Speaker 1: Hello everyone, it's your old pal Chuck one half of
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know. Josh is asleep. I can hear
Speaker 1: him snoring next to me. And this episode for my
Speaker 1: select pick, Could you Live without a Refrigerator? Sounds silly
Speaker 1: from January two two. I guess it was our New
Speaker 1: Year's special edish, but hey, can you live without a refrigerator?
Speaker 1: It's really about slow food. Check it out right now.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Terry's
Speaker 1: over there. She's she's eating stalks of broccoli. Yes, not
Speaker 1: in the floretts. She's eating chunky trunk. She throws the
Speaker 1: floretts away. It's bizarre. No, she's I'm not into food way,
Speaker 1: So she's eating every single bit. She's just munching on
Speaker 1: it like a rabbit in there. Oh, I see you know.
Speaker 1: Oh no that I look more closely, I see that.
Speaker 1: You're right. That was just a clever lead into what
Speaker 1: will be a great interrupt from you. No, that was
Speaker 1: the interro. Okay, Jerry doesn't waste food. People, No food
Speaker 1: waste is a terrible thing, and we're we're that's that's
Speaker 1: only part of the tip of the iceberg of this
Speaker 1: subject that we're about to touch. On the tip of
Speaker 1: the ice box. This is a huge, rambling, enormous topic
Speaker 1: that we're about to tackle. See, Chuck, you've heard of
Speaker 1: green eco friendliness. Yeah, yeah, we like eco consciousness. You'd
Speaker 1: like to push that racket when we can. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: said is like more and more today it seems to
Speaker 1: be well, there's parts that have becoming green, like people recycle,
Speaker 1: and like recycling is just the thing now, it's not
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Like if you don't recycle, now you're kind
Speaker 1: of like one of those people that throws cigarettes out
Speaker 1: the window. Yeah, that's pretty bad too. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of people still do that. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: not to get off on my high horse, but I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the people that toss the cigarettes
Speaker 1: out the window probably like would say it's someone through
Speaker 1: a McDonald's back out the window. They'd be like, how
Speaker 1: can you do that? Yeah, Like they justify cigarettes somehow.
Speaker 1: I've seen that people throw those things out like eco
Speaker 1: friendly people. I think just eco friendly smokers, I think
Speaker 1: justify that because it's like, well, you still don't want
Speaker 1: to cigarette in your car? Do you write, dude? Because
Speaker 1: they stink they're there, It'll end up in in a
Speaker 1: lake or something. A birdle eat it? Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I was at um the gas station the other day
Speaker 1: and I saw a guy driving off and as he
Speaker 1: drove off, he held his hand out the window and
Speaker 1: released a stack of apparently losing lottery tickets a stay.
Speaker 1: I'm talking like thirty, just right into the parking lot.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, it's a joke now.
Speaker 1: Literally on Anchorman in the original anchor Man, when they
Speaker 1: finish all of their McDonald's, they just throw all their
Speaker 1: stuff like in the park and the Madman had one
Speaker 1: of those two they had like a family picnic, and
Speaker 1: afterward they gathered up their stuff and just like picked
Speaker 1: up the mine and throw all the trash out. We're like,
Speaker 1: let's go right, That's how it used to be, though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: isn't that weird that that used to be a thing
Speaker 1: that it's okay to throw trash on the ground and
Speaker 1: it's it's not okay, but some people still do it.
Speaker 1: I've seen it, right, Um. But the point is, I
Speaker 1: am making a point here. Believe it or not, there
Speaker 1: is some parts of the green movement that have become entrenched,
Speaker 1: ensconced in the mainstream culture, and it's having an impact.
Speaker 1: It's having a real factor. It's not having enough of
Speaker 1: an effect. We're all headed for global catastrophe eventually. Um.
Speaker 1: But when we when we think about the green movement now,
Speaker 1: it almost seems past tense like it was. There's parts
Speaker 1: of it that seemed like a bit of a fad,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like being green? How green
Speaker 1: can you go? Like what can you do? And uh,
Speaker 1: there was this thing that kind of popped up in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine because of a New York Times article, um,
Speaker 1: where people were starting to give up the refrigerators. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: as part of the green movement to be green, to
Speaker 1: basically like say I'm greener than now. Right, you get
Speaker 1: the impression that that's what they're doing. Ultimately they're saying, no,
Speaker 1: it's just one less thing that's using up um electricity,
Speaker 1: so it's saving c O two emissions. But it seems
Speaker 1: to me to fall along the line of the people
Speaker 1: who like had themselves sterilized so they couldn't contribute to
Speaker 1: the growing population, global population. You're saying those are about
Speaker 1: the same, it seems to me, although the the refrigerator
Speaker 1: one is far more reversible because you just go out
Speaker 1: and buy a refrigerator and plug it in. Then bam,
Speaker 1: I'm back baby. Well you can reverse your your procedure
Speaker 1: to not have kids to these days. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's a roll of the dice. Oh
Speaker 1: really was if it'll work again? Oh? I thought you
Speaker 1: could get it REVERSI open the sweat. They can, you know,
Speaker 1: reverse it, but it doesn't necessarily work. Okay, I thought
Speaker 1: it was pretty good. All right, man, that was a sidebar.
Speaker 1: Uh So should we talk about food waste? Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this refrigerator thing. You're really fixated on the
Speaker 1: food waste thing, aren't you. Well, it's a big part
Speaker 1: of whether or not you can go without a fridge. Well,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about what happens or why people go
Speaker 1: without a fridge first, chuck, if feel bear with me.
Speaker 1: So people are pulling the plugs on these refrigers, or
Speaker 1: they were in two thousand nine, or at least three
Speaker 1: people were in two thousand nine one in Canada. I
Speaker 1: think yeah, um, and but I get the impression from
Speaker 1: reading the original New York Times article that there were
Speaker 1: there were, It was just kind of the sub thing
Speaker 1: among the green It wasn't all the rage. No, like
Speaker 1: bamboo flooring a cork flooring. No. And the New York
Speaker 1: Times article pointed out that it seems to be a
Speaker 1: dividing line among green the eco conscious in the eco crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like where some people say that's preposterous, that's the dumbest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard, And then other people were like,
Speaker 1: look at how far I'm willing to go to be green.
Speaker 1: So what's the what's the benefit of all that? Well,
Speaker 1: a refrigerator uses electricity, and I guess we can give
Speaker 1: you a couple of stats to bring it all home
Speaker 1: for you. Typical fridge post two thousand uses about four
Speaker 1: watts per year. Yeah, that's thanks to the Energy Star ratings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is better than it used to be for sure. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you want to translate that into uh, cheeseburgers,
Speaker 1: no way, into miles driven in your car, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about the emission of c O two. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: about eight hundred miles driving your car about eight hundred
Speaker 1: miles depending on what kind of mile did you get
Speaker 1: because really it's gallons of gas. Uh yeah. So even
Speaker 1: then in the article they point out that it's kind
Speaker 1: of low on the list. It ranks behind clothes dryer,
Speaker 1: central air in your furnace. Yeah, your furnace is like
Speaker 1: six thousand kilowats a year. It's amazing. So you're you're
Speaker 1: a refrigerator um is four and fifty kilowat hours of
Speaker 1: electricity per year. So it's not even super high up
Speaker 1: in your household. No, it's nowhere near. But I think
Speaker 1: the people who are pulling the plugs on these refrigerators
Speaker 1: are saying every little bit counts. Yeah, and they probably
Speaker 1: have already taken other green precautions, like they probably don't
Speaker 1: run their furnace like this, you know, like they might
Speaker 1: have a pot belly stone. They they better not if
Speaker 1: they use a normal old like yeah, terrible electric furnace.
Speaker 1: They then I'm going to go to their house and
Speaker 1: have a little chance like shaking outside their house. Yet
Speaker 1: they're eating out of a glocooler, right, and that's what
Speaker 1: they do. I mean, like when when when you pull
Speaker 1: the plug on the fridge. I wish I could just
Speaker 1: come up with another phrase that rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 1: So I'm tired of saying that when you go out
Speaker 1: a refrigerator dee fridge defridge chuck nice. When you de
Speaker 1: fridge um, you still need typically some source of cooling
Speaker 1: inside of your home, something that can keep some food
Speaker 1: items from perishing, because we apparently refrigerate a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff we don't need to. That is true. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can keep that ketchup and mustard out on the counter
Speaker 1: hot sauce. Oh yeah, I've read it goes three years
Speaker 1: in a regular pantry. Really, Rachi, just keep it out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we kept growing up, kept a lot of stuff out
Speaker 1: of the fridge, and not for any reason other than
Speaker 1: that's just how it was in my house. Like I
Speaker 1: remember butter like in a tray on the counter. Butter
Speaker 1: is better that way. Room tip. Oh man, are you
Speaker 1: kidne me? Yeah, it's like it's already it's so spread herble.
Speaker 1: I keep mine in the fridge just to keep it
Speaker 1: longer because they don't need that much butter. But man,
Speaker 1: if you go to a restaurant and they give you
Speaker 1: butter and it's cold, just like, what do you do?
