --> 0:14:35.316 extremely long names, but otherwise the principle, the mechanics identical. 0:14:35.636 --> 0:14:37.916 So you're right about the way people take this technology 0:14:37.956 --> 0:14:41.716 and extend it so that you can keep trucks cold 0:14:41.796 --> 0:14:44.676 and you can keep ships cold. Right, and then we 0:14:44.716 --> 0:14:47.876 get this world, this thing that becomes called the cold chain, 0:14:47.956 --> 0:14:50.476 which is a world where we can keep food cold 0:14:50.516 --> 0:14:52.836 from the moment you know, a vegetable is picked or 0:14:52.876 --> 0:14:56.436 an animal is slaughtered, basically until the time I pull 0:14:56.476 --> 0:14:58.876 it out of my fridge or my freezer to cook it. 0:14:59.356 --> 0:15:01.756 And once we have this cold chain, people start to 0:15:02.436 --> 0:15:06.356 kind of rethink food in a bigger way. And there's 0:15:06.436 --> 0:15:09.116 a few pieces of that of that kind of rethinking 0:15:09.156 --> 0:15:11.196 that I want to talk about from the book. So 0:15:11.716 --> 0:15:15.236 tell me about this thing called the low temperature research station. 0:15:16.276 --> 0:15:19.396 No one had any clue what temperature things should be 0:15:19.436 --> 0:15:22.596 at to last the longest, but not freeze and not 0:15:22.756 --> 0:15:26.036 you know, or not turned brown or whatever. No one 0:15:26.116 --> 0:15:28.516 had any clue like what should be stored with what 0:15:29.116 --> 0:15:32.676 and for how long. All of that had to be 0:15:32.876 --> 0:15:36.516 figured out, and so the Low Temperature Research Station was 0:15:36.556 --> 0:15:38.276 really the first attempt to do that. It was set 0:15:38.316 --> 0:15:42.196 up by the British government post World War One. Britain 0:15:42.276 --> 0:15:45.236 is a very small little island filled with a lot 0:15:45.276 --> 0:15:48.516 of people, and even back then it imported most of 0:15:48.556 --> 0:15:52.316 its food and as German you boats were sinking ships 0:15:52.396 --> 0:15:56.356 bringing food from the colonies. The British government were like, huh, 0:15:56.396 --> 0:15:59.036 we should figure out how to keep a supply on hand, 0:15:59.196 --> 0:16:03.396 sort of a reserve. This is a matter of national security. 0:16:03.396 --> 0:16:06.036 We can't just do a just in time system, you know. 0:16:06.956 --> 0:16:12.356 And so they set up this Low Temperature Research Station 0:16:12.516 --> 0:16:15.516 where a bunch of scientists tackled everything. I mean, they 0:16:15.516 --> 0:16:19.556 looked into meat. In the book, I spend most of 0:16:19.596 --> 0:16:22.476 my time looking at how they studied apples. Apples were 0:16:22.476 --> 0:16:25.716 a huge fruit at the time. This is before the 0:16:25.836 --> 0:16:28.916 rise of the banana, so to speak, and the apple 0:16:29.036 --> 0:16:32.476 was kind of it and apples would come from the 0:16:32.516 --> 0:16:38.276 colonies and need to be stored, and there was you know, 0:16:38.436 --> 0:16:42.116 a whole set of research going on into how do 0:16:42.196 --> 0:16:45.236 you store apples, And it's not just a matter of temperature, 0:16:45.276 --> 0:16:48.036 as it turns out, it's also a matter of what 0:16:48.196 --> 0:16:50.476 the apple is breathing. And this was the thing I 0:16:50.516 --> 0:16:52.476 didn't really realize until I wrote this book. But when 0:16:52.476 --> 0:16:58.676 you harvest produce, it's still alive, it's still metabolizing, it's 0:16:58.716 --> 0:17:02.636 still breathing, and like us, it has a certain number 0:17:02.636 --> 0:17:04.316 of breaths left until it dies. 0:17:05.196 --> 0:17:09.596 When you say breathing, it's taking in what it's not 0:17:09.916 --> 0:17:13.556 is it oxygen? It's so, it's not the usual. 0:17:13.676 --> 0:17:18.116 It's not it's not so distance No, huh. 0:17:17.436 --> 0:17:19.756 So what what is it taking in? And what is 0:17:19.796 --> 0:17:20.636 it putting out? 0:17:20.836 --> 0:17:23.916 It's taking an oxygen and putting out carbon dioxide, just 0:17:24.076 --> 0:17:24.676 like us. 0:17:24.796 --> 0:17:25.636 Just like us. 0:17:25.956 --> 0:17:30.236 Yeah, it's just they're just like us, and just like us, 0:17:30.356 --> 0:17:33.076 they have a certain number of breaths before they die. 0:17:33.356 --> 0:17:35.716 We know this about ourselves so that we don't tend 0:17:35.756 --> 0:17:36.476 to think about. 