We learned that if you want to keep food cold at a controlled temperature, refrigerators are really good appliances for that task! Our main problems with our alternative method included:

1 – More wear and tear – and electric usage – on our chest freezer. Freezing jugs of water meant we were opening the chest freezer at least once every couple days, both to retrieve a jug of frozen water and to add a jug of melted water to freeze again. This more frequent opening of the chest freezer meant that it needed defrosting sooner. Adding water to freeze every couple days meant the freezer needed to run more often to freeze the water. So between the higher amount of frost collecting on the sides and the routine addition of unfrozen water, the freezer was using more electricity to run.

2 – Uneven cooling in the cooler. The items closest to the water jugs stayed the coldest, while those further from the jugs didn’t always stay cold enough. And as the jugs melted, the temperature in the cooler warmed up.

3 – Our unheated back porch made a perfect walk-in refrigerator for a part of the fall and winter. But for most of the winter, food tended to freeze there. Again, we learned that climate control is a significant feature of refrigeration.

4 – Some produce – especially fresh greens – just don’t last long without refrigeration. They will last a day or two if you keep them in water as you would cut flowers, but especially this time of year when gardening and the farmer’s market are a distant memory, and fresh produce comes from the grocery store, a refrigerator is really helpful.

5 – Inconvenience. (Of course.) We are willing to trade some convenience for energy efficiency, but in this case, if we really wanted to keep some food cold but not frozen, it turned out that there really wasn’t any net gain in energy efficiency!

Since this photo was taken, we've removed the door and shelf for the upper freezer compartment, adding more room for refrigeration.

We definitely learned that we don’t need or even want a standard-sized refrigerator. We bought a 4.4 cu. ft. Frigidaire compact refrigerator, and it is more than enough space for our family of four – especially since we removed the panels for the freezer compartment and are using the entire box for refrigeration.

We studied our electric bills for the past couple years, and the addition of the refrigerator (which means, remember, we are opening our chest freezer and adding unfrozen food to it less often) hasn’t noticeably increased our electric usage. The bigger electricity difference we noticed was last year, when we gave the large but energy-efficient all-refrigerator we had been using to a hospitality house we work with. The hospitality house recycled their 1980s-era refrigerator, plugged in the new one we gave them, and their electricity usage dove noticeably.

So, my advice at the end of this experiment – if you want to keep your food cold, buy the smallest, most energy-efficient refrigerator you can find. Note that our 4.4 cu. ft. refrigerator actually doesn’t use much – if any – less electricity than the large highly efficient model we gave away last year. Energy efficiency is more noticeable in larger refrigerators than small ones. But we like having more space in the kitchen – and not losing and therefore wasting food in a large refrigerator.

photo by Nathan Bloom

It’s tomato time!

Tuesday evening I picked an ice-cream bucket and a cardboard flat’s worth of tomatoes from our community garden. Wednesday morning I washed and sliced and filled up the dehydrator with the red gems. Cherry tomatoes are great for dehydrating since they only need to be cut in half. For larger tomatoes, just slice as you would for sandwiches, and cut again in half if you like. After they are dehydrated, you can cut or break them into smaller pieces for storage.

I highly recommend the Excalibur dehydrator, though I haven’t tried anything else. But it lived up to the things I read about it when I was researching dehydrators (this is now my second harvest season using it). And definitely go for the 9-tray – dehydrating food takes a lot of space because you must spread out so many slices.

Making tomato sauce was Wednesday afternoon’s project. Summer in a jar! Water-bath canning is relatively easy and economical. I will give no directions here, as they abound on the Internet and at your library or bookstore. Also perhaps in the brain of your brother-in-law or grandmother or next-door neighbor!

This winter we will make some yummy pasta dinners with pesto I froze and tomatoes I dried, in a sauce with maybe some olive oil and wine. And we’ll be pulling down jars of tomato sauce for spaghetti, pizza, chili, tomato soup . . . but, that’s enough thinking about winter for now.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/26/mm-mexicans-were-the-original-frugalistas/

Today's cold-brewed tea blend - rooibos with lemon and herbs

Coffee – Mix ground coffee beans with water in a jar. I use roughly three tablespoons ground coffee in the bottom of a pint jar, then fill the jar with water. Stir the coffee and water together, put a lid on it, and let it sit at room temperature or in the fridge overnight. When ready to drink, strain the grounds out and pour your coffee over ice. You can add a little water if it’s too strong, or cream, or whatever. There’s a more official recipe here, but I wouldn’t follow their advice about mixing equal parts coffee concentrate and water. Too weak.

Tea/Tisane – This works the same way, and the combinations are endless! Fill a loose tea strainer with tea leaves as you would for brewing a pot of tea, but put the strainer in a lidded pitcher. Add herbs or fruit as desired. Fill the pitcher with water and cover with the lid. Let it sit for a few hours or overnight at room temperature or in the fridge, then pour over ice when ready to drink.

Mint is plentiful out my back door, so I’ve done both black tea with mint and green tea with mint. Today I used rooibos tea and added lemon wedges, and a couple sprigs each of pineapple sage and stevia which I had growing in pots. It is so refreshing! Not to mention sugar-free, cheap, easy, and free of packaging.

One fantastic thing about cold-brewing coffee or tea is that it is a very smooth brew, never bitter, even though you leave the strainer in overnight. I rarely sweeten either cold coffee or tea.

With both coffee and tea, you could make the process even simpler and use a French press. Enjoy your lopomo treat!

Here’s a great example of people using imagination and technology to reduce environmental impact:

Nathan returning from work

We read this piece by Joe Soucheray in the St. Paul Pioneer Press today. It captures well why even in January we cheerfully bundle selves and children and use our legs and maybe the wheels of a bicycle or heavy-duty stroller, or the smooth bottom of a sled, for transportation around this Minnesota prairie town.

Especially when the car won’t start on a morning when it’s twenty-five degrees F below zero!

I’m thinking about birds and buffalo. Birds, most of us know, are quite resourceful nest builders. In their nests, one can find bits of plastic bags, pieces of shiny streamers, small sections of twine, and more human “trash” items. Birds seem to make no more distinction between “natural” and “human” than they would between “natural” and “bird.”

This summer our family visited Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. One afternoon we and a host of other carfuls of humans spent a good half-hour driving about one mile along with a massive herd of buffalo making their way through a pass in the hills.

We saw babies nursing. We could have reached out and touched a buffalo many times, as they walked the road alongside us, crossed the road, stopped and stood pensively in the road. We saw a shirtless man in the midst of them all, peeing into a stream. (Yes, we really did.) That seemed to surprise us more than the buffalo. We spotted two bulls, and I noted aloud that we were pretty vulnerable if the buffalo decided to charge, stampede, avalanche . . . whatever buffalo do.

“They probably think the cars are totally normal,” Nathan reminded me, and I thought about how today’s mommas and bulls were yesterday’s babies, who had likely also walked the pass accompanied by carloads of camera-wielding tourists. The buffalo, like the birds, seemingly make no distinction between “human” and “nature.”

everything here is natural!

Only we humans live with the false notion that we and the scads of stuff we produce are separated from nature. We show our children three pictures – a squirrel, a flower, and a computer – and ask, “which one isn’t part of nature?” and teach them it’s the computer. We don’t teach them that the materials and fuels used to make and run the computer all came from the world around us, and that when we don’t want the computer anymore and “throw it away,” it will be buried under the ground where it will – very eventually – be broken down and spread into the soil, air, and water of  “nature.”

This false dichotomy, I think, has stalled us in our efforts towards a sustainable future. Though we may not phrase it this way, many of us have lived as if we must choose between “nature” and “human” and since we’ve gotten pretty comfy with mocha lattes and fast cars, we’ve tried to forget about future generations and just enjoy life before the ice caps melt.

But humans – and all our past, present and future material possessions – ARE natural. As much as we’ve risen above the creatures around us (though that’s debatable – is there any species more cruelly and creatively violent than ours?), we are cut from the same biological fabric. We depend on the same sun, water, soil, seasons as the rest of nature, and we and our stuff lie back down in that soil, decomposing into nature, just like everything else on our planet.

The items and processes we have created, rather than being separate from nature, are part of nature. They influence countless layers of the “natural” world. They are remaking “nature” as we know it.

