You're listening to ted talks daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, elise Hugh. Imagine a vast invisible network that keeps our food fresh, our drinks cold and our global economy running. I'm talking about refrigeration or the cold chain, as the network is called. It connects farms in Africa to supermarkets in Europe and it quietly shapes what we eat, how we live and how our planet is changing. In this talk, food researcher nicola twilley explores how refrigeration transformed the world, the unexpected consequences it created, and the innovative ways we can rethink freshness itself to build a better food future.

你每天都在听ted演讲，我们每天都会给你带来新的想法，激发你的好奇心。我是你的主持人，elise Hugh。想象一下，一个巨大的无形网络可以让我们的食物保持新鲜，饮料保持凉爽，全球经济保持运转。我说的是制冷或冷链，即所谓的网络。它将非洲的农场与欧洲的超市连接起来，悄悄地塑造了我们的饮食、生活方式以及地球的变化。在本次演讲中，食品研究员尼古拉·特威利探讨了制冷如何改变世界，它带来的意想不到的后果，以及我们可以重新思考新鲜度本身以建立更美好的食品未来的创新方法。

Picture earth's icy places, mountain glaciers, Siberian permafrost, the poles. This is the cryosphere, the frozen part of the world.

想象一下地球上结冰的地方，高山冰川、西伯利亚永久冻土、极地。这是冰冻圈，世界上冰冻的部分。

Now picture your fridge. It's a white box. Maybe stainless steel, maybe messy, maybe pristine, maybe full, maybe empty. Regardless, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Because if you live in the developed world, your fridge is connected to an entire network of thermal control. It's called the cold chain, and it brings nearly three quarters of everything you eat, from the farm to your table.

现在想象一下你的冰箱。这是一个白色的盒子。也许不锈钢，也许凌乱，也许原始，也许满了，也许空了。无论如何，这只是冰山一角。因为如果你生活在发达国家，你的冰箱会连接到整个热控制网络。它被称为冷链，它把你吃的东西的近四分之三从农场带到你的桌子上。

It's also massive.

它也是巨大的。

Add all those refrigerated warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, supermarket cabinets together and this artificial cryosphere is more than 700 million cubic meters.

把所有这些冷藏仓库、集装箱、卡车、超市橱柜加在一起，这个人工冰冻圈就超过了7亿立方米。

It s a new Arctic. And unlike the real one, it's growing fast as people all around the world get their first fridge and join the cold chain themselves.

这是一个新的北极。与真正的冰箱不同，随着世界各地的人们获得第一台冰箱并自己加入冷链，它正在快速增长。

A little more than a decade ago, I realized that even though I'd been writing about thinking about food for years, I had never set foot inside this vast artificial cryosphere we'd built for our food to live in, so I put on my thermal underwear and set out to explore.

十多年前，我意识到，尽管我多年来一直在写关于食物的思考，但我从未涉足我们为食物建造的巨大的人造冰冻圈，所以我穿上保暖内衣，开始探索。

And what I discovered is that refrigeration isn't really about cold. It's about freshness.

我发现冷藏并不是真正的冷。这是关于新鲜度的。

But also, once you have a fridge, every food problem seems like it can be solved by cold.

而且，一旦你有了冰箱，所有的食物问题似乎都可以通过冷藏来解决。

Take the avocado. The avocado is a tropical fruit. It has a short shelf life and it is beloved in all kinds of places where an avocado tree would never grow. The avocado can only travel thousands of miles and remain fresh and delicious rather than shriveled and rotten because of refrigeration. Once it's harvested, an avocado, like a human, only has a certain number of breaths it can take before it dies.

拿鳄梨。鳄梨是一种热带水果。它的保质期很短，在各种鳄梨树永远不会生长的地方都很受欢迎。鳄梨只能行驶数千英里，保持新鲜美味，而不是因为冷藏而枯萎腐烂。一旦收获，鳄梨就像人类一样，在死亡前只能呼吸一定次数。

If you chill it, it breeds more slowly and so it lives longer.