Speaker 1: It's literally Emily's big pet peeve is well, I agree
Speaker 1: with cold rolls with cold butter or hot rolls with
Speaker 1: cold but Yeah, because you get the hot rolls, you
Speaker 1: think this place knows what they're doing, and you get
Speaker 1: this cold pad of butter. So I've developed the technique, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the under the arm pit method that well,
Speaker 1: it's close. It's it's you just cut your hands and
Speaker 1: you put a couple of those little foil wrapped You
Speaker 1: want to make sure it's wrapped in foil pats of
Speaker 1: cold butter, and you heat them up pretty quick. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. You can make some friends around
Speaker 1: the table if you eat somebody's butter up for him,
Speaker 1: because nobody likes cold button. Then you hand them a
Speaker 1: little butter pat and you're like, here, take this, it's
Speaker 1: my gift to you. I like it when they just
Speaker 1: have a little olive oil and balstomic enegar. You know
Speaker 1: that's good too. But I like good room temperature butter,
Speaker 1: especially like milk fat content or more good butter. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, I like butter out. We left Um
Speaker 1: remember certain condiments being left out? What about fruits and vegetables? Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: like a lot of vegetables. I don't refriger right now,
Speaker 1: Like I never frigerate peppers and onions, and well you
Speaker 1: don't want to. If you do refrigerate an onion, it
Speaker 1: will last longer. But if you're going to use it,
Speaker 1: you want to take it out of your refrigerator and
Speaker 1: bring it up to room temperature before you cook with
Speaker 1: it or use it in food, because it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of the temperature white. But that's also a tip
Speaker 1: if you hate crying. Um oh yeah, because if you
Speaker 1: cut a cold onion, the enzyme that eventually sets off
Speaker 1: the chain reaction that makes you cry is contained. It's
Speaker 1: not as volatile. I've noticed that. So that's your your
Speaker 1: tip from Chuck and Josh my eyes killed me too.
Speaker 1: With onions, it depends on the onion. And it's not
Speaker 1: just like oh it's a little tears. It's like massive burning.
Speaker 1: It's really bad. Really Yeah, yeah, you should super sensitive.
Speaker 1: I did it. Don't be dumb on it. That explains
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on with you. I've seen that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know, um so yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 1: vegetables I don't keep, like it depends on when I'm
Speaker 1: gonna eat it. If I bring home some like a
Speaker 1: big head of cauliflower. I'll keep that out in the
Speaker 1: fruit basket for a couple of days. I've never seen
Speaker 1: that before my entire life. What cauliflower out? Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: only seen it in like a crisper drawer. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: left cauliflower and broccoli out like green onions, and I
Speaker 1: can see that lemongrass, garlic, of course, Potatoes I don't
Speaker 1: want to refrigerate. I think I would like stop short
Speaker 1: in the point if I saw like cauliflower out in
Speaker 1: like a fruit pat be like, what is that? That's
Speaker 1: just fine. I haven't even been to your house. I
Speaker 1: didn't notice that. Well, I mean I don't always have,
Speaker 1: had you gone through the coliflower, yeah, just eating it um.
Speaker 1: Tomatoes are another one too. There they'll last longer in
Speaker 1: the fridge, but if you're gonna cook with them, you
Speaker 1: want to bring up to the room temperature. Some stuff
Speaker 1: you just don't want to refrigerate. Potatoes apparently don't do
Speaker 1: very well in the fridge. You put them in a
Speaker 1: nice brown paper sack in your pantry away from the sunlight.
Speaker 1: They keep for a really long time. Yeah, you know, Jerry,
Speaker 1: I think Jerry showed me the little trick was that
Speaker 1: you with the cilantro Jerry and the what I need
Speaker 1: to know this because I eat a lot of cilantro.
Speaker 1: You the cilantro you don't use Just fill up a
Speaker 1: glass like half full of water and just throw it
Speaker 1: in there and just leave it in your out in
Speaker 1: your kitchen. Oh yeah, like the base of it in
Speaker 1: the water and just stay fresh, like super long. And
Speaker 1: you know, the fridge can beat up cilantro after like
Speaker 1: a day or two. I like your optimism, by the way,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um, the avocado is what always kills me though.
Speaker 1: I well, I eat a lot of avocado as well.
Speaker 1: It's hard to keep those fresh. Uh, tried a lot
Speaker 1: of tricks too. Well, here's here's your trick. You're ready, okay?
Speaker 1: Oh you're cutting up an avocado and like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it for the avocado. I have no trick for that. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you eat a whole? Yeah? Pretty much. I
Speaker 1: don't understand what. Well, I don't know. I don't like
Speaker 1: eat the skin and everything. No, that's not what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, once I could into an avocado, all of
Speaker 1: that avocado is about to be consumed by me. So
Speaker 1: that's the tip. Yeah, but I do have another tip
Speaker 1: for you though. With avocados. You know how you go
Speaker 1: to the store and you like squeeze them, and you
Speaker 1: you can find one out of a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: that's squeeze a bowles. Pretty annoying, it is. But that
Speaker 1: squeezed one is gonna be nasty and bruised and just disgusting.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be basically like rot wherever you and everybody
Speaker 1: else squeeze that avocado. So you can have a lot
Speaker 1: less usable avocado. So you want to get one that
Speaker 1: you can't squeeze. It's so firm it can't be squeezed well.
