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SYSK Selects: Could You Live Without a Refrigerator? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, it's your old pal Chuck one half of
0:03
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know. Josh is asleep. I can hear
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Speaker 1: him snoring next to me. And this episode for my
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Speaker 1: select pick, Could you Live without a Refrigerator? Sounds silly
0:14
Speaker 1: from January two two. I guess it was our New
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Speaker 1: Year's special edish, but hey, can you live without a refrigerator?
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Speaker 1: It's really about slow food. Check it out right now.
0:28
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:30
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:39
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Terry's
0:43
Speaker 1: over there. She's she's eating stalks of broccoli. Yes, not
0:47
Speaker 1: in the floretts. She's eating chunky trunk. She throws the
0:52
Speaker 1: floretts away. It's bizarre. No, she's I'm not into food way,
0:55
Speaker 1: So she's eating every single bit. She's just munching on
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Speaker 1: it like a rabbit in there. Oh, I see you know.
1:00
Speaker 1: Oh no that I look more closely, I see that.
1:01
Speaker 1: You're right. That was just a clever lead into what
1:04
Speaker 1: will be a great interrupt from you. No, that was
1:07
Speaker 1: the interro. Okay, Jerry doesn't waste food. People, No food
1:11
Speaker 1: waste is a terrible thing, and we're we're that's that's
1:14
Speaker 1: only part of the tip of the iceberg of this
1:17
Speaker 1: subject that we're about to touch. On the tip of
1:20
Speaker 1: the ice box. This is a huge, rambling, enormous topic
1:24
Speaker 1: that we're about to tackle. See, Chuck, you've heard of
1:28
Speaker 1: green eco friendliness. Yeah, yeah, we like eco consciousness. You'd
1:32
Speaker 1: like to push that racket when we can. Yeah, what
1:35
Speaker 1: said is like more and more today it seems to
1:38
Speaker 1: be well, there's parts that have becoming green, like people recycle,
1:41
Speaker 1: and like recycling is just the thing now, it's not
1:44
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Like if you don't recycle, now you're kind
1:46
Speaker 1: of like one of those people that throws cigarettes out
1:49
Speaker 1: the window. Yeah, that's pretty bad too. You know a
1:52
Speaker 1: lot of people still do that. Yeah, but I think
1:55
Speaker 1: not to get off on my high horse, but I
1:57
Speaker 1: think a lot of the people that toss the cigarettes
1:58
Speaker 1: out the window probably like would say it's someone through
2:02
Speaker 1: a McDonald's back out the window. They'd be like, how
2:05
Speaker 1: can you do that? Yeah, Like they justify cigarettes somehow.
2:10
Speaker 1: I've seen that people throw those things out like eco
2:12
Speaker 1: friendly people. I think just eco friendly smokers, I think
2:15
Speaker 1: justify that because it's like, well, you still don't want
2:17
Speaker 1: to cigarette in your car? Do you write, dude? Because
2:20
Speaker 1: they stink they're there, It'll end up in in a
2:23
Speaker 1: lake or something. A birdle eat it? Did you know that?
2:25
Speaker 1: I was at um the gas station the other day
2:29
Speaker 1: and I saw a guy driving off and as he
2:31
Speaker 1: drove off, he held his hand out the window and
2:34
Speaker 1: released a stack of apparently losing lottery tickets a stay.
2:38
Speaker 1: I'm talking like thirty, just right into the parking lot.
2:42
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, it's a joke now.
2:45
Speaker 1: Literally on Anchorman in the original anchor Man, when they
2:49
Speaker 1: finish all of their McDonald's, they just throw all their
2:50
Speaker 1: stuff like in the park and the Madman had one
2:54
Speaker 1: of those two they had like a family picnic, and
2:57
Speaker 1: afterward they gathered up their stuff and just like picked
2:59
Speaker 1: up the mine and throw all the trash out. We're like,
3:01
Speaker 1: let's go right, That's how it used to be, though. Yeah,
3:04
Speaker 1: isn't that weird that that used to be a thing
3:06
Speaker 1: that it's okay to throw trash on the ground and
3:09
Speaker 1: it's it's not okay, but some people still do it.
3:11
Speaker 1: I've seen it, right, Um. But the point is, I
3:15
Speaker 1: am making a point here. Believe it or not, there
3:18
Speaker 1: is some parts of the green movement that have become entrenched,
3:23
Speaker 1: ensconced in the mainstream culture, and it's having an impact.
3:27
Speaker 1: It's having a real factor. It's not having enough of
3:30
Speaker 1: an effect. We're all headed for global catastrophe eventually. Um.
3:35
Speaker 1: But when we when we think about the green movement now,
3:38
Speaker 1: it almost seems past tense like it was. There's parts
3:41
Speaker 1: of it that seemed like a bit of a fad,
3:44
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like being green? How green
3:46
Speaker 1: can you go? Like what can you do? And uh,
3:49
Speaker 1: there was this thing that kind of popped up in
3:51
Speaker 1: two thousand nine because of a New York Times article, um,
3:56
Speaker 1: where people were starting to give up the refrigerators. Oh yeah,
4:02
Speaker 1: as part of the green movement to be green, to
4:05
Speaker 1: basically like say I'm greener than now. Right, you get
4:09
Speaker 1: the impression that that's what they're doing. Ultimately they're saying, no,
4:13
Speaker 1: it's just one less thing that's using up um electricity,
4:16
Speaker 1: so it's saving c O two emissions. But it seems
4:20
Speaker 1: to me to fall along the line of the people
4:22
Speaker 1: who like had themselves sterilized so they couldn't contribute to
4:26
Speaker 1: the growing population, global population. You're saying those are about
4:31
Speaker 1: the same, it seems to me, although the the refrigerator
4:36
Speaker 1: one is far more reversible because you just go out
4:39
Speaker 1: and buy a refrigerator and plug it in. Then bam,
4:42
Speaker 1: I'm back baby. Well you can reverse your your procedure
4:48
Speaker 1: to not have kids to these days. Yeah, I think
4:50
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's a roll of the dice. Oh
4:53
Speaker 1: really was if it'll work again? Oh? I thought you
4:56
Speaker 1: could get it REVERSI open the sweat. They can, you know,
5:00
Speaker 1: reverse it, but it doesn't necessarily work. Okay, I thought
5:03
Speaker 1: it was pretty good. All right, man, that was a sidebar.
5:08
Speaker 1: Uh So should we talk about food waste? Well, let's
5:11
Speaker 1: talk about this refrigerator thing. You're really fixated on the
5:14
Speaker 1: food waste thing, aren't you. Well, it's a big part
5:15
Speaker 1: of whether or not you can go without a fridge. Well,
5:18
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about what happens or why people go
5:20
Speaker 1: without a fridge first, chuck, if feel bear with me.
5:24
Speaker 1: So people are pulling the plugs on these refrigers, or
5:26
Speaker 1: they were in two thousand nine, or at least three
5:28
Speaker 1: people were in two thousand nine one in Canada. I
5:31
Speaker 1: think yeah, um, and but I get the impression from
5:36
Speaker 1: reading the original New York Times article that there were
5:38
Speaker 1: there were, It was just kind of the sub thing
5:41
Speaker 1: among the green It wasn't all the rage. No, like
5:45
Speaker 1: bamboo flooring a cork flooring. No. And the New York
5:48
Speaker 1: Times article pointed out that it seems to be a
5:51
Speaker 1: dividing line among green the eco conscious in the eco crazy. Yeah,
5:56
Speaker 1: like where some people say that's preposterous, that's the dumbest
6:01
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard, And then other people were like,
6:03
Speaker 1: look at how far I'm willing to go to be green.
6:07
Speaker 1: So what's the what's the benefit of all that? Well,
6:10
Speaker 1: a refrigerator uses electricity, and I guess we can give
6:14
Speaker 1: you a couple of stats to bring it all home
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Speaker 1: for you. Typical fridge post two thousand uses about four
6:21
Speaker 1: watts per year. Yeah, that's thanks to the Energy Star ratings. Yeah,
6:26
Speaker 1: which is better than it used to be for sure. Um.
6:28
Speaker 1: And if you want to translate that into uh, cheeseburgers,
6:32
Speaker 1: no way, into miles driven in your car, because we're
6:37
Speaker 1: talking about the emission of c O two. Uh, that's
6:39
Speaker 1: about eight hundred miles driving your car about eight hundred
6:43
Speaker 1: miles depending on what kind of mile did you get
6:46
Speaker 1: because really it's gallons of gas. Uh yeah. So even
6:52
Speaker 1: then in the article they point out that it's kind
6:56
Speaker 1: of low on the list. It ranks behind clothes dryer,
7:00
Speaker 1: central air in your furnace. Yeah, your furnace is like
7:03
Speaker 1: six thousand kilowats a year. It's amazing. So you're you're
7:06
Speaker 1: a refrigerator um is four and fifty kilowat hours of
7:10
Speaker 1: electricity per year. So it's not even super high up
7:12
Speaker 1: in your household. No, it's nowhere near. But I think
7:16
Speaker 1: the people who are pulling the plugs on these refrigerators
7:19
Speaker 1: are saying every little bit counts. Yeah, and they probably
7:22
Speaker 1: have already taken other green precautions, like they probably don't
7:28
Speaker 1: run their furnace like this, you know, like they might
7:30
Speaker 1: have a pot belly stone. They they better not if
7:33
Speaker 1: they use a normal old like yeah, terrible electric furnace.
7:39
Speaker 1: They then I'm going to go to their house and
7:42
Speaker 1: have a little chance like shaking outside their house. Yet
7:44
Speaker 1: they're eating out of a glocooler, right, and that's what
7:47
Speaker 1: they do. I mean, like when when when you pull
7:49
Speaker 1: the plug on the fridge. I wish I could just
7:52
Speaker 1: come up with another phrase that rolls off the tongue.
7:55
Speaker 1: So I'm tired of saying that when you go out
7:57
Speaker 1: a refrigerator dee fridge defridge chuck nice. When you de
8:03
Speaker 1: fridge um, you still need typically some source of cooling
8:09
Speaker 1: inside of your home, something that can keep some food
8:12
Speaker 1: items from perishing, because we apparently refrigerate a lot of
8:17
Speaker 1: stuff we don't need to. That is true. Yeah, you
8:19
Speaker 1: can keep that ketchup and mustard out on the counter
8:22
Speaker 1: hot sauce. Oh yeah, I've read it goes three years
8:25
Speaker 1: in a regular pantry. Really, Rachi, just keep it out there. Yeah,
8:29
Speaker 1: we kept growing up, kept a lot of stuff out
8:31
Speaker 1: of the fridge, and not for any reason other than
8:34
Speaker 1: that's just how it was in my house. Like I
8:36
Speaker 1: remember butter like in a tray on the counter. Butter
8:40
Speaker 1: is better that way. Room tip. Oh man, are you
8:42
Speaker 1: kidne me? Yeah, it's like it's already it's so spread herble.
8:46
Speaker 1: I keep mine in the fridge just to keep it
8:48
Speaker 1: longer because they don't need that much butter. But man,
8:50
Speaker 1: if you go to a restaurant and they give you
8:54
Speaker 1: butter and it's cold, just like, what do you do?
8:57
Speaker 1: It's literally Emily's big pet peeve is well, I agree
9:01
Speaker 1: with cold rolls with cold butter or hot rolls with
9:05
Speaker 1: cold but Yeah, because you get the hot rolls, you
9:06
Speaker 1: think this place knows what they're doing, and you get
9:09
Speaker 1: this cold pad of butter. So I've developed the technique, Um,
9:12
Speaker 1: you know, the under the arm pit method that well,
9:14
Speaker 1: it's close. It's it's you just cut your hands and
9:17
Speaker 1: you put a couple of those little foil wrapped You
9:19
Speaker 1: want to make sure it's wrapped in foil pats of
9:22
Speaker 1: cold butter, and you heat them up pretty quick. And
9:25
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. You can make some friends around
9:28
Speaker 1: the table if you eat somebody's butter up for him,
9:29
Speaker 1: because nobody likes cold button. Then you hand them a
9:32
Speaker 1: little butter pat and you're like, here, take this, it's
9:34
Speaker 1: my gift to you. I like it when they just
9:36
Speaker 1: have a little olive oil and balstomic enegar. You know
9:38
Speaker 1: that's good too. But I like good room temperature butter,
9:41
Speaker 1: especially like milk fat content or more good butter. Um. So,
9:48
Speaker 1: like I said, I like butter out. We left Um
9:50
Speaker 1: remember certain condiments being left out? What about fruits and vegetables? Um, yeah,
9:56
Speaker 1: like a lot of vegetables. I don't refriger right now,
9:59
Speaker 1: Like I never frigerate peppers and onions, and well you
10:02
Speaker 1: don't want to. If you do refrigerate an onion, it
10:05
Speaker 1: will last longer. But if you're going to use it,
10:08
Speaker 1: you want to take it out of your refrigerator and
10:11
Speaker 1: bring it up to room temperature before you cook with
10:13
Speaker 1: it or use it in food, because it takes a
10:15
Speaker 1: lot of the temperature white. But that's also a tip
10:18
Speaker 1: if you hate crying. Um oh yeah, because if you
10:22
Speaker 1: cut a cold onion, the enzyme that eventually sets off
10:26
Speaker 1: the chain reaction that makes you cry is contained. It's
10:30
Speaker 1: not as volatile. I've noticed that. So that's your your
10:33
Speaker 1: tip from Chuck and Josh my eyes killed me too.
10:38
Speaker 1: With onions, it depends on the onion. And it's not
10:40
Speaker 1: just like oh it's a little tears. It's like massive burning.
10:44
Speaker 1: It's really bad. Really Yeah, yeah, you should super sensitive.
10:47
Speaker 1: I did it. Don't be dumb on it. That explains
10:49
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on with you. I've seen that. Okay,
10:52
Speaker 1: so you know, um so yeah, a lot of the
10:55
Speaker 1: vegetables I don't keep, like it depends on when I'm
10:57
Speaker 1: gonna eat it. If I bring home some like a
10:59
Speaker 1: big head of cauliflower. I'll keep that out in the
11:02
Speaker 1: fruit basket for a couple of days. I've never seen
11:05
Speaker 1: that before my entire life. What cauliflower out? Yeah, I've
11:08
Speaker 1: only seen it in like a crisper drawer. Yeah, I've
11:11
Speaker 1: left cauliflower and broccoli out like green onions, and I
11:16
Speaker 1: can see that lemongrass, garlic, of course, Potatoes I don't
11:22
Speaker 1: want to refrigerate. I think I would like stop short
11:24
Speaker 1: in the point if I saw like cauliflower out in
11:26
Speaker 1: like a fruit pat be like, what is that? That's
11:29
Speaker 1: just fine. I haven't even been to your house. I
11:31
Speaker 1: didn't notice that. Well, I mean I don't always have,
11:33
Speaker 1: had you gone through the coliflower, yeah, just eating it um.
11:37
Speaker 1: Tomatoes are another one too. There they'll last longer in
11:39
Speaker 1: the fridge, but if you're gonna cook with them, you
11:42
Speaker 1: want to bring up to the room temperature. Some stuff
11:44
Speaker 1: you just don't want to refrigerate. Potatoes apparently don't do
11:47
Speaker 1: very well in the fridge. You put them in a
11:49
Speaker 1: nice brown paper sack in your pantry away from the sunlight.
11:52
Speaker 1: They keep for a really long time. Yeah, you know, Jerry,
11:55
Speaker 1: I think Jerry showed me the little trick was that
11:58
Speaker 1: you with the cilantro Jerry and the what I need
12:00
Speaker 1: to know this because I eat a lot of cilantro.
12:02
Speaker 1: You the cilantro you don't use Just fill up a
12:05
Speaker 1: glass like half full of water and just throw it
12:07
Speaker 1: in there and just leave it in your out in
12:09
Speaker 1: your kitchen. Oh yeah, like the base of it in
12:12
Speaker 1: the water and just stay fresh, like super long. And
12:15
Speaker 1: you know, the fridge can beat up cilantro after like
12:18
Speaker 1: a day or two. I like your optimism, by the way,
12:22
Speaker 1: thank you. Um, the avocado is what always kills me though.
12:25
Speaker 1: I well, I eat a lot of avocado as well.
12:28
Speaker 1: It's hard to keep those fresh. Uh, tried a lot
12:31
Speaker 1: of tricks too. Well, here's here's your trick. You're ready, okay?
12:36
Speaker 1: Oh you're cutting up an avocado and like, yeah, that's
12:39
Speaker 1: it for the avocado. I have no trick for that. Well,
12:41
Speaker 1: what do you eat a whole? Yeah? Pretty much. I
12:44
Speaker 1: don't understand what. Well, I don't know. I don't like
12:46
Speaker 1: eat the skin and everything. No, that's not what I mean.
12:49
Speaker 1: It's like, once I could into an avocado, all of
12:51
Speaker 1: that avocado is about to be consumed by me. So
12:54
Speaker 1: that's the tip. Yeah, but I do have another tip
12:58
Speaker 1: for you though. With avocados. You know how you go
13:01
Speaker 1: to the store and you like squeeze them, and you
13:02
Speaker 1: you can find one out of a hundred and fifty
13:05
Speaker 1: that's squeeze a bowles. Pretty annoying, it is. But that
13:08
Speaker 1: squeezed one is gonna be nasty and bruised and just disgusting.
13:13
Speaker 1: There's gonna be basically like rot wherever you and everybody
13:16
Speaker 1: else squeeze that avocado. So you can have a lot
13:18
Speaker 1: less usable avocado. So you want to get one that
13:21
Speaker 1: you can't squeeze. It's so firm it can't be squeezed well.
13:24
Speaker 1: But then you just have to wait a few days
13:26
Speaker 1: to eat it. You can wait one day, it's all
13:29
Speaker 1: it takes, my friend. And here's how. You take a
13:31
Speaker 1: brown paper bag and buy a banana, and you put
13:34
Speaker 1: the banana and the avocados in the brown paper bag,
13:37
Speaker 1: roll it up pretty tight, but leave a little space
13:39
Speaker 1: in there. And they do it, and the game right,
13:41
Speaker 1: they get it on, uh, And what happens is the
13:45
Speaker 1: avocados ripening. Really yeah. The the banana as it ripens, well,
13:52
Speaker 1: it puts off a gas interesting um that ripens the
13:55
Speaker 1: avocados I'm gonna try that, and I'm not kidding. Twelve
13:58
Speaker 1: to twenty four hours you have totally ready avocado. Yeah,
14:03
Speaker 1: because I like my avocados firm still. Oh, you're gonna
14:06
Speaker 1: love this, Chuck, and not mushy but not not hard
14:09
Speaker 1: but just firm. You're gonna thank me later. I'm excited
14:12
Speaker 1: about your avocado experiences now I am too. So there's
14:16
Speaker 1: plenty of stuff that doesn't need refrigerating, So that's one
14:19
Speaker 1: way that people can defridge. Yeah, this is turning into
14:24
Speaker 1: like food one on one with Josh and Chuck. Yeah,
14:26
Speaker 1: I hope that's okay. Um. Yeah, plenty of stuff that
14:28
Speaker 1: you don't have to refrigerate. Um, but people still use
14:32
Speaker 1: some sort of cooling mechanism. Yeah, like a cooler, Like
14:35
Speaker 1: if you have meats or dairy products. Um, if you
14:39
Speaker 1: want to go without a fridge, most people use a cooler.
14:42
Speaker 1: And the thing that annoy me with this article, as
14:45
Speaker 1: they said, or they use a mini freezer to make ice.
14:47
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that's probably just about as bad as
14:49
Speaker 1: you're stupid fridge. Well, it's pretty close. So like one
14:51
Speaker 1: of those little chest freezers. Um, I didn't see the
14:54
Speaker 1: size of it. Oh a six point four cubic feet
14:58
Speaker 1: chest freezer, which isn't big, but it's not that small. Um,
15:02
Speaker 1: But apparently that's the that's the thing that people who
15:06
Speaker 1: defridge use. That still uses two kilowatt hours a year.
15:10
Speaker 1: So really, by unplugging your refrigerator and using a chest freezer,
15:15
Speaker 1: you're saving about fifteen gallons of gas a year. Yeah.
15:19
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's your best, like spend your
15:21
Speaker 1: time doing better things for the environment and the well. Again,
15:24
Speaker 1: I think people who do this are saying, I'll do
15:26
Speaker 1: this on top of stuff and then kind of cleverly,
15:29
Speaker 1: if you ask me, they're using this the ice chest
15:33
Speaker 1: to um will basically fill up like a two lead
15:36
Speaker 1: bottle of water which they didn't allow to go to waste,
15:39
Speaker 1: the two leader bottle um, putting those in the freezer chest,
15:44
Speaker 1: and then having like a separate cooler that they put
15:46
Speaker 1: the frozen water bottles in to keep cool their milk
15:50
Speaker 1: and their meats and stuff like that. Uh yeah, and well,
15:54
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to talk about some tips
15:56
Speaker 1: for shopping to accommodate in this lifestyle. But porst, let's
16:00
Speaker 1: take a little message right all right, So you're talking
16:18
Speaker 1: about the cooler full of frozen bottles of water to
16:23
Speaker 1: keep like your milk in some of your dairy and stuff.
16:25
Speaker 1: But if you when you go to the store, if
16:26
Speaker 1: you're gonna try and live this way, you can't probably
16:29
Speaker 1: buy the gallons of milk unless you really go through
16:32
Speaker 1: a lot of milk. You might want to buy quartz
16:33
Speaker 1: of milk. You can't go to Sam's Club and buy
16:37
Speaker 1: eight gallons of mayonnaise unless you eat that pretty quickly.
16:44
Speaker 1: If you should focus more attention on your mayonnaise habits
16:47
Speaker 1: than what you're doing for the environment. So you're gonna
16:49
Speaker 1: have to buy smaller amounts of things, which they say
16:51
Speaker 1: can cost a little more. But if you're not wasting
16:54
Speaker 1: food though, like if you added up the food you waste,
16:56
Speaker 1: you're probably burning a lot of money and there's gonna
16:59
Speaker 1: be far less food waste if you're buying in smaller amounts. Right.
17:01
Speaker 1: The other the other side of that, though is um
17:04
Speaker 1: if you're you know, eco friendly or eco conscious, um,
17:08
Speaker 1: you're one of the things that you're probably trying to
17:10
Speaker 1: avoid is packaging as well. And if you buy smaller
17:13
Speaker 1: amounts of food, that means you buy more packages. And
17:15
Speaker 1: think about that, and if you have smaller amounts of food.
17:19
Speaker 1: That means you have to go to the store more often,
17:22
Speaker 1: and then you may have to drive more often, which
17:25
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're riding a bike or something like that,
17:27
Speaker 1: but if you're driving a car, then you're burning those
17:31
Speaker 1: gallons of gas that you might necessarily not have been anyway. Yeah,
17:35
Speaker 1: you like you get in your old seventy to pickup
17:37
Speaker 1: truck and drive the twelve miles to get like a
17:40
Speaker 1: pint of Mannames. You have to stuff and fill up
17:43
Speaker 1: at least once during that. So can we talk a
17:46
Speaker 1: little bit about food waste though, Yeah, because it's a
17:49
Speaker 1: it's a pretty big thing. Like if you have no refrigerator,
17:53
Speaker 1: the chances of your food spoiling just simply increase if
18:00
Speaker 1: you have no refrigerator. Well not so apparently, according to
18:05
Speaker 1: a report, and less develop countries they have no refrigerators,
18:09
Speaker 1: they experience less food spoilers. Bam, you just faced me,
18:14
Speaker 1: because they're like they're eating what they need. You know,
18:17
Speaker 1: they're not going to Sam's Club and buying seven dred
18:22
Speaker 1: chicken McNuggets to put in the freezer. I hear that,
18:24
Speaker 1: And I guess if somebody who defridges uses the developing
18:27
Speaker 1: world as a model for their food consumption. Yeah. I
18:31
Speaker 1: wonder what hang ups there are though that would keep
18:34
Speaker 1: you from successfully doing that, or if it is just
18:37
Speaker 1: entirely possible to just watch how you're eating enough so
18:40
Speaker 1: you don't have very much food waste. Let's talk food
18:44
Speaker 1: waste finally, Uh, in developing countries, post harvest losses of
18:49
Speaker 1: food grains can reach his high dude in developing countries,
18:55
Speaker 1: and that a sad statistic. Yeah, because one of the
18:59
Speaker 1: things that makes that, so, said Chuck, is that that
19:02
Speaker 1: food has been harvested and is ready to go. So
19:07
Speaker 1: not only is it ready to go, it just doesn't
19:10
Speaker 1: make it to somebody's stomach. Um, all of the energy
19:15
Speaker 1: used to produce, harvest, and transport that food has already
19:20
Speaker 1: been used as well. Yeah, I didn't think about that.
19:22
Speaker 1: So that's a huge waste there too, since as food waste,
19:25
Speaker 1: you add a double bummer onto every bummer that I expressed.
19:29
Speaker 1: I'm good at it. The US spends about a billion
19:31
Speaker 1: dollars a year to dispose of food waste in this
19:34
Speaker 1: country a billion dollars a year, and the e p
19:37
Speaker 1: A says that food leftovers are the single largest part
19:41
Speaker 1: of our waste stream by weight. Right, they make up
19:45
Speaker 1: about twelve percent of municipal landfills, which are pretty awful
19:48
Speaker 1: word in and of themselves, because municipal landfills are responsible
19:54
Speaker 1: for about thirty four of methane emissions globally, or at
19:59
Speaker 1: least in the US, and methane is twenty one times
20:02
Speaker 1: more damaging as a greenhouse gas than CEO two. Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: and all that food waste is producing like tons of methane, yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: which is I don't understand why we're not trapping that
20:12
Speaker 1: methane and burning it off as energy. I know there
20:15
Speaker 1: are some pilot projects, but I don't understand why it's
20:17
Speaker 1: not a bigger thing now. Yeah, didn't we study something
20:21
Speaker 1: about cow farts? Yeah? I saw that. I seemed that
20:25
Speaker 1: rings a bell from the past. Yeah. Livestock is a
20:27
Speaker 1: huge contributor to methane emissions UM, and nobody knows what
20:32
Speaker 1: to do about it. But there were plans to kind
20:34
Speaker 1: of try to trap it and burn it for electricity.
20:36
Speaker 1: I think there was a farmer who was doing he
20:38
Speaker 1: was using cow poop or something. I think that Dirty
20:40
Speaker 1: Jobs episode did something like that. I definitely remember looking
20:43
Speaker 1: at that UM. But I agree methane, let's trap it.
20:47
Speaker 1: Hey there's a T shirt. So yeah, so food waste
20:51
Speaker 1: is a I thought it was. The potential was increased
20:56
Speaker 1: without a refrigerator. You've opened my eyes here. Um. But
21:00
Speaker 1: another those those double bummers that I did, add the
21:03
Speaker 1: more packaging and more trips to the store. Um again
21:07
Speaker 1: if you have if you lived near a store, you
21:11
Speaker 1: can bike two or something like that. Um that gets
21:14
Speaker 1: around that. And then also if you are one of
21:17
Speaker 1: those zero waste people, like have you heard of b Johnson? Yeah,
21:21
Speaker 1: she's pretty remarkable. What's her website? Uh? It is zero
21:26
Speaker 1: Waste Home. Yeah, she's one of these people that is
21:28
Speaker 1: doing like the family experiment, like let's see what we
21:33
Speaker 1: can really do and putting it, putting it on a blog.
21:36
Speaker 1: She Um, I think her family is the one that
21:39
Speaker 1: has produced a court of waste in a year, a
21:43
Speaker 1: quart of trash in a in a year. Everything else
21:46
Speaker 1: is reused. She has five rs. You think your three
21:49
Speaker 1: RS are worthwhile reduced reuse, recycle? What are her other two? Refuse?
21:55
Speaker 1: So she's saying like, even if it's free, you know
21:57
Speaker 1: that free frisbee the chiropractor gives you, say you don't
22:00
Speaker 1: want it? I do that a lot. Actually, I don't
22:02
Speaker 1: want a lot of that junk. Okay, So you're in
22:04
Speaker 1: line with this reduce, which would be you know, say,
22:08
Speaker 1: using your own, um, your own grocery bags. Oh sure, yeah,
22:14
Speaker 1: so you're reducing the use of the store's grocery bag reuse,
22:19
Speaker 1: So don't throw your own grocery bag away right, use
22:22
Speaker 1: it again? Uh, recycle, Yes, you've heard of this one. Sure.
22:27
Speaker 1: And then rot chuck rot like rotten. H If you're
22:32
Speaker 1: not gonna do this, I think so that's the last one.
22:36
Speaker 1: What do you mean by rot? I'm sure composting okay, Yeah,
22:40
Speaker 1: And like you said about the people that like I
22:42
Speaker 1: want to go without a fridge, but I'm gonna go
22:44
Speaker 1: to the grocery store every ten minutes to get a
22:45
Speaker 1: packet of mayonnaise. I don't think that's the case. Like,
22:48
Speaker 1: I bet a lot of those people are growing food
22:51
Speaker 1: in their gardens and composting and like probably not doing that.
22:54
Speaker 1: And plus also she points out b Johnson points out that, um,
22:58
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that we would consider or
23:00
Speaker 1: food waste, like you know, grocery stores food waste to
23:03
Speaker 1: me is a I think we should do a whole
23:05
Speaker 1: podcast on it. It is fascinating, mind boggling the amount
23:10
Speaker 1: of waste we produce food wise. I've read that something
23:14
Speaker 1: like a third a third of all of the food
23:17
Speaker 1: in the world goes to waste one way or another,
23:20
Speaker 1: either like in the developing world, doesn't make it after
23:24
Speaker 1: being wasted. UM. Food waste from the United States, in
23:28
Speaker 1: the grocery stores in the US, there's any kind of
23:31
Speaker 1: cosmetic imperfection, if it's not pretty enough, they just throw
23:34
Speaker 1: it away. There's nothing wrong with it, but it'll just
23:36
Speaker 1: get tossed. Yeah, that's I don't think I would like
23:39
Speaker 1: to know what goes on behind the scenes of like
23:40
Speaker 1: a huge grocery chain. I think we need to get
23:42
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it, an expose perhaps. But but B.
23:46
Speaker 1: Johnson points out, UM, a lot of this stuff that
23:49
Speaker 1: even people at home would consider wasted, spoiled food, UM,
23:53
Speaker 1: can be reused. So like if you have a bunch
23:55
Speaker 1: of stale bread, make bread pudding. UM, if you have
23:58
Speaker 1: some will to lettuce, drop it in an ice bath
24:01
Speaker 1: and it wakes back up stale bread to the birds.
24:06
Speaker 1: That's nice. Like when I have moldy bread, always just
24:08
Speaker 1: like go out and throw it and then do you
24:10
Speaker 1: eat the birds afterwards? Are you like raising them? Yeah,
24:13
Speaker 1: I get my baby gun. You don't even need a
24:17
Speaker 1: because you just teach them to eat out of your
24:20
Speaker 1: hand and then grab them, snaff a little neck, and
24:23
Speaker 1: you got brown thrasher for dinner. That's our state bird.
24:27
Speaker 1: We get in trouble for that, would we? Yeah, you
24:29
Speaker 1: can't kill your state bird. I figured it was the
24:32
Speaker 1: state bird because it was the tastiest bird. I don't
24:35
Speaker 1: think so, sk So you dug this up. This is
24:57
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Um, if you want to talk about people
25:00
Speaker 1: really go in the extra mile to not have a
25:03
Speaker 1: carbon footprint. Some folks are making on their own shoes
25:08
Speaker 1: out of old tires and old jeans and hemp of course. Okay, yeah,
25:12
Speaker 1: not much arch support though apparently right, it's sort of
25:16
Speaker 1: like a moccasin. I would imagine you can eat your
25:19
Speaker 1: weeds in your yard, right if you're into that. Um,
25:22
Speaker 1: A lot of edible weeds like garlic, mustard or chickweed. Yeah,
25:25
Speaker 1: I mean, like, what's a weed but some plant that
25:27
Speaker 1: we decided we didn't want. Yeah. I read something somewhere
25:31
Speaker 1: about the human diet. How um it's become so narrow.
25:36
Speaker 1: We used to eat a lot more stuff that a
25:39
Speaker 1: lot more weeds, um and as a result, our health
25:43
Speaker 1: was a lot better. The bitter. I think we talked
25:45
Speaker 1: about it before. Have you Have you gotten to the
25:48
Speaker 1: point to where everything we talked about rings a bell?
25:52
Speaker 1: Like we've mentioned everything before. Yeah, a world is getting narrower.
25:57
Speaker 1: But um, I feel like we've talked about before. The
26:00
Speaker 1: bitter the plant, the healthier it tends to be. And
26:04
Speaker 1: I think you said also bitterness though also um so
26:08
Speaker 1: suggests that as poisonous too. Well, that is part of
26:11
Speaker 1: the edibility test, and you shouldn't just go in your
26:13
Speaker 1: yard and just pull a bunch of weeds and eat them.
26:16
Speaker 1: Not everything is edible. Dying is not that green. Oh,
26:19
Speaker 1: but if you do have edible weeds and you want
26:21
Speaker 1: to add them as in your salads or something, that's
26:25
Speaker 1: that's something that some people do. Some people. Some people
26:29
Speaker 1: use old license plates to side their houses. Is that true?
26:34
Speaker 1: It's in this article, of course it's true. I bet you,
26:37
Speaker 1: I bet you. That's the thing. I could see that,
26:39
Speaker 1: and you know what, why not? That's they're just going
26:42
Speaker 1: to waste, you know, all license plates. We got a
26:46
Speaker 1: birdhouse made out of license plates. Oh, those are cute.
26:49
Speaker 1: That's all right. We got it because it was Ohio, California,
26:53
Speaker 1: and Georgia, which was Emily's three states, which is kind
26:56
Speaker 1: of weird. So triumphant, I gotta have this. Do you
26:59
Speaker 1: use it for BB gun practice? No, that's just birds. Um.
27:04
Speaker 1: You know, I shot an animal once in my life
27:07
Speaker 1: and it was one of the worst things that had
27:09
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. I was too young, I gotta
27:12
Speaker 1: be begun, and I was tired of shooting cans. So
27:14
Speaker 1: I shot a squirrel and it haunts me to this day.
27:19
Speaker 1: And I'm not pooping hunters. If you're into that, that's fine.
27:21
Speaker 1: I'm just not into it. So I shot a squirrel
27:24
Speaker 1: when I was twelve. You're haunted. I want to come clean. Yeah,
27:27
Speaker 1: all right. So what's this poop burger thing? I couldn't
27:31
Speaker 1: find any any corroborating evidence, but basically, there was a
27:34
Speaker 1: a story that popped up on a couple of blogs
27:36
Speaker 1: about a Japanese scientist who had basically converted human feces
27:41
Speaker 1: into an edible burger. And the two blog posts I saw,
27:46
Speaker 1: we're basically piggybacking off of each other, and the original
27:50
Speaker 1: source led to a four or four era, so I
27:53
Speaker 1: think it's I think the American press accidentally picked up
27:57
Speaker 1: a yes Man article or like that. You know, well,
28:01
Speaker 1: how about if if anyone can corroborate corroborate, I have
28:04
Speaker 1: the worst time with that word. Can corroborate? Yeah, I
28:09
Speaker 1: can't never say the word right. Corroborate, coroborate, corrobor rate,
28:14
Speaker 1: corrobor rate. There you go. Can we put a ding
28:17
Speaker 1: ding ding in there to post production? So if anyone
28:20
Speaker 1: can let us know that this story is true, then
28:23
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, I'd love to know that. Yeah, let
28:25
Speaker 1: us know there are speaking of fecal material though, chuck.
28:29
Speaker 1: There there was also this green movement to give up
28:32
Speaker 1: toilet paper. Oh I heard about that. Do you remember
28:35
Speaker 1: that huge ball in Uh that was the size of
28:38
Speaker 1: a school bus that was made of um like handy
28:41
Speaker 1: wipes and fat in London. I don't remember that. It
28:46
Speaker 1: was this fatty deposit made up of grease and used
28:51
Speaker 1: handy white. Is it like an art project? No, it
28:53
Speaker 1: was trapped in the London sewer system. Okay, I thought
28:56
Speaker 1: display or something. No, God, no, no, remember that that's
29:00
Speaker 1: it was. That's horrific. It was within the last year.
29:03
Speaker 1: Um well, anyway, uh I guess some people are taking
29:07
Speaker 1: this even further and saying, not even toilet paper will
29:10
Speaker 1: touch my bottom. Instead, I'm going to use um basically diapers, Oh,
29:16
Speaker 1: just like cloth squares. So you keep a pail of
29:18
Speaker 1: clean ones on one side and a dirty pail on
29:21
Speaker 1: the other, and then you just wash the poopy ones
29:26
Speaker 1: and you're green. Huh. I don't think I would go
29:32
Speaker 1: that far. I don't think, but I am interested in
29:35
Speaker 1: a in a bid day because I do think toilet
29:37
Speaker 1: paper is disgusting, like taking dry, thin paper and wiping
29:42
Speaker 1: poop from your skin. It I don't get it, and
29:45
Speaker 1: it's never made sense to me really, even as a child.
29:49
Speaker 1: Well no, since I got grown enough to realize that
29:52
Speaker 1: moisture is a pretty nice thing to happen if you're
29:54
Speaker 1: cleaning poop. Yeah, you just pull a little vaseline in there.
30:00
Speaker 1: So a bidday, i'd be into a biday, okay. And
30:03
Speaker 1: I'm exclusively with the wet wipes. Well, you're contributing to
30:06
Speaker 1: the huge fat deposit ball and what it was made up.
30:11
Speaker 1: Even those that say they're flushable, it's it's probably a
30:13
Speaker 1: bunch of bunk. The London thing proves it as bunk,
30:16
Speaker 1: and for some reason. I don't remember why, but like
30:19
Speaker 1: it was almost exclusively wet wipes and fat grease, Like
30:25
Speaker 1: they were attracted to one another or something like that. Maybe,
30:28
Speaker 1: So I don't understand it all right. Do you think
30:30
Speaker 1: they'd be like a squirrel or the remnants of a
30:34
Speaker 1: squirrel right in there something? But no, it's just wet
30:39
Speaker 1: wipes and grease. Holy cal Well, I got Let's get
30:43
Speaker 1: this one back on the rails and finish it up. Huh,
30:46
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else. Did you see the Albert
30:48
Speaker 1: Einstein refrigerator? Oh that's like no electricity whatsoever. That makes sense. Well,
30:54
Speaker 1: it does need a source of heat. Um. But I
30:58
Speaker 1: think Einstein in one of his former students, developed a
31:02
Speaker 1: refrigerator that has no moving parts. Requires it could be
31:06
Speaker 1: run on solar energy, but basically it uses um. You know,
31:11
Speaker 1: when you lower the pressure, the atmosphere pressure of something,
31:15
Speaker 1: it's boiling temperaturewards as well. Uh. And then when you
31:18
Speaker 1: boil something, it sucks energy out of the surrounding atmosphere
31:21
Speaker 1: and lowers the temperature. That's basically this kind of Rube
31:24
Speaker 1: Goldberg esque Einstein invention that this guy in Oxford was
31:30
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild. He made a test pilot version of it,
31:35
Speaker 1: but it's like not very efficient. I think that's a
31:37
Speaker 1: new not a new thing, but a lot. I've seen
31:39
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff lately about people remaking like some
31:42
Speaker 1: early inventions that were never able to be properly made. Yeah,
31:46
Speaker 1: I think you were talking about that, like Da Vinci
31:48
Speaker 1: stuff that. Yeah, there's a TV show where they definitely
31:52
Speaker 1: did the Da Vinci stuff, but those were mainly like
31:55
Speaker 1: weapons and things. But I did see a video the
31:58
Speaker 1: other day that someone made a Da Vinci a musical
32:00
Speaker 1: instrument that Da Vinci invented that was never properly made,
32:04
Speaker 1: and it was look like a played like a piano,
32:06
Speaker 1: but it sounded like strings and it was it was
32:09
Speaker 1: really kind of awesome. Yeah. So that's a long way
32:12
Speaker 1: of saying, build this fridge behind the Einstein fridge. Well,
32:16
Speaker 1: there's other things you can do too. If you have
32:18
Speaker 1: a fridge and you don't feel like giving up your fridge.