如果你把它冷藏，它繁殖得更慢，所以寿命更长。

Yes, fruit and vegetables have better anti aging Tech than we do. Right now if you go to a supermarket in Amsterdam, the avocados on the shelf are likely from Kenya. Kenyan production of avocados quadrupled between two thousand ten and two thousand twenty.

是的，水果和蔬菜有比我们现在更好的抗衰老技术。如果你去阿姆斯特丹的一家超市，货架上的鳄梨很可能来自肯尼亚。肯尼亚鳄梨的产量在2010年至2020年间翻了两番。

A quantity of avocado eaten by Dutch people quadruple during roughly the same time span. The two are not unrelated. What's also related? Avocados with other fruits and vegetables and together with cut flowers are now Kenya's largest source of overseas revenue. They've overtaken coffee, tea, even tourism.

荷兰人吃的鳄梨数量在大约相同的时间跨度内翻了两番。这两者并非无关。还有什么关系？鳄梨与其他水果和蔬菜以及切花现在是肯尼亚最大的海外收入来源。他们已经超越了咖啡、茶，甚至旅游业。

But the majority of that export produce comes from just a few large farms, several of which are owned by multinational corporations because they are the ones that have the resources to install and maintain expensive refrigeration equipment.

但这些出口产品的大部分来自少数几个大型农场，其中几个农场归跨国公司所有，因为它们有资源安装和维护昂贵的制冷设备。

Meanwhile, the avocado is thirsty, it requires irrigation to grow in Kenya and Kenya is currently in water crisis.

与此同时，鳄梨口渴，需要灌溉才能在肯尼亚生长，而肯尼亚目前正处于水危机之中。

But perhaps you'd rather think about or eat a fresh marula fruit.

但也许你宁愿考虑或吃一种新鲜的马鲁拉水果。

Well, if you're not in sub saharan Africa in the summer, good luck to you.

好吧，如果你夏天不在撒哈拉以南的非洲，祝你好运。

People say it tastes like a combination of pineapple, mango, lychee and guava, which sounds amazing. I would like to try one myself very much, but the marula fruit doesn't show up in US supermarkets. It doesn't refrigerate well and so it can't be a commodity the way an avocado can.

人们说它的味道像菠萝、芒果、荔枝和番石榴的组合，听起来很神奇。我很想自己尝尝，但这种马鲁拉水果在美国超市里没有。它不能很好地冷藏，所以它不能像鳄梨那样成为商品。

This is another consequence of refrigeration. Yes, the cold chain means that those of us that are connected to it can eat fresh produce all year round, but only those fruits and vegetables that can be refrigerated.

这是制冷的另一个后果。是的，冷链意味着我们这些与之相连的人可以全年吃新鲜农产品，但只能吃那些可以冷藏的水果和蔬菜。

So these are just a couple of examples. There are similar stories to be told about all perishable foods all over the globe. But I hope you're starting to see something that should be obvious but hasn't really been part of the conversation till now, which is that refrigeration has costs as well as benefits.

所以这些只是几个例子。全球各地的易腐食品都有类似的故事。但我希望你们开始看到一些应该显而易见但直到现在还没有真正参与对话的东西，那就是制冷既有成本也有收益。

We implemented mechanical refrigeration in the late 1800s, to solve two very specific problems, how to make lager beer in the US in summer and, for real, and how to get meat to people living in the world's first truly big cities.

我们在18世纪末实施了机械制冷，以解决两个非常具体的问题，即如何在美国夏季和实际生产拉格啤酒，以及如何为生活在世界上第一个真正大城市的人们提供肉类。

It has solved those problems and then some. In countries with a US style cold chain, people can now eat meat and tropical fruit in quantities that would have been previously unimaginable, even for royalty and at prices that mean that almost anyone can have a burger, a bud and a banana every single day of the year.

它解决了这些问题，然后是一些问题。在拥有美式冷链的国家，人们现在可以吃到以前难以想象的肉类和热带水果，即使是皇室成员也无法想象，而且价格意味着几乎任何人一年中的每一天都可以吃到汉堡、花蕾和香蕉。

This is miraculous, but it has trade offs and the biggest trade off of all is that cooling the artificial cryosphere is melting the natural one.