0:17:36.276 --> 0:17:40.156 It very much a lot, to be honest. But whatever. 0:17:41.436 --> 0:17:44.276 So what do they figure out about apples at the 0:17:44.476 --> 0:17:47.396 at the Low Temperature Research Station. 0:17:47.396 --> 0:17:49.596 Well, they figure out that you can make an apple 0:17:49.716 --> 0:17:54.316 breathe much more slowly if you reduce the oxygen levels. 0:17:54.556 --> 0:17:58.556 And they figure this out by putting apples in a 0:17:59.836 --> 0:18:03.916 in a vasoline lined coffin, they call it sitting them 0:18:03.956 --> 0:18:06.996 in there. You suck out the oxygen, and there's this, 0:18:07.156 --> 0:18:09.276 there's this sort of it's a finely tuned thing. You 0:18:09.276 --> 0:18:12.116 can't remove all the oxygen because then the apples will 0:18:12.156 --> 0:18:17.036 just ferment, and that is then it's all over your cider. Yeah, 0:18:17.156 --> 0:18:20.276 so you need to get it low enough so that 0:18:20.356 --> 0:18:25.276 they're still breathing, just breathing as slowly as possible. And 0:18:25.316 --> 0:18:28.876 that actually varies by apple species. So you might be 0:18:28.916 --> 0:18:30.876 able to take a Pink Lady down to you know, 0:18:30.956 --> 0:18:34.956 zero point five percent oxygen, but a Red Delicious only 0:18:34.956 --> 0:18:37.716 down to two percent. But the point is you're sort 0:18:37.756 --> 0:18:42.956 of putting the apple into almost suspended animation. It's just 0:18:43.116 --> 0:18:47.236 breathing as slowly as possible, and it's it's sort of 0:18:47.316 --> 0:18:50.916 like if you play the podcast on like half speed, 0:18:50.956 --> 0:18:53.636 it takes twice as long, while the apple that is 0:18:53.676 --> 0:18:56.916 breathing at you know, half speed, lives twice as long. 0:18:57.156 --> 0:19:01.116 And so they figured this out, put it into commercial practice, 0:19:01.156 --> 0:19:03.596 and this is how apples are stored today. This is 0:19:03.596 --> 0:19:05.596 why you can go to the store right now, which 0:19:05.596 --> 0:19:08.716 is before the apple season starts, and by a Washington 0:19:08.756 --> 0:19:11.236 State apple and it will be juicy and fresh and 0:19:11.356 --> 0:19:12.876 also nearly a year old. 0:19:13.076 --> 0:19:16.436 And is temperature also a part of that formula to 0:19:16.516 --> 0:19:17.996 sort of induce this hibernation. 0:19:18.316 --> 0:19:20.556 Oh yeah, you have to bring the temperature down. And 0:19:20.636 --> 0:19:26.236 again that varies based on the species. But cold's main 0:19:26.836 --> 0:19:30.636 method of preserving things is to slow things down. We 0:19:30.676 --> 0:19:33.956 know this, like we are slower in the cold. Bacteria 0:19:33.996 --> 0:19:36.836 and fungi are slower in the cold. Apples are slower 0:19:36.876 --> 0:19:41.436 in the cold. You're just adding the atmospheric effect to 0:19:41.476 --> 0:19:43.596 it as a sort of additive, so it slowed down 0:19:43.716 --> 0:19:44.356 even more. 0:19:47.796 --> 0:19:50.316 Still to come on the show the technological marvel that 0:19:50.476 --> 0:20:03.796 is a plastic bag full of lettuce. So apples are 0:20:03.796 --> 0:20:05.956 a good one. I mean, there's a lot of specific 0:20:07.876 --> 0:20:10.476 innovations for different foods. But another one I want to 0:20:10.476 --> 0:20:15.876 talk about is lettuce. Tell me the lettuce story. 0:20:16.796 --> 0:20:20.596 For a long time, lettuce had to be grown near 0:20:20.636 --> 0:20:25.316 where it was consumed. And then once ice you know, 0:20:25.796 --> 0:20:29.716 ice making machines came along, well that's when California got 0:20:29.716 --> 0:20:33.756 into the lettuce business and the Salinas Valley became the 0:20:33.876 --> 0:20:38.716 largest ice producing uh you know area of the world, 0:20:38.876 --> 0:20:40.916 second only to New York City, and the amount of 0:20:40.956 --> 0:20:44.036 ice they made there because they were icing down all 0:20:44.196 --> 0:20:47.516 the lettuce, and that meant the lettuce itself had to 0:20:47.636 --> 0:20:52.396 change because you