afternoon it is really a pleasure to be
here my name is Karla Ramsdell I am a
physicist and a mechanical engineer I’m
of Italian heritage and my work is on
the thermodynamics of the food system
and I’d like to share with you an idea I
have that home cooking has the power to
change the world
and to feed us on so many different
levels and I’d like to start with an
example of a food system craving
optimization and a return to its roots
so allow me to tell you the tale of a
potato okay so if you’ve ever grown a
potato you know that this is the gem of
the garden right I like to think of it
as the gardens introvert so all season
long when those other extroverted
vegetables are growing and shouting
their accomplishments from the top of
their lungs like that red pepper stands
out among that green foliage saying look
at me look at what I did I am amazing
right and the pumpkin goes that is
nothing look what I did
who wouldn’t want to have me on their
front porch this Thanksgiving I do some
good work right all the while the potato
is just laying underground getting the
job done it knows what it’s got to do no
path on the back no attaboys right it’s
just making things happen until harvest
day okay so if you’ve never harvested a
potato this is something to add to your
bucket list right because it’s really
phenomenal you walk up with a hoe to
this patch of ground that appears to be
dead and you stick your pitchfork in it
and you’ll lean that pitchfork up
there’s there’s a potato under there
right I mean there’s actually a lot of
potatoes under there see you keep
digging and it’s like this treasure hunt
who can find the best potatoes and
they’re big and they’re beautiful and
you’re like how’d you guys all fit down
there where have you been all this
season right it’s incredible but that’s
not the amazing
the amazing part is that a potato comes
out of the ground shelf-stable
right so at a time when you’re
processing all those high-maintenance
extroverted vegetables right they need
pressure canning you got to figure out
acidity ratios and headspace and then
some of them need to be blanched and you
need an ice pack this is all critical
steps in our garden I get it
but all the potato asks is that you put
it out in the Sun for a couple hours
let the skins harden up stick it in a
burlap bag sticking in a burlap bag in a
cool dark place in your home and there
it will wait patiently for you until you
need it for your next recipe now that’s
incredible okay so now comes the crazy
part our industrial food system with the
support of our purchasing dollars has
chosen to optimize these gems allow me
to explain we take this perfectly
imperfect shelf-stable intact potato and
we put it on a truck and we ship it to
the potato manufacturing facility right
and there we skin the potato which
removes like 30% of its nutrients and
50% of its protein and we dice it into
the perfect quarter inch cubes right
well so there’s a problem
now we’ve exposed the flesh of the
potato to the air it’s going to turn
brown so we’re going to have to
chemically treat it right hmm not only
that but the chopping initiated the
physical and nutritional deterioration
of the potato it’s not gonna last very
long now on the counter so we’re gonna
have to do something we’re kind of
freeze it let’s freeze it let’s ask the
98% of that potato that’s liquid water
to transform into its solid form right
and so we’re forever sort of
transforming the texture of this potato
to some kind of rubbery cubes but like
thing right ooh but there’s another
problem because we removed its package
in the first step of the process so
we’re gonna have to find another
container so we dig fossil fuels out of
the ground right and we make them into a
plastic bag and we print on the outside
of the plastic bag some
picture of a potato and we put the
rubbery spuds in there we seal it off
and we put it in the freezer okay so now
that it’s frozen like someone might not
actually use that potato for six months
maybe a year but it’s gonna have to stay
frozen that whole time right do we see
the energy in this whole process so that
means freezer storage of the potato
factory freezer transportation from the
factory to the grocery store because the
energy of our food transportation system
is an energy intensive enough we’re
gonna do it in a freezer right and then
energy storage at the grocery store some
of those don’t even have doors on them
and then we’re gonna buy it we’re gonna
rush at home and we’re gonna put it in
our freezer and there it’s going to wait
for us until we find a recipe that needs
a diced potato we’re gonna go to our
freezer we’re gonna unearth that gem for
the second time we’re gonna cut open the
bag dump the rubbery spuds into our
mixing bowl we’re gonna throw the bag
away to the landfill because there’s
actually no market for that kind of
recycled plastic yet and on some level
we’re gonna think that was so efficient
right okay so disclaimer I have no
really cooking skill where I have no
culinary training the only cooking
training I received was in my mom’s
kitchen from the time I was able to
stand at the countertop right this is uh
this is a physicist and a potato up here
right but we’re gonna go ahead and dice
this potato just so I can show you that
this really is not a really energy
intensive process it takes less than a
minute to dice a pretty large potato and
I also want to make sure you understand
that that story I just ran through is
not a rarity so it ends up the potato is