Speaker 1: But then you just have to wait a few days
Speaker 1: to eat it. You can wait one day, it's all
Speaker 1: it takes, my friend. And here's how. You take a
Speaker 1: brown paper bag and buy a banana, and you put
Speaker 1: the banana and the avocados in the brown paper bag,
Speaker 1: roll it up pretty tight, but leave a little space
Speaker 1: in there. And they do it, and the game right,
Speaker 1: they get it on, uh, And what happens is the
Speaker 1: avocados ripening. Really yeah. The the banana as it ripens, well,
Speaker 1: it puts off a gas interesting um that ripens the
Speaker 1: avocados I'm gonna try that, and I'm not kidding. Twelve
Speaker 1: to twenty four hours you have totally ready avocado. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I like my avocados firm still. Oh, you're gonna
Speaker 1: love this, Chuck, and not mushy but not not hard
Speaker 1: but just firm. You're gonna thank me later. I'm excited
Speaker 1: about your avocado experiences now I am too. So there's
Speaker 1: plenty of stuff that doesn't need refrigerating, So that's one
Speaker 1: way that people can defridge. Yeah, this is turning into
Speaker 1: like food one on one with Josh and Chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope that's okay. Um. Yeah, plenty of stuff that
Speaker 1: you don't have to refrigerate. Um, but people still use
Speaker 1: some sort of cooling mechanism. Yeah, like a cooler, Like
Speaker 1: if you have meats or dairy products. Um, if you
Speaker 1: want to go without a fridge, most people use a cooler.
Speaker 1: And the thing that annoy me with this article, as
Speaker 1: they said, or they use a mini freezer to make ice.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that's probably just about as bad as
Speaker 1: you're stupid fridge. Well, it's pretty close. So like one
Speaker 1: of those little chest freezers. Um, I didn't see the
Speaker 1: size of it. Oh a six point four cubic feet
Speaker 1: chest freezer, which isn't big, but it's not that small. Um,
Speaker 1: But apparently that's the that's the thing that people who
Speaker 1: defridge use. That still uses two kilowatt hours a year.
Speaker 1: So really, by unplugging your refrigerator and using a chest freezer,
Speaker 1: you're saving about fifteen gallons of gas a year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's your best, like spend your
Speaker 1: time doing better things for the environment and the well. Again,
Speaker 1: I think people who do this are saying, I'll do
Speaker 1: this on top of stuff and then kind of cleverly,
Speaker 1: if you ask me, they're using this the ice chest
Speaker 1: to um will basically fill up like a two lead
Speaker 1: bottle of water which they didn't allow to go to waste,
Speaker 1: the two leader bottle um, putting those in the freezer chest,
Speaker 1: and then having like a separate cooler that they put
Speaker 1: the frozen water bottles in to keep cool their milk
Speaker 1: and their meats and stuff like that. Uh yeah, and well,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to talk about some tips
Speaker 1: for shopping to accommodate in this lifestyle. But porst, let's
Speaker 1: take a little message right all right, So you're talking
Speaker 1: about the cooler full of frozen bottles of water to
Speaker 1: keep like your milk in some of your dairy and stuff.
Speaker 1: But if you when you go to the store, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna try and live this way, you can't probably
Speaker 1: buy the gallons of milk unless you really go through
Speaker 1: a lot of milk. You might want to buy quartz
Speaker 1: of milk. You can't go to Sam's Club and buy
Speaker 1: eight gallons of mayonnaise unless you eat that pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: If you should focus more attention on your mayonnaise habits
Speaker 1: than what you're doing for the environment. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to buy smaller amounts of things, which they say
Speaker 1: can cost a little more. But if you're not wasting
Speaker 1: food though, like if you added up the food you waste,
Speaker 1: you're probably burning a lot of money and there's gonna
Speaker 1: be far less food waste if you're buying in smaller amounts. Right.
Speaker 1: The other the other side of that, though is um
Speaker 1: if you're you know, eco friendly or eco conscious, um,
Speaker 1: you're one of the things that you're probably trying to
Speaker 1: avoid is packaging as well. And if you buy smaller
Speaker 1: amounts of food, that means you buy more packages. And
Speaker 1: think about that, and if you have smaller amounts of food.
