The fridge is considered necessary. It has been so since the 1960s when packaged food list appeared with the label: "Store in the refrigerator."

　　In my fridgeless Fifties childhood, 1 was fed well and healthy. The milkman came every day, the grocer, the butcher (肉商), the baker, and the ice-cream man delivered two or three times each week. The Sunday meatwould last until Wednesday and surplus(剩余的) bread and milk became all kinds of cakes. Nothing was wasted, and we were never troubled by rotten food. Thirty years on food deliveries have ceased, fresh vegetables are almost unobtainable in the country.

　　The invention of the fridge contributed comparatively little to the art of food preservation. Many well-tried techniques already existed -- natural cooling, drying, smoking, salting, sugaring, bottling...

　　What refrigeration did promote was marketing --- marketing hardware and electricity, marketing soft drinks, marketing dead bodies of animals around the world in search of a good price.

　　Consequently, most of the world’s fridges are to be found, not in the tropics where they might prove useful, but in the rich countries with mild temperatures where they are climatically almost unnecessary. Every winter, millions of fridges hum away continuously, and at vast expense, busily maintaining an artificially-cooled space inside an artificially-heated house -- while outside, nature provides the desired temperature free of charge.

　　The fridge’s effect upon the environment has been evident, while its contribution to human happiness has been not important. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself, invest in a food cabinet and mm off your fridge next winter. You may not eat the hamburgers(汉堡包), but at least you’ll get rid of that terrible hum.