the number one sold vegetable in the
United States and 40 percent of them are
sold frozen so that’s kind of a crazy
situation this is a rare instance in any
any means and I’m not really proposing
that we all grow our own potato I
understand that that’s pretty
impractical right but certainly we
should be able to buy these potatoes at
a grocery store or maybe out of farmers
markets
mm-hmm so how did we get here at what
point did we start to think that this
was a decent representation of of this
right well I think probably there’s a
lot of ways that we got here but the one
I’d like to focus on is that the more we
buy our food prepackaged and pre
chemically treated right pre boxed and
pre-bagged and preseason and precooked
the more we lose an appreciation for the
gym that started this whole process see
we’re an instant society right
we like instant messaging right we drink
instant coffee we watch instant videos
and the latest craze in cooking right
now is the instant pot right so all of a
sudden we like our food to be instant as
well but the problem is that when we
optimize for time only right well we end
up compromising a lot of other factors
and one of those is our Earth’s energy
system so it ends up all the
transportation processing and
refrigeration of our food system takes
an enormous amount of energy and that
energy requires that we burn a lot of
fossil fuels and the fossil fuels we
burn produce greenhouse gases like
carbon dioxide so don’t get me wrong
greenhouse gases are a great thing if it
weren’t for greenhouse gases we would
not be here right
it’s the enhanced greenhouse gases this
big glug that we’re putting out there
that’s really causing the problem so the
way greenhouse gases work is that we
receive solar energy from the Sun this
warms the earth right and then the earth
emits its own infrared radiation well
this is where the greenhouse gases trap
that energy and recycle it back down to
the Earth’s surface causing this warming
so you can see as we get more and more
players in the atmosphere we get more
and more recycling of this energy until
we get to the warming that we have now
that’s quite unsustainable so let’s make
sure we’re all on the same page here
here is a graph of carbon dioxide
concentrations
in the atmosphere over the last 800,000
years right so we’re looking at just the
blue line here and we can see that we
definitely have a natural variation in
carbon dioxide concentrations but we see
where we are today way up there at 400
parts per million way up there where
that arrow is it’s clearly outside of
the range of this normal variation right
we’re in some new kind of territory and
if I put a landmark in here right about
there 250,000 years ago is where our
human predecessor Homo erectus showed up
right and so our species hasn’t really
seen carbon dioxide at this level ever
right and then if we look at the red
line we can see that that’s that’s the
Earth’s surface temperature we can see
there’s an incredible correlation
between the Earth’s surface temperature
and the amount of carbon dioxide that’s
in our atmosphere so clearly we can’t
keep doing this right and while a lot of
climate change solutions seem kind of
daunting and way out of our realm of
something we can control
twenty to thirty percent of global
greenhouse gases come from our food
system right for every one calorie of
food we consume ten calories of
fossil-fuel energy goes into that food
right we’re going to have to find some
way to make this a little more
conscientious to our resources and the
good news is that we can impact this
tonight in our kitchen so I’m a bit of a
cooking evangelist right I believe that
the only way we’re going to see to a
sustainable food future is if we take
back cooking we reinvigorate a love of
home cooking I believe that when we do
so then we will regain control of our
the ingredient sourcing the ingredient
biodiversity the transportation the
packaging the processing and in the
process I believe we become grounded
again in this act that likely made us
human so Richard Wrangham of Harvard
University has proposed what’s called
the cooking hypothesis
and in this he says that okay so when we
learned how to cook on a fire we learned
to master fire and then we cooked on a
fire we relied on that external energy
source to partially digest our food for
us right so then the nutrients in that
food were easier for our body to digest
so our body didn’t have to work quite so
hard
this allowed the energy that was
previously used by our digestive system
to be redirected to our brain right and
so then our this probably is what gave
rise to the intelligent species that we
have become as humans so evolutionarily
our species has relied on cooking for a
really long time and now all of a sudden
abandoning this does not make us feel
very good we feel kind of empty right it
ends up that it feels pretty good to
dice a potato right we actually need
those rudimentary tasks in our day to be
able to process the stress and
information overloaded life that we live
sometimes when I cook I relax and I gain
perspective on things and let’s be
honest with ourselves so if you’re
relying on that kind of industrial pre
processed food that stuff just doesn’t
taste very good right have you ever
talked to somebody after they ate that
and asked them how is that you know
you’re probably not gonna hear that was
delicious I cannot wait to get another
one of those right at best you’re gonna
hear that wasn’t bad it wasn’t bad like
a win if we’ve been okay with eating