Speaker 1: That means you have to go to the store more often,
Speaker 1: and then you may have to drive more often, which
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're riding a bike or something like that,
Speaker 1: but if you're driving a car, then you're burning those
Speaker 1: gallons of gas that you might necessarily not have been anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you like you get in your old seventy to pickup
Speaker 1: truck and drive the twelve miles to get like a
Speaker 1: pint of Mannames. You have to stuff and fill up
Speaker 1: at least once during that. So can we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about food waste though, Yeah, because it's a
Speaker 1: it's a pretty big thing. Like if you have no refrigerator,
Speaker 1: the chances of your food spoiling just simply increase if
Speaker 1: you have no refrigerator. Well not so apparently, according to
Speaker 1: a report, and less develop countries they have no refrigerators,
Speaker 1: they experience less food spoilers. Bam, you just faced me,
Speaker 1: because they're like they're eating what they need. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not going to Sam's Club and buying seven dred
Speaker 1: chicken McNuggets to put in the freezer. I hear that,
Speaker 1: And I guess if somebody who defridges uses the developing
Speaker 1: world as a model for their food consumption. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wonder what hang ups there are though that would keep
Speaker 1: you from successfully doing that, or if it is just
Speaker 1: entirely possible to just watch how you're eating enough so
Speaker 1: you don't have very much food waste. Let's talk food
Speaker 1: waste finally, Uh, in developing countries, post harvest losses of
Speaker 1: food grains can reach his high dude in developing countries,
Speaker 1: and that a sad statistic. Yeah, because one of the
Speaker 1: things that makes that, so, said Chuck, is that that
Speaker 1: food has been harvested and is ready to go. So
Speaker 1: not only is it ready to go, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: make it to somebody's stomach. Um, all of the energy
Speaker 1: used to produce, harvest, and transport that food has already
Speaker 1: been used as well. Yeah, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: So that's a huge waste there too, since as food waste,
Speaker 1: you add a double bummer onto every bummer that I expressed.
Speaker 1: I'm good at it. The US spends about a billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year to dispose of food waste in this
Speaker 1: country a billion dollars a year, and the e p
Speaker 1: A says that food leftovers are the single largest part
Speaker 1: of our waste stream by weight. Right, they make up
Speaker 1: about twelve percent of municipal landfills, which are pretty awful
Speaker 1: word in and of themselves, because municipal landfills are responsible
Speaker 1: for about thirty four of methane emissions globally, or at
Speaker 1: least in the US, and methane is twenty one times
Speaker 1: more damaging as a greenhouse gas than CEO two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and all that food waste is producing like tons of methane, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I don't understand why we're not trapping that
Speaker 1: methane and burning it off as energy. I know there
Speaker 1: are some pilot projects, but I don't understand why it's
Speaker 1: not a bigger thing now. Yeah, didn't we study something
Speaker 1: about cow farts? Yeah? I saw that. I seemed that
Speaker 1: rings a bell from the past. Yeah. Livestock is a
Speaker 1: huge contributor to methane emissions UM, and nobody knows what
Speaker 1: to do about it. But there were plans to kind
Speaker 1: of try to trap it and burn it for electricity.
Speaker 1: I think there was a farmer who was doing he
Speaker 1: was using cow poop or something. I think that Dirty
Speaker 1: Jobs episode did something like that. I definitely remember looking
Speaker 1: at that UM. But I agree methane, let's trap it.
Speaker 1: Hey there's a T shirt. So yeah, so food waste
Speaker 1: is a I thought it was. The potential was increased
Speaker 1: without a refrigerator. You've opened my eyes here. Um. But
Speaker 1: another those those double bummers that I did, add the
Speaker 1: more packaging and more trips to the store. Um again
Speaker 1: if you have if you lived near a store, you
Speaker 1: can bike two or something like that. Um that gets
Speaker 1: around that. And then also if you are one of
Speaker 1: those zero waste people, like have you heard of b Johnson? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's pretty remarkable. What's her website? Uh? It is zero
Speaker 1: Waste Home. Yeah, she's one of these people that is
Speaker 1: doing like the family experiment, like let's see what we
Speaker 1: can really do and putting it, putting it on a blog.
Speaker 1: She Um, I think her family is the one that
Speaker 1: has produced a court of waste in a year, a
Speaker 1: quart of trash in a in a year. Everything else
Speaker 1: is reused. She has five rs. You think your three
Speaker 1: RS are worthwhile reduced reuse, recycle? What are her other two? Refuse?
Speaker 1: So she's saying like, even if it's free, you know
Speaker 1: that free frisbee the chiropractor gives you, say you don't
Speaker 1: want it? I do that a lot. Actually, I don't
Speaker 1: want a lot of that junk. Okay, So you're in
Speaker 1: line with this reduce, which would be you know, say,
Speaker 1: using your own, um, your own grocery bags. Oh sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're reducing the use of the store's grocery bag reuse,
Speaker 1: So don't throw your own grocery bag away right, use
Speaker 1: it again? Uh, recycle, Yes, you've heard of this one. Sure.
Speaker 1: And then rot chuck rot like rotten. H If you're
Speaker 1: not gonna do this, I think so that's the last one.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by rot? I'm sure composting okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like you said about the people that like I
Speaker 1: want to go without a fridge, but I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store every ten minutes to get a
Speaker 1: packet of mayonnaise. I don't think that's the case. Like,
Speaker 1: I bet a lot of those people are growing food
Speaker 1: in their gardens and composting and like probably not doing that.
Speaker 1: And plus also she points out b Johnson points out that, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that we would consider or
Speaker 1: food waste, like you know, grocery stores food waste to
Speaker 1: me is a I think we should do a whole
Speaker 1: podcast on it. It is fascinating, mind boggling the amount
Speaker 1: of waste we produce food wise. I've read that something
Speaker 1: like a third a third of all of the food
Speaker 1: in the world goes to waste one way or another,
Speaker 1: either like in the developing world, doesn't make it after
Speaker 1: being wasted. UM. Food waste from the United States, in
Speaker 1: the grocery stores in the US, there's any kind of
Speaker 1: cosmetic imperfection, if it's not pretty enough, they just throw
Speaker 1: it away. There's nothing wrong with it, but it'll just
Speaker 1: get tossed. Yeah, that's I don't think I would like
Speaker 1: to know what goes on behind the scenes of like
Speaker 1: a huge grocery chain. I think we need to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it, an expose perhaps. But but B.
Speaker 1: Johnson points out, UM, a lot of this stuff that
Speaker 1: even people at home would consider wasted, spoiled food, UM,
Speaker 1: can be reused. So like if you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of stale bread, make bread pudding. UM, if you have
Speaker 1: some will to lettuce, drop it in an ice bath
Speaker 1: and it wakes back up stale bread to the birds.
Speaker 1: That's nice. Like when I have moldy bread, always just
Speaker 1: like go out and throw it and then do you
Speaker 1: eat the birds afterwards? Are you like raising them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get my baby gun. You don't even need a
Speaker 1: because you just teach them to eat out of your
Speaker 1: hand and then grab them, snaff a little neck, and
Speaker 1: you got brown thrasher for dinner. That's our state bird.
Speaker 1: We get in trouble for that, would we? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't kill your state bird. I figured it was the
Speaker 1: state bird because it was the tastiest bird. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, sk So you dug this up. This is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Um, if you want to talk about people
Speaker 1: really go in the extra mile to not have a
Speaker 1: carbon footprint. Some folks are making on their own shoes
Speaker 1: out of old tires and old jeans and hemp of course. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: not much arch support though apparently right, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a moccasin. I would imagine you can eat your
Speaker 1: weeds in your yard, right if you're into that. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of edible weeds like garlic, mustard or chickweed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, what's a weed but some plant that
Speaker 1: we decided we didn't want. Yeah. I read something somewhere
Speaker 1: about the human diet. How um it's become so narrow.
Speaker 1: We used to eat a lot more stuff that a
Speaker 1: lot more weeds, um and as a result, our health
Speaker 1: was a lot better. The bitter. I think we talked
Speaker 1: about it before. Have you Have you gotten to the
Speaker 1: point to where everything we talked about rings a bell?
Speaker 1: Like we've mentioned everything before. Yeah, a world is getting narrower.
Speaker 1: But um, I feel like we've talked about before. The
Speaker 1: bitter the plant, the healthier it tends to be. And
Speaker 1: I think you said also bitterness though also um so
Speaker 1: suggests that as poisonous too. Well, that is part of
Speaker 1: the edibility test, and you shouldn't just go in your
Speaker 1: yard and just pull a bunch of weeds and eat them.
Speaker 1: Not everything is edible. Dying is not that green. Oh,
Speaker 1: but if you do have edible weeds and you want
Speaker 1: to add them as in your salads or something, that's
Speaker 1: that's something that some people do. Some people. Some people
Speaker 1: use old license plates to side their houses. Is that true?
Speaker 1: It's in this article, of course it's true. I bet you,
Speaker 1: I bet you. That's the thing. I could see that,
Speaker 1: and you know what, why not? That's they're just going
Speaker 1: to waste, you know, all license plates. We got a
Speaker 1: birdhouse made out of license plates. Oh, those are cute.
Speaker 1: That's all right. We got it because it was Ohio, California,
Speaker 1: and Georgia, which was Emily's three states, which is kind
Speaker 1: of weird. So triumphant, I gotta have this. Do you
Speaker 1: use it for BB gun practice? No, that's just birds. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I shot an animal once in my life
Speaker 1: and it was one of the worst things that had
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. I was too young, I gotta
Speaker 1: be begun, and I was tired of shooting cans. So
Speaker 1: I shot a squirrel and it haunts me to this day.
