Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumSaving Food From The Fridge: It Will Taste Better, May Even Last Longer And Reduce Your Energy Bills
"Fridges are a recent invention; for thousands of years, people lived without them, but had many low-tech ways of making food last. Today most fridges are filled with stuff that would last just as long and probably would taste a lot better if it was never lost in the back of the fridge. They are expensive air conditioned parking lots for what Shay Salomon called "compost and condiments."
Some are looking at alternatives to such an expensive and wasteful model. Kris De Decker of No Tech Magazine "refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution," and shows the work of Korean designer Jihyun Ryou, who says "we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and we don’t understand how to treat it."
She has developed a series of modern designs that rely on traditional techniques, learned from her grandmother and other elderly people in the community, the " traditional oral knowledge which has been accumulated from experience and transmitted by mouth to mouth."
http://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-design/saving-food-fridge-it-will-taste-better-may-even-last-longer-and-reduce-your-energy-bills.html
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hlthe2b
(102,269 posts)Buying and storing eggs is different through-out the world.
http://startcooking.com/blog/42/
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Focus_On_Shell_Eggs/index.asp
Briefly “In the USA, government standards say all eggs must be washed and stored at temperatures no higher than 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Washing the eggs is a good thing but it does leave the eggs without an outer coating and very susceptible to invasion by bacteria. Hence refrigeration of washed eggs is absolutely necessary." Unwashed eggs do not need to be refrigerated, which is why they are not, in Europe and elsewhere. Keeping eggs out in the US, is asking for disaster.
Warpy
(111,256 posts)If you are lucky enough to get them from someone with backyard chickens (or have them yourself), that coating will be intact, with bird poop and feathers but intact, and nothing inside the fridge will permeate it.
Since producers in the US seem to want us divorced from the fact that they're living products from other living creatures, eggs here are washed and the very thing that makes them permeable to odor also makes them impossible to keep at room temperature unless we enjoy salmonella.
The storage methods in the article are pretty but space consuming (who in the US just stores 3 carrots?) and will not work in the summer climate in most of the country.
While I can see us moving to other strategies for cold storage of food in the future, I'm afraid it's with us to stay here in this country.
hlthe2b
(102,269 posts)
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)In Europe they typically have tiny kitchens and very small refrigerators, so they don't refrigerate nearly as much as we do in the US. This is out of necessity. They also tend to use eggs more often and the freshness of eggs does make a difference. If you're going to use the eggs you buy within a few days, there's not as much need to refrigerate them. Refrigeration does retain the freshness of eggs longer.
The US recommends the refrigeration of eggs primarily because of the threat of Salmonella. However, only 1 in 20,000 eggs are infected with Salmonella, and even if you did happen to get one that was there's no guarantee you would get sick even if you didn't refrigerate your eggs. In all probability, you could never refrigerate your eggs, eat a couple a day every day, and never get Salmonellosis. Even if you did get Salmonellosis, most likely the worst you would suffer is a case of the running shits for a couple of days.
hlthe2b
(102,269 posts)Yes, the fresher the eggs the safer, but the point is that the Europeans do not force the pressure wash on eggs that removes any natural resistance to bacterial contamination. USDA does this to diminish contamination with Salmonellosis, but in doing so, has rendered it absolutely NECESSARY to refrigerate. And, no, it is NOT true that "Even if you did get Salmonellosis, most likely the worst you would suffer is a case of the running shits for a couple of days."
Rather, The CDC estimates that over 1 million cases occur annually in the United States, according to a 2011 report. Of these cases, approximately 20,000 result in hospitalization and 378 result in death. This means that Salmonella accounts for almost 30 percent of foodborne illness-related deaths each year.
That is hardly a "nuisance" issue. Having devoted much of my professional life to these issues, I can assure you it can be quite serious.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)First of all, Salmonellosis comes from many other sources besides eggs. The very best you can say about your statistics is they are extremely misleading in regards to egg safety.
Try looking at the statistics as they apply to eggs. One in 20,000 eggs is infected with Salmonella. That's a five one-thousandths of one percent chance any egg you get will be infected. That alone means the chances of you getting an egg with one Salmonella bacterium is extremely low. Next, just because an egg is infected with Salmonella, doesn't mean you're going to get Salmonellosis. For one thing, even if you ate the egg raw, the number of pathogens may not be enough to make you sick. Most people don't eat eggs raw. Since the Salmonella bacteria are far more likely to be in the white of the egg than the yolk, even cooking them over easy pasteurizes the egg enough not to make you sick, even in the very small chance the egg had enough pathogens to make you sick in the first place. Next, the vast majority of Salmonellosis cases result in neither hospitalization or death, so even in the very, very small probability you do get Salmonellosis from an egg, most likely the worst you're going to get is a case of the shits.
So you can worry about dying from eggs if you wish. Personally I worry about much more realistic things like drowning in my bathtub, being hit by lightening, and being abducted by aliens. YMMV.
Also you misunderstood my point about refrigeration. Refrigerated eggs stay fresher longer. This has little to do with safety and more to do with quality. Refrigerating eggs to prevent contamination is a pretty weak case. Unless you are taking them out of the container and laying them on raw chicken or wiping your ass with them, there's not much risk of cross contamination.
hlthe2b
(102,269 posts)Telling people that risk of Salmonella is essentially no big deal is as irresponsible as it comes. Having dealt with outbreaks that resulted in multiple child deaths it leaves me incredulous that you would suggest that.
Refrigeration is not simply to prevent cross-contamination, it is to RETARD bacterial growth in the event an egg (or shell) is harboring a pathogen. Thereby providing some additional protection against a major infectious dose, in the event your eggs are a bit runny and undercooked-- or your child reaches in to the cookie batter containing raw eggs before you catch them. Or one foolishly goes all "Rocky Balboa" with the raw eggs in your energy shake...It isn't for aesthetics or because public health agencies are looking for a message to make them relevant.
I won't respond further as I do not want this to escalate.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)In fact, the reverse is quite true. But you did do a good job of trying to replace reason with emotion, which is a typical tactic of those who have no arguments of reason and don't know when to stop arguing. Personally I like to evaluate my risks by relevant statistics and science. If you want to base yours on anecdotal nonsense that only tangentially relates while living your life in irrational fear, be my guest.
If you want to argue with facts and statics, I'm more than happy to continue. If you're just going to make strawman arguments and throw out meaningless emotional bullshit, feel free to continue arguing with yourself. I'm not going to play those games other than to point out the obvious fallacy.
Cheers!
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)My fridge is the biggest energy user in my home, but I really depend on it as I provision for three weeks at a time.
My biggest issues are with fresh fruits and vegetables, so some of these ideas are worth a closer look.
Warpy
(111,256 posts)is why I don't store anything in those bins at the bottom of the fridge (affectionately known as the Slimers) except cans of soda or fruit juice or flour I'm holding in the fridge short term. Fruit and veg rot at light speed in those damned things.
Most stuff is kept at room temperature: onions, potatoes, tomatoes, apples, pears, grapes, bananas, winter squash, although I might stuff them into the fridge in super hot weather. Putting that stuff in the fridge tends to lessen the flavor. However, my fridge is stuffed with all the other stuff I eat and little gets lost in the back except parsley, something I never seem to use all of.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I have developed a system of keeping truly perishable items in the fridge and removing them a day or two before I am ready to use them. This seems to work very well for a lot of things.
The relatively non-perishable, I keep in hanging baskets - potatoes, onions, hard fruits.
And I know what you mean about the parsley (and cilantro). Sometimes I put them in a mug in the kitchen. This serves a dual purpose of keeping them relatively fresh and reminding me that I have them available.