food that wasn’t bad stuff supposed to
be great I’m not saying we got to throw
down some really elaborate meal takes a
lot of time but to convert some really
simple ingredients into some delicious
food doesn’t take very long at all and
so here’s the good news is that it ends
up being a good time to be a cooking
evangelist because there appears to be a
ton of enthusiasm around cooking it
doesn’t take long on YouTube to see how
many YouTube videos are out there
teaching us to cook doesn’t take long at
a bookstore to see how many cookbooks
are out there right the enthusiasm is
really fantastic and for most of you in
this room who are college-age the timing
be more perfect because in college
typically is when you have a kitchen of
your own for the first time so you get
to choose am I going to use that room or
am I going to rely on this processed
food system to provide my nutritional
needs now if we’re going to cook we
probably need the right tools right and
so my current research is on the
thermodynamics of skillet material it
was kind of motivated by the fact that I
talked to a lot of cooks in my work and
I realized some commonalities okay one
of which is they’re a little bit crazy
about their skillets and not only that
that the skillet they’re passionate
about it seem to be about the same they
were all these cast-iron skillets I had
to beg the question what is it about a
cast-iron skillet that’s so phenomenal
if you go shop for a skillet right the
choices are a little daunting you have
cast-iron enameled cast iron there’s
carbon steel there’s stainless steel
with the triply core there’s PFOA
nonstick and ceramic nonstick
there’s anodized aluminum I mean the
list goes on and on it’s really hard to
choose and while there’s not a perfect
skillet for all situations I will say
that a cast iron skillet does a fabulous
job and so I’d encourage you to sort of
reach out and try to cook in this medium
usually what we cook on a skillet is
fast and simple it’s typically low
energy right we’re only heating the this
skillet rather than the thirty pounds of
Steel that is our oven you can actually
cook a pizza on a skillet on the stove
right my thermodynamic analysis has told
me that it has the perfect combination
of properties okay the combination of
its mass its specific heat which makes
it kind of thermally sluggish it’s
relatively low conductivity when
compared to other skillet materials and
it’s high emissivity these come together
to make this fantastic thermal
experience and so what we cook is
fabulous and that’s encouraging for us
it’s actually also naturally nonstick
which is much better than all those sort
of synthetic temporary coatings that we
put on that will deteriorate over time
and it last for generations I’ve heard
stories of families that go into their
grandmother’s house after she’s passed
away and the
one thing they fight over is her
cast-iron skillet I see people nodding
in the audience this is a big deal right
these things are fabulous and it’s at
that van cost $15 right this is not
expensive so you really don’t have a
whole lot to lose right now bringing up
home cooking or sort of getting back
into home cooking
feeds us on a lot of other levels too it
helps us connect to other humans right
so there was this national survey
recently and asked the question what
expression do you most like someone to
utter to you right okay so not
surprisingly number one was I love you
number two was I forgive you but number
three was dinner’s ready
right I mean who doesn’t love to gather
around a table when someone’s lovingly
prepared a meal for us that feels so
fantastic and we can connect across
generational lines so the next time you
go home and you gather around a table
with you know extended family members
think to yourself what’s that that
recipe that I’m looking most forward to
eating here right what is that thing
that maybe defines my family that’s been
panted down for generations and then ask
yourself do I know how to cook that
thing and if you don’t we’ll reach out
to that ancestor maybe it’s your
father’s court your grandfather’s
cornbread maybe it’s your mother’s
lasagna whatever it is ask if you can be
involved in the preparation the next
time because you are now the keeper of
your family’s recipes I ate a lot of my
grandmother’s food when I was a child
but I regret that I never actually got
into the kitchen with her and cooked I
think magic happens when multi
generations get together in the same
kitchen I’m so thankful my kids that had
this opportunity with their grandmother
clearly I could go on and on here the
benefits of home cooking go far beyond
grounding us as humans giving us
delicious food connecting to our
neighbors healing our Earth’s energy
system right they also reduce our food
budgets which helps with food insecurity
issues which is a mounting concern on
college campuses and throughout the
world and it also makes us eat hell
here because we don’t tend to add all
those additives and we start usually
with some more natural ingredients so
come on you can’t resist this can you go
forth and cook you see because if we
rely on heavily processed food that meal
will feed you and that it’ll give you
the calories you need to make it through
to your next meal yes but if you start
with whole food real food and and clean
it and chop it and season it and cook it
and adjust it and smell it it maybe ask
someone to come over and join with you
this meal will feed you
long before you’ve taken the first bite
thank you [Applause]