Speaker 1: And I'm not pooping hunters. If you're into that, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I'm just not into it. So I shot a squirrel
Speaker 1: when I was twelve. You're haunted. I want to come clean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. So what's this poop burger thing? I couldn't
Speaker 1: find any any corroborating evidence, but basically, there was a
Speaker 1: a story that popped up on a couple of blogs
Speaker 1: about a Japanese scientist who had basically converted human feces
Speaker 1: into an edible burger. And the two blog posts I saw,
Speaker 1: we're basically piggybacking off of each other, and the original
Speaker 1: source led to a four or four era, so I
Speaker 1: think it's I think the American press accidentally picked up
Speaker 1: a yes Man article or like that. You know, well,
Speaker 1: how about if if anyone can corroborate corroborate, I have
Speaker 1: the worst time with that word. Can corroborate? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't never say the word right. Corroborate, coroborate, corrobor rate,
Speaker 1: corrobor rate. There you go. Can we put a ding
Speaker 1: ding ding in there to post production? So if anyone
Speaker 1: can let us know that this story is true, then
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, I'd love to know that. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: us know there are speaking of fecal material though, chuck.
Speaker 1: There there was also this green movement to give up
Speaker 1: toilet paper. Oh I heard about that. Do you remember
Speaker 1: that huge ball in Uh that was the size of
Speaker 1: a school bus that was made of um like handy
Speaker 1: wipes and fat in London. I don't remember that. It
Speaker 1: was this fatty deposit made up of grease and used
Speaker 1: handy white. Is it like an art project? No, it
Speaker 1: was trapped in the London sewer system. Okay, I thought
Speaker 1: display or something. No, God, no, no, remember that that's
Speaker 1: it was. That's horrific. It was within the last year.
Speaker 1: Um well, anyway, uh I guess some people are taking
Speaker 1: this even further and saying, not even toilet paper will
Speaker 1: touch my bottom. Instead, I'm going to use um basically diapers, Oh,
Speaker 1: just like cloth squares. So you keep a pail of
Speaker 1: clean ones on one side and a dirty pail on
Speaker 1: the other, and then you just wash the poopy ones
Speaker 1: and you're green. Huh. I don't think I would go
Speaker 1: that far. I don't think, but I am interested in
Speaker 1: a in a bid day because I do think toilet
Speaker 1: paper is disgusting, like taking dry, thin paper and wiping
Speaker 1: poop from your skin. It I don't get it, and
Speaker 1: it's never made sense to me really, even as a child.
Speaker 1: Well no, since I got grown enough to realize that
Speaker 1: moisture is a pretty nice thing to happen if you're
Speaker 1: cleaning poop. Yeah, you just pull a little vaseline in there.
Speaker 1: So a bidday, i'd be into a biday, okay. And
Speaker 1: I'm exclusively with the wet wipes. Well, you're contributing to
Speaker 1: the huge fat deposit ball and what it was made up.
Speaker 1: Even those that say they're flushable, it's it's probably a
Speaker 1: bunch of bunk. The London thing proves it as bunk,
Speaker 1: and for some reason. I don't remember why, but like
Speaker 1: it was almost exclusively wet wipes and fat grease, Like
Speaker 1: they were attracted to one another or something like that. Maybe,
Speaker 1: So I don't understand it all right. Do you think
Speaker 1: they'd be like a squirrel or the remnants of a
Speaker 1: squirrel right in there something? But no, it's just wet
Speaker 1: wipes and grease. Holy cal Well, I got Let's get
Speaker 1: this one back on the rails and finish it up. Huh,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else. Did you see the Albert
Speaker 1: Einstein refrigerator? Oh that's like no electricity whatsoever. That makes sense. Well,
Speaker 1: it does need a source of heat. Um. But I
Speaker 1: think Einstein in one of his former students, developed a
Speaker 1: refrigerator that has no moving parts. Requires it could be
Speaker 1: run on solar energy, but basically it uses um. You know,
Speaker 1: when you lower the pressure, the atmosphere pressure of something,
Speaker 1: it's boiling temperaturewards as well. Uh. And then when you
Speaker 1: boil something, it sucks energy out of the surrounding atmosphere
Speaker 1: and lowers the temperature. That's basically this kind of Rube
Speaker 1: Goldberg esque Einstein invention that this guy in Oxford was
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild. He made a test pilot version of it,
Speaker 1: but it's like not very efficient. I think that's a
Speaker 1: new not a new thing, but a lot. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff lately about people remaking like some
Speaker 1: early inventions that were never able to be properly made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you were talking about that, like Da Vinci
Speaker 1: stuff that. Yeah, there's a TV show where they definitely
Speaker 1: did the Da Vinci stuff, but those were mainly like
Speaker 1: weapons and things. But I did see a video the
Speaker 1: other day that someone made a Da Vinci a musical
Speaker 1: instrument that Da Vinci invented that was never properly made,
Speaker 1: and it was look like a played like a piano,
Speaker 1: but it sounded like strings and it was it was
Speaker 1: really kind of awesome. Yeah. So that's a long way
Speaker 1: of saying, build this fridge behind the Einstein fridge. Well,
Speaker 1: there's other things you can do too. If you have
Speaker 1: a fridge and you don't feel like giving up your fridge.
