Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves with Nicola Twilley

Inquiring Minds

Science, Society & Culture, Neuroscience, Female Host, Interview, Social Sciences, Critical Thinking

4.4 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Did you know that many apples sold in stores are nearly a year old by the time you get to buy them? Indre sits down once again to talk with science journalist and non-fiction author and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast, Nicola Twilley, about a project she has been passionately working on for the last 15 years, her new book “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves”. Her latest book covers the effect of the less well-known process of the food’s farm-to-table journey: refrigeration. Together they explore the unknown data, effects, and consequences of it. From the challenges of working in a cold storage warehouse, such as its negative effects on cognitive function and physical performance, the complexities and technologies of food preservation, to the environmental impact of refrigeration and alternatives to this energy-intensive process. Listen in to dive into a hidden in plain sight but crucial pillar of our modern society.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You and Betty and the nancy's and bills and Joes and James will find in the study of science
0:06.4	a richer, more rewarding life.
0:09.9	Hey, welcome to inquiring minds.
0:12.0	I'm Indravis Gontas.
0:13.6	This is a podcast where we explore the space where science and society collide.
0:18.2	We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.
0:23.1	There's more than why we see.
0:31.7	The farm-to-table trend has been in fashion for several decades now, and we tend to revere food whose source is known to us,
0:41.0	but there's a less well-known part of that journey, and that's the two part.
0:46.8	What happens in the in-between once the food has left the farm but hasn't yet made it into the kitchen?
0:55.8	We tend to think that it's a pretty direct route from the market or even the dirt to the kitchen, but that's far from true,
1:00.8	as you're soon going to find out, even for the freshest food. We last spoke to Nicola Twilly,
1:07.6	one of my favorite science journalists, about quarantine during the pandemic.
1:12.5	But well before her last book, she was already working on this one, all about refrigeration.
1:19.5	So today, at long last, we get to chat about a project that she's been working on for 15 years.
1:26.0	Her new book, Frostbite, How Refrigeration,
1:28.6	Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves is out now. Nikki, welcome back to Inquiring Wines.
1:35.7	Thank you for having me, yes, and the relief of finally being done with this book. It's so huge.
1:41.2	I was reliving it while you were talking. It's such an interesting journey
1:46.3	to places I think most of our listeners I certainly have never been in or thought about or even
1:51.6	knew existed. And I want to jump straight into that first sort of vignette that you open the book
1:58.8	with in this massive refrigeration area in Ontario,
	...

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