Refrigeration In America

Refrigeration, a key technology invention is a major factor influencing the current modern food system and has had both negative and positive impacts on the average American consumption of food. The ability to refrigerate foods has made it easier to store foods for longer time periods, increased food shelf life, lessened bacteria contamination upon entering stores, decreased food waste due to damage occurring in transportation, and increased customer food options. Before refrigerators there were iceboxes, which offered consumers advantages of the types of food they could keep at length, and before iceboxes most foods had to be eaten in season and portions had to be accurately maintain because left overs quickly became contaminated (Tinsley

53). But no matter how useful cattle were they also were meat animals and until refrigeration came along the only way to keep meat fresh was to salt and cure it, meaning people were eating a lot of beef jerky back then. It is important to note that much of the Beef industry in the early years was in New England area because it had more grazing/farming land (McWilliams p. 123). In the 1700’s there was a man who ate massive amounts of beef in fact “he supped on beef ten times” all different type, this man was excessive in the quantity that he eat but beef had by then become a staple for many families, replacing pork in the new world and the old (McWilliams p. 120). The military thought that beef was an important part of a soldier’s life and because they believed that eating too much salted beef was bad for health as well as moral, armies started being followed by cattle herds to keep up the demand (Freidberg p. 53). It is because situations like that, that made it all the more important to invent a better way of making beef excisable to all (Freidberg p.

Gustavus Swift the founder of the first successful transportation of already cut beef, found it wasn’t easy to transport a whole cow across the nation but transporting beef already cut produced a whole new set of issues (Freidberg p. 70). He created the first cold refrigeration train car that help transport his beef products all over the nation successfully creating hundreds of jobs in the process found out that people were used to fresh, cut in the back of a butcher shop beef, and had a tough time selling his product at first (Freidberg p. 72). Swift built an empire through his pre-cut beef products and when butcher shops wouldn’t sell his product he would build his own and put them out of business, but like all empires other’s threatened to replace his empire (Freidberg p. 70). With the empire of meat packing/pre-cut meats steadily increased until the US had a monopoly created out of their meat packing industry, other countries like the UK and Argentina started to threaten their hold and it is because of this that we have the system we do today (Freidberg p. 79). Because of refrigeration beef is now able to last days before we buy it, in fact as avid beef stake eaters know eating meat that has just been cut or has had some sitting time only makes it tougher so refrigeration has been a bonus for beefeaters today