这是奇迹，但它有权衡，最大的权衡是冷却人工冰冻圈正在融化自然冰冻圈。

The chemicals and energy used to refrigerate food already account for between 2.5% and 3% of all global emissions. That's just cooling food, not buildings or server farms or any of the other things we keep cool. That's the same as maybe even a little more than global aviation. And like I said, the cold chain is growing fast.

用于冷藏食品的化学品和能源已经占全球总排放量的2.5%-3%。这只是冷却食物，而不是建筑物或服务器农场或我们保持凉爽的任何其他东西。这甚至可能比全球航空业多一点。正如我所说，冷链正在快速发展。

Developing countries want a cold chain for good reasons, because it will help them make money exporting crops like avocados, and because it will help them reduce food waste.

发展中国家想要冷链是有充分理由的，因为这将帮助他们出口鳄梨等作物赚钱，也因为这将有助于他们减少食物浪费。

That's true, but only partially.

这是真的，但只是部分。

Refrigeration is really effective at reducing waste between the farm and the market. Before the US had a cold chain, 30% of everything it grew rotted before it made it to market. Today, those losses have shrunk almost to nothing.

制冷在减少农场和市场之间的浪费方面非常有效。在美国拥有冷链之前，30%的东西在进入市场之前就已经腐烂了。如今，这些损失已几乎为零。

But guess what? Now Americans throw away 30% of everything that makes it to market, refrigeration moved where the waste takes place, it didn't eliminate it. And as for exports, that's a game you only win by competing on price, which means scale, which means a few large firms owned by multinationals. Meanwhile, you've drained your aquifers and replaced your marula trees with avocado plantations.

但你猜怎么着？现在，美国人扔掉了30%的所有进入市场的产品，制冷移动了浪费发生的地点，但并没有消除它们。至于出口，这是一场只有通过价格竞争才能获胜的游戏，这意味着规模，也意味着几家由跨国公司所有的大公司。与此同时，你已经排干了含水层，用鳄梨种植园取代了马鲁拉树。

Reducing food waste and lifting smallholders out of poverty are important goals.

减少粮食浪费和使小农户摆脱贫困是重要目标。

Building a US style cold chain might not be the best way to achieve them. What's more, if we build a US style cold chain for everyone alive today, the emissions from refrigeration will multiply by five, at which point they'll be the same size as the entire US emissions. In other words, unimaginably huge.

建立美国式的冷链可能不是实现这些目标的最佳方式。更重要的是，如果我们为今天活着的每个人建立一个美国式的冷链，制冷的排放量将增加五倍，届时它们将与整个美国的排放量相同。换句话说，巨大得难以想象。

Okay, so that's the doom and gloom part. This is a crisis, but it's also an opportunity because most of that cold chain hasn't been built yet. This is the moment to rethink our relationship with refrigeration. And, just like developing countries skipped landlines and checkbooks in favor of cell phones and digital banking, they can do better when it comes to food preservation. And then we in developing countries can learn from them to remake our own food systems.

好吧，这就是厄运和黑暗的部分。这是一场危机，但也是一个机遇，因为大部分冷链尚未建成。现在是重新思考我们与制冷的关系的时候了。而且，就像发展中国家跳过固定电话和支票簿，转而使用手机和数字银行一样，在食品保鲜方面他们可以做得更好。然后，我们发展中国家可以向他们学习，重塑我们自己的粮食系统。

What might this look like? Well, for one, we can change how we refrigerate.

这会是什么样子？首先，我们可以改变冷藏方式。

One example, if you disturb the molecules, the atoms and particular types of materials, they will suck in heat energy from their surroundings to reorganize themselves. Bingo, you've created a fridge. Scientists have a super cool, pun intended prototype. It works by squeezing and releasing a cheap and common form of plastic, and it produces the same amount of cooling for less than half the emissions of an old school fridge.