32:21
Speaker 1: If you have a fridge that's older than two thousand
32:23
Speaker 1: and you have a little bit of dough, go buy
32:25
Speaker 1: an energy star rated one. Yeah. Throw that other one
32:28
Speaker 1: in a landfill, right, Um, No use it as like
32:31
Speaker 1: a planter or something out in your backyard to grow
32:34
Speaker 1: food in. Yeah, you can always sell a fridge. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: like any appliance that works, you can sell to somebody.
32:40
Speaker 1: You just want to take the door off to make
32:42
Speaker 1: sure no little kids get trapped in it or Indiana Jones,
32:45
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. You also, if you do have an
32:47
Speaker 1: energy star rated fridge, you want to clean the coils
32:50
Speaker 1: off once a year. That will keep it running efficiently,
32:53
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, you want to think about what you're
32:56
Speaker 1: going to open the fridge to get, so you don't
32:59
Speaker 1: just stand there with the fridge open like a slack
33:01
Speaker 1: jawed yokel like everybody does. Right. And then apparently if
33:05
Speaker 1: you keep your fridge fairly stocked, um, that will allow
33:09
Speaker 1: it to um the temperature to to bounce back to
33:12
Speaker 1: where it needs to be. It has less um atmosphere.
33:17
Speaker 1: Cool my fridge. You have to open to get the
33:20
Speaker 1: water filtered water, which really bugs me. It's not like
33:24
Speaker 1: in the outside of the door. I've never seen that. Yeah,
33:27
Speaker 1: you just live in a cuckoo house. You've got cauliflower around.
33:32
Speaker 1: You got to open the door to get some water.
33:34
Speaker 1: That cilantro sitting and cups all over the house. That's
33:36
Speaker 1: a good idea. I've tried that, but put it in
33:38
Speaker 1: the fridge and it just wrecks it. So I guess
33:40
Speaker 1: maybe just leaving it out. I mean, it would lasts
33:43
Speaker 1: for quite a while. Man, I love that stuff. Ye
33:45
Speaker 1: don't you feel bad for people who taste dish soap
33:48
Speaker 1: when they eat cilantro? Yeah? I love cilantro, me too, Muddy. Well,
33:53
Speaker 1: let's it about cilantro. If you want to learn more
33:56
Speaker 1: about it, you can type the word into the it's
34:00
Speaker 1: part how stuff works, and you can also type in
34:02
Speaker 1: can I go without a refrigerator in the search barnell
34:05
Speaker 1: bring this article up? Uh And since I said search bar,
34:08
Speaker 1: that means it's time for listener mayo. Yeah, I'm gonna
34:13
Speaker 1: call this from one of our law enforcement officers. Hey, guys,
34:17
Speaker 1: my name is Andy m a police officer for a
34:20
Speaker 1: law enforcement agency in St. Louis, Missouri area. Go Cardinals.
34:25
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the show and appreciate the
34:27
Speaker 1: always new interesting topics and discussions. And I've noticed that
34:30
Speaker 1: you seem to have an affinity for law enforcement related topics,
34:34
Speaker 1: which is true. You definitely do you love them. I
34:38
Speaker 1: would just listen. I think I wanted to be a
34:39
Speaker 1: cop or something. Maybe you can be a security card.
34:43
Speaker 1: That's not the same. I was just listening to the
34:46
Speaker 1: meth podcast and notice that you mentioned one of the
34:49
Speaker 1: first shaken bake incidences, and that's a mobile meth lab. Apparently,
34:53
Speaker 1: that's like the coupling go which occurred actually in my
34:57
Speaker 1: precinct at a Walmart. Remember we talked about that. Um
35:00
Speaker 1: I was not yet employed there, but I know one
35:02
Speaker 1: of the officers, uh, I know the officer that responded
35:05
Speaker 1: what I understand, a woman was shop lifting, was in
35:07
Speaker 1: custody of the loss prevention officers when they called for
35:10
Speaker 1: police assistance. My now coworker arrested her and in the
35:14
Speaker 1: process discovered a Gatorade bottle in her purse which is
35:17
Speaker 1: being used as a mobile meth lab. That's so crazy.
35:20
Speaker 1: It is very crazy. Meth usage in the area that
35:23
Speaker 1: I work in is rampant, and only having been on
35:25
Speaker 1: the force less than a year, I've already handled two
35:27
Speaker 1: meth labs of my own. Having seen firsthand some of
35:30
Speaker 1: the reactions to meth that these folks have, I will
35:33
Speaker 1: say that you were pretty much right on, guys. Additionally,
35:35
Speaker 1: another unfortunate situation is that, uh, where there is a
35:40
Speaker 1: meth lab. Typically there are children. One of my meth
35:43
Speaker 1: labs was also home to seven kids. It's a really
35:45
Speaker 1: sad sight to see. You remember that one episode of
35:47
Speaker 1: Breaking Bad, which one the one where Pinkman basically gets
35:52
Speaker 1: kidnapped by those meth addicts who robbed And typically you
35:58
Speaker 1: will find that the parents have little interest in their
36:00
Speaker 1: children and pay them very little attention in general. Well,
36:03
Speaker 1: of course, because they're all interested in using math. It's
36:07
Speaker 1: kind of a one track mind situation. So it makes
36:12
Speaker 1: you appreciate non Matthews. So it's just what Andy says,
36:16
Speaker 1: So thanks Andy Officer. Yeah, he wrapped that up at
36:18
Speaker 1: the end and spanked it on the bottom. He had
36:20
Speaker 1: he had another part, So that might have read awkward
36:22
Speaker 1: a suggestion which I can cut out, but I may.
36:25
Speaker 1: I took the suggestion, but I just didn't read it.
36:27
Speaker 1: Is it a mystery suggestion? Then? Um, yeah, maybe that's
36:30
Speaker 1: surprise you. Well, if you want to send us a
36:32
Speaker 1: mystery suggestion, we are welcome to those. You can tweet
36:36
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K Podcast. You can
36:38
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
36:41
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36:43
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36:49
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36:51
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