Grateful for a Refrigerator

I am grateful for a refrigerator; that food may perish slower than I can consume. I live in a time in which food comes easily and goes slowly thanks to refrigeration. What was once only fresh for only a few days is now available for weeks. For the most part, I need not worry that my sustenance cannot be sustained; that what I buy I can have ready to eat far out into the future. Some may argue that I live in a time with perhaps the least fresh of foods, that since we have invented pesticides, preservatives, and refrigeration, the foods we eat are before they are ripe or after they have ripened. While this may be true, perhaps it is a side effect of magnitude, that peak freshness comes at the cost of scale. And perhaps freshness is a spectrum rather than a point. The produce and meats I consume may not be at their best, but they certainly are not at their worst. Certainly, I would rather avoid putrid produce and carrion. Today, food lasts longer, and I am happy to eat what I bought not so short ago.

I am grateful for a refrigerator.