How about, instead of insulating ourselves in a cushy dream world that is destroying our actual world, we use our large and complex brains to build systems that function sustainably, like the web of systems we already depend on? Nature has produced systems that make use of the waste products from other systems, so that there really is no “waste.” (A simple example is how the leaves a tree drops in the fall decompose into the soil to enrich the soil, from which the tree will draw nourishment as it grows – a “closed-loop” system with no unused “waste”. An example of how absurdly wasteful human-created systems can be is that industrial agriculture now uses ten calories of fossil-fueled energy to produce one calorie of food.)

This doesn’t necessarily mean we must junk the cars and toss out the computers (far from it – we should use well the items we already have produced, though maybe find better uses for them or recycle them). It does mean that we can no longer pretend to choose between “human” and “nature.” Instead, with as much information as we can gather, with a good sense of all the factors involved in whatever situation we each find ourselves in, we can try to make the best choice for humans – for nature – for us, our neighbors (of every species), and our planet.

a candid shot of my kitchen counter

For further thoughts and information about the integral connections between humans, our stuff, and our world, check out The Story of Stuff.

Our new "fridge" and regained kitchen space around it. (Look at that - two more wall sockets now accessible! Um, but don't look at the nasty paint job.)

Peas do not keep well past a few days. The peas I mentioned in the last post (shelling peas, fresh in the pod), were sort of, um, forgotten about, and a week later it was a mysterious odor that brought them to our memory. The beets and the kohlrabi, however, kept well for a week in the pantry. I cut them into chunks and roasted them with onions, potatoes, and carrots plus a bit of olive oil, sauteed firm tofu chunks, salt and pepper. Delicious.

The kohlrabi I bought at last week’s farmer’s market and tried to keep longer than a week went bad. Probably keeping it in the dark pantry encouraged the corruption. Next time, a plate on the counter, I think, or a breathable bag in a hanging basket.

Other losses – a ripe cantaloupe went south fast in two (hot, humid summer) days. A box of raspberries purchased Saturday morning at the farmer’s market, left on the counter but probably covered too much by carrot greens (see picture below), were moldy by Sunday morning. Nathan rinsed them, boiled them with sugar and made syrup for our pancakes, so the loss was not great. But next time, raspberries must go to the cooler.

Using a cooler has worked very well. We filled both an ice cream bucket and a gallon jug with water (but left headspace for expansion – important!), then froze them both. We rotate them, one at a time, from chest freezer to cooler – when one has melted in the cooler, it goes to the freezer, and the other one comes out of the freezer and goes to the cooler.

In the cooler we keep maple syrup, almond/soy/rice milk, jam, leftovers, and cut produce. Probably items like berries and peas (produce without stems to draw water – see next paragraph) will need to go in the cooler if not used or preserved immediately.

Produce stored in hanging baskets and pots of water

Vegetables such as lettuce, carrots, herbs – anything with a stem or root that can suck up water – can be kept in a pot of water, just like cut flowers. So far, we have had moderate success with this method. Herbs seem to stay fresher this way than they did when I stored them in the fridge. Lettuce – well, some of the lettuce I bought Saturday morning was wilty by Sunday morning. But we made a big salad with the rest of it and it was great! Carrots seemed to get a bit limp faster than I would have expected – but we cooked the limp ones and cut up the rest and stored in the cooler.

So, a bit of waste during our learning process, but with chickens and a compost pile, no food is really ever wasted.

We are learning to buy and prepare what we can use or preserve within a week or less. Rotating ice in the cooler keeps us aware of its inventory, which helps us to not waste that food.

Grains and legumes have become an even more attractive staple since we’ve ditched the fridge. They store so easily, and with a few herbs and a fresh vegetable or two, make a cheap, nutritious, simple meal.

Leftovers can be kept unchilled in the pot in which they were cooked, with a tight lid, and recooked (to boiling temperature) within 24 hours without any problem. Though in our germ-fearing culture, I promise not to serve leftovers kept like this to guests.

Without a towering space-hogging refrigerator, the kitchen feels lighter and more spacious. Other than what we store in the cooler, the fresh food we have on hand is kept on the counter or in hanging baskets, where we see it throughout the day. We get to enjoy it visually before we enjoy it digestively! And we don’t lose track of what food needs to be used soon.

Oh, and have I mentioned I will never need to clean the refrigerator again?! Woohoo!

So far, we have not missed having a refrigerator, especially since we do still use a cooler and a chest freezer. But if we did ever want one, we’re pretty sure we would get a smaller one (under-the-counter size), or retrofit a chest freezer into a chest refrigerator – which is WAY more efficient than any other refrigerator option. (A chest appliance rather than a stand-up one keeps the cold inside when you open the door, which makes a huge difference in efficiency.) See here for more about that.

Now, what do you think? Have you ever tried living without a fridge? Any tips to add? Any food items you want me to experiment with and report back about? Any other questions, comments, thoughts, other ideas about food storage alternatives?

Today was unplugging day. I pulled the refrigerator out from the wall and disconnected its umbilical cord from the mother grid. I removed the last of the cold stuff that wasn’t already spoiled (and we all know what sort of questionables lurk in the average fridge) and piled it in a chest cooler with a couple frozen water jugs.

Some friends came over and we sat in the kitchen while I made soup with a couple jars of leftovers – cooked chickpeas, chicken broth, vegetable broth, carrots and onions; further decreasing the stockpile of perishable cold food. While I cooked, Nathan cleaned the empty refrigerator. Tomorrow it goes to a local hospitality house, who can utilize its 17.7 cubic feet of refrigerated space far better than we can – and whose aged refrigerator sucks four times the electricity that our four-year-old model does. We know, because we checked both of them with a borrowed “Watts Up?” meter from the local utilities company.

We ate the whole pot of soup at dinner with our friends, so there are no leftovers to think about.

Some things we formerly stocked in the fridge are now doing just fine at room temperature, including – ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, molasses, miso, box wine, and eggs.

The kohlrabi and beets and peas I bought at the farmers’ market earlier in the week are in cloth bags in the pantry, awaiting their use for dinner tomorrow. (I never put them in the fridge this week, so tomorrow I will see how well they fared.)

I don’t think I mentioned in the last post, that for the past year or more, we have eaten mostly vegan at home (except for the eggs laid by our backyard hens and the occasional free jug of cows’ milk at the grocery store – it’s hard to pass up free food!), so that definitely makes it easier for us to live without a fridge. As does continuing to use a chest freezer.

The adventure begins!

Oh, and let me say that:

a) I realize that unplugging my refrigerator is hardly worth mentioning in efforts made towards sustainability, when the bulk of energy inefficiency comes from industry, not households. Still, it’s an interesting experiment, and an everyday way to remind myself and my guests that we don’t have to unthinkingly accept the paradigms handed down to us.

b) May I never sound holier-than-thou, um, i mean greener-than-thou. The lifestyle choices I make are my own choices, made through reflection about my own situation, responsibilities, values, vision. I just love to write about them, and maybe inspire creativity in others to make choices I would never have thought of.

Now my sights are set on the refrigerator.

Yes, really. Greenpa has done it for thirty years. Um, and most humans around the world today and throughout history everywhere have lived without a refrigerator. Why does this sound so radical anyway?

We have not missed the TV, the microwave, the clothes dryer, or the dishwasher. Seriously, not even the dishwasher. We have enjoyed the extra space these appliances left behind; the lower electric and gas bills; the pleasures of playing games, reading books, playing music on the front porch; clothes that smell fresh and breezy and don’t go pilly or threadbare so fast; sparkling-clean dishes and solitude in front of the kitchen window while washing them.

Developing nations are developing fast, and their large upwardly-mobile populations look to western nations like mine for information about how rich people live. The refrigerator has become one of the top status symbols. A world full of refrigerators in the face of global warming doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.

After we unplug the fridge (which I plan to do this week after we use up the last of the processed perishables), we will still be running the chest freezer, the computers, the food dehydrator (a new appliance purchase last year), the car, the lights, the water heater . . . with all of our “counter-cultural” lifestyle choices, we are still using more than our fair share of the earth’s resources.

But it’s another baby step towards a sustainable world, and, like the other choices we’ve made along this path, I expect it will  simultaneously be a step towards more joy and celebration in our everyday lives.

[After we pull the plug, I hope to do another more practical post about how we function without a fridge - but in the meantime, you can start by reading Greenpa's post linked above, as well as the many comments on that post, or just google "living without a fridge" or "fridge-free" or such, and you may be surprised at how many westerners are talking about this!]