Speaker 1: If you have a fridge that's older than two thousand
Speaker 1: and you have a little bit of dough, go buy
Speaker 1: an energy star rated one. Yeah. Throw that other one
Speaker 1: in a landfill, right, Um, No use it as like
Speaker 1: a planter or something out in your backyard to grow
Speaker 1: food in. Yeah, you can always sell a fridge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like any appliance that works, you can sell to somebody.
Speaker 1: You just want to take the door off to make
Speaker 1: sure no little kids get trapped in it or Indiana Jones,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. You also, if you do have an
Speaker 1: energy star rated fridge, you want to clean the coils
Speaker 1: off once a year. That will keep it running efficiently,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, you want to think about what you're
Speaker 1: going to open the fridge to get, so you don't
Speaker 1: just stand there with the fridge open like a slack
Speaker 1: jawed yokel like everybody does. Right. And then apparently if
Speaker 1: you keep your fridge fairly stocked, um, that will allow
Speaker 1: it to um the temperature to to bounce back to
Speaker 1: where it needs to be. It has less um atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Cool my fridge. You have to open to get the
Speaker 1: water filtered water, which really bugs me. It's not like
Speaker 1: in the outside of the door. I've never seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just live in a cuckoo house. You've got cauliflower around.
Speaker 1: You got to open the door to get some water.
Speaker 1: That cilantro sitting and cups all over the house. That's
Speaker 1: a good idea. I've tried that, but put it in
Speaker 1: the fridge and it just wrecks it. So I guess
Speaker 1: maybe just leaving it out. I mean, it would lasts
Speaker 1: for quite a while. Man, I love that stuff. Ye
Speaker 1: don't you feel bad for people who taste dish soap
Speaker 1: when they eat cilantro? Yeah? I love cilantro, me too, Muddy. Well,
Speaker 1: let's it about cilantro. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about it, you can type the word into the it's
Speaker 1: part how stuff works, and you can also type in
Speaker 1: can I go without a refrigerator in the search barnell
Speaker 1: bring this article up? Uh And since I said search bar,
Speaker 1: that means it's time for listener mayo. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this from one of our law enforcement officers. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: my name is Andy m a police officer for a
Speaker 1: law enforcement agency in St. Louis, Missouri area. Go Cardinals.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the show and appreciate the
Speaker 1: always new interesting topics and discussions. And I've noticed that
Speaker 1: you seem to have an affinity for law enforcement related topics,
Speaker 1: which is true. You definitely do you love them. I
Speaker 1: would just listen. I think I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: cop or something. Maybe you can be a security card.
Speaker 1: That's not the same. I was just listening to the
Speaker 1: meth podcast and notice that you mentioned one of the
Speaker 1: first shaken bake incidences, and that's a mobile meth lab. Apparently,
Speaker 1: that's like the coupling go which occurred actually in my
Speaker 1: precinct at a Walmart. Remember we talked about that. Um
Speaker 1: I was not yet employed there, but I know one
Speaker 1: of the officers, uh, I know the officer that responded
Speaker 1: what I understand, a woman was shop lifting, was in
Speaker 1: custody of the loss prevention officers when they called for
Speaker 1: police assistance. My now coworker arrested her and in the
Speaker 1: process discovered a Gatorade bottle in her purse which is
Speaker 1: being used as a mobile meth lab. That's so crazy.
Speaker 1: It is very crazy. Meth usage in the area that
Speaker 1: I work in is rampant, and only having been on
Speaker 1: the force less than a year, I've already handled two
Speaker 1: meth labs of my own. Having seen firsthand some of
Speaker 1: the reactions to meth that these folks have, I will
Speaker 1: say that you were pretty much right on, guys. Additionally,
Speaker 1: another unfortunate situation is that, uh, where there is a
Speaker 1: meth lab. Typically there are children. One of my meth
Speaker 1: labs was also home to seven kids. It's a really
Speaker 1: sad sight to see. You remember that one episode of
Speaker 1: Breaking Bad, which one the one where Pinkman basically gets
Speaker 1: kidnapped by those meth addicts who robbed And typically you
Speaker 1: will find that the parents have little interest in their
Speaker 1: children and pay them very little attention in general. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, because they're all interested in using math. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a one track mind situation. So it makes
Speaker 1: you appreciate non Matthews. So it's just what Andy says,
Speaker 1: So thanks Andy Officer. Yeah, he wrapped that up at
Speaker 1: the end and spanked it on the bottom. He had
Speaker 1: he had another part, So that might have read awkward
Speaker 1: a suggestion which I can cut out, but I may.
Speaker 1: I took the suggestion, but I just didn't read it.
Speaker 1: Is it a mystery suggestion? Then? Um, yeah, maybe that's
Speaker 1: surprise you. Well, if you want to send us a
Speaker 1: mystery suggestion, we are welcome to those. You can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K Podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: or you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast
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