Nearly everything on the American plate is processed, shipped, stored, and sold under refrigeration. In her new book, Nicola Twilley reflects on what it means to be entirely dependent on artificial cooling.

Three-quarters of everything in the average American diet, she explains, passes through the cold chain—the network of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, display cases, and domestic fridges that keep meat, milk, and more chilled on the journey from farm to fork. As consumers, we put a lot of faith in terms like “fresh” and “natural,” but artificial refrigeration has created a blind spot, says Twilley.

Twilley believes that refrigeration is an enabling technology for lots of the downsides we see in our current food system, from the push toward scale and monoculture to a measurable decline in the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables to harmful impacts on our climate. It is such a significant contributor to global warming and ozone depletion, she explains, that Project Drawdown, a climate solutions nonprofit, has pointed to refrigerant management as the No. 1 biggest thing we can do to mitigate climate change.

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