举个例子，如果你干扰分子、原子和特定类型的材料，它们会从周围吸收热能来重组自己。答对了，你创造了一个冰箱。科学家们有一个超级酷的双关语原型。它的工作原理是挤压和释放一种廉价而常见的塑料，它产生的冷却量不到老式冰箱排放量的一半。

So changing how we refrigerate can reduce emissions. It is a solution. It is not the solution.

因此，改变我们的制冷方式可以减少排放。这是一个解决方案。这不是解决办法。

Ultimately, we have to think about our goals. We want our beer cold. But for most food, the real goal is freshness. So what if we could achieve freshness without cold?

最终，我们必须考虑我们的目标。我们希望啤酒是凉的。但对于大多数食物来说，真正的目标是新鲜。那么，如果我们能在不感冒的情况下获得新鲜感呢？

Good news. Already, you can buy fruit that has been sprayed with an edible fat based powder that forms a nanoscale coating that keeps produce fresh at room temperature for nearly as long as the fridge keeps it in the cold. So imagine a small holder farmer in Africa being able to preserve their harvest using a spray bottle rather than a power hungry fridge.

好消息。你已经可以买到喷洒了可食用脂肪基粉末的水果，这种粉末形成了一种纳米级的涂层，可以在室温下保持水果新鲜，几乎和冰箱冷藏的时间一样长。所以想象一下，非洲的一个小农户能够使用喷雾瓶而不是耗电的冰箱来保存他们的收成。

There's also a new process in commercial development that uses supercritical carbon dioxide to keep meat good at room temperature for six months plus. Or if you say, well, refrigeration, compressed geography by expanding perishable foods travel time. Well, why not speed up travel?

商业开发中还有一种新工艺，利用超临界二氧化碳使肉类在室温下保持良好状态六个多月。或者，如果你说，好吧，冷藏，通过延长易腐食品的运输时间来压缩地理空间。好，为什么不加快运输速度呢？

Right now, America's largest grocery is delivering unrefrigerated chicken and Ice cream by drone in Arkansas, taking refrigerated trucks off the street and refrigerated supermarket shelves out of the equation.

目前，美国最大的杂货店正在阿肯色州用无人机运送未冷藏的鸡肉和冰淇淋，这使得冷藏卡车和冷藏超市的货架都不复存在。

Even in the kitchen, people are working to liberate food from the fridge. Many fruits and vegetables actually taste better, have more nutrients, and last longer in slightly warmer, more humid conditions. So why not shrink our fridges and redesign our homes to allow that?

即使在厨房里，人们也在努力从冰箱里取出食物。许多水果和蔬菜实际上味道更好，营养更丰富，在稍微温暖、更潮湿的条件下寿命更长。那么，为什么不缩小我们的冰箱，重新设计我们的房子，以实现这一点呢？

Just to be clear, I am not anti fridge. I love my fridge. Refrigeration has an important role to play in any future food system,

需要明确的是，我并不反对冰箱。我喜欢我的冰箱。制冷在任何未来的食品系统中都发挥着重要作用，

But let's approach it a bit more like we do cars these days. We know we can electrify them and we can remove them from our city centers and we can replace them in some situations, replace them all together with bikes and better public transit. And these can be better ways to achieve both our mobility goals and our sustainability and quality of life goals.

但让我们更像现在对待汽车一样对待它。我们知道我们可以为它们供电，我们可以将它们从市中心拆除，在某些情况下我们可以更换它们，用自行车和更好的公共交通将它们全部更换。这些可以更好地实现我们的出行目标以及我们的可持续性和生活质量目标。

So let's think like that about preserving freshness, using refrigeration only when it's the right solution, while also redesigning our fridges to make them more sustainable.

所以，让我们这样思考如何保持新鲜，只有在正确的解决方案下才使用冰箱，同时重新设计我们的冰箱，使其更具可持续性。

And maybe we can save the planet, fix our food system and make life more delicious. Thank you.

也许我们可以拯救地球，修复我们的食物系统，让生活更加美味。非常感谢。

That was nicola twilley at the ted countdown summit in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2025.

这是尼古拉·特威利在2025年肯尼亚内罗毕举行的ted倒计时峰会上的讲话。