know, the soft Boston bib type they 0:20:52.396 --> 0:20:55.556 don't do so well when they're ice. You need something sturdy, 0:20:56.236 --> 0:21:02.196 like oh, an iceberg, which gets its name supposedly from 0:21:02.276 --> 0:21:07.436 the fact that when these crisped lettuces were jammed into 0:21:07.516 --> 0:21:10.996 railcars and topped with the load of ice and retopped, 0:21:11.076 --> 0:21:14.556 you know, every couple hundred miles along the railway, it 0:21:14.596 --> 0:21:19.436 would look like icebergs were coming, you know, like a 0:21:19.476 --> 0:21:22.196 train car set of icebergs was coming towards you. 0:21:22.676 --> 0:21:25.676 Yeah, you wrote that. Before this time, the kind of 0:21:25.756 --> 0:21:28.676 lettuce that we call iceberg was called Los Angeles right, 0:21:28.796 --> 0:21:34.356 Los Angeles lettuce and like kind of I mean, I 0:21:34.356 --> 0:21:36.956 guess people like it, but like not a real lettuce 0:21:37.116 --> 0:21:40.436 lettuce right if you want your like green vegetables, icebery 0:21:40.476 --> 0:21:45.396 lettuce is notably not that green. And I mean, as 0:21:45.436 --> 0:21:47.516 I read the book, it just takes off as lettuce 0:21:47.676 --> 0:21:50.356 because it's the lettuce that you could send across the country. 0:21:51.276 --> 0:21:53.116 In a railcar full of ice one. 0:21:53.716 --> 0:21:56.476 And that happens again and again with the refrigeration. It 0:21:56.476 --> 0:21:59.036 happens with apples too. The apples we have on our 0:21:59.076 --> 0:22:02.236 grocery store shelves are the apples you can store in 0:22:02.276 --> 0:22:07.076 controlled storage. Lots of very tasty heirloom varieties do not 0:22:07.276 --> 0:22:10.876 do well in controlled storage. They can't be kept that long, 0:22:10.956 --> 0:22:13.476 and so we don't see them on supermarket shelves. It's 0:22:13.556 --> 0:22:17.556 just a it's sort of an ecological filter where things 0:22:17.596 --> 0:22:21.356 that cannot be stored in this mass market industrial refrigerated 0:22:21.396 --> 0:22:24.996 way no longer make it onto the grocery store shelves. 0:22:25.556 --> 0:22:29.876 But people are figuring out ways to store more things 0:22:29.916 --> 0:22:32.596 in this mass market industrialized way, which is what happens 0:22:32.636 --> 0:22:35.636 with lettuce right, which is why we can get so 0:22:35.756 --> 0:22:40.076 much lettuce now. So like any in particular bagged lettuce, 0:22:40.756 --> 0:22:44.196 to my surprise, turns out to be like a wild 0:22:44.636 --> 0:22:45.876 technological breakthrough. 0:22:46.156 --> 0:22:48.316 I know, this is a thing where you just think, oh, 0:22:48.316 --> 0:22:51.556 it's convenient, whatever, it's plastic bag, that's nice, maybe they 0:22:51.756 --> 0:22:54.996 washed it, big whoop. And actually it turns out that 0:22:54.996 --> 0:22:57.436 that bag that you just kind of crumple up and 0:22:57.436 --> 0:23:01.476 throw away is this super high tech respiratory apparatus for 0:23:01.996 --> 0:23:05.796 the lettuce leaves, and it all came about surprisingly recently, 0:23:06.196 --> 0:23:08.636 and what it really is is that the bag is 0:23:08.756 --> 0:23:14.516 essentially a miniature plastic version of a big controlled atmosphere 0:23:14.916 --> 0:23:19.596 Apple warehouse. It's the same idea. The plastic is actually 0:23:19.636 --> 0:23:23.596 not just plastic. It's several layers of what is called 0:23:23.676 --> 0:23:30.356 differentially permeable membrane, which is basically just plastic with different 0:23:30.516 --> 0:23:34.236 kinds of holes in it to let different gases through 0:23:34.356 --> 0:23:38.436 at different rates that you have designed when you specified 0:23:38.476 --> 0:23:41.596 the plastic and manufactured the plastic, and you glue all 0:23:41.636 --> 0:23:45.356 that together minimum kind of seven layers, as many as 0:23:45.436 --> 0:23:51.676 twelve to get exactly the atmospheric blend you want in 0:23:51.796 --> 0:23:54.476 that bag of lettuce. So at first it was just 0:23:54.556 --> 0:23:57.076 chopped lettuce, and it was the idea was just keeping 0:23:57.156 --> 0:23:59.996 that in a controlled atmosphere. Then it was like, you know, what, 0:24:00.036 --> 0:24:02.876