As Airdale and Dryki have mentioned recently, a big option should be to rely much more on UNRefrigerated foods. Canning and Jarring, Dried Foods, Storing Whole Grains, and grinding/preparing them when needed. As Pollan says, only buy the foods around the outside edges of the Store. Produce, Dairy, Fresh Stuff.. and don't bother with anything that has the budget to promote and post its claimed 'Health Benefits'

As another Northerner, you might consider setting up a basement "Ice House" that would be a heavily insulated 'Walk In Fridge' that stores Large Blocks of Ice Through the Winter, and hangs onto them as far into Spring/Summer as possible. Ideally (and it would prob be in a more suitable, ie, 'Dream' house..), this would be entered via a stairway, with the door only above, so the cold has nowhere to escape to..

I've also toyed with dissecting a retired fridge, and relocating the Compressor into a WindTurbine, and adding enough Storage of refrigerant, so that wind provides direct power to compression when available, and the fridge (then also SUPERinsulated) draws on the coolant reservoir as needed. A parallel or backup to grid would probably be needed, depending on your location.

(To get even more complex, I've wondered about 'precooling' the compressor, which is also prewarming that water supply before it heads to the regular water-heating equip.)

Bob

Super high efficiency refrigerators:

http://www.sunfrost.com/

There are some European brands that are highly efficient also. (perhaps someone can provide names?)

Sunfrost has been in business for years. They started making high efficiency DC refrigerators for PV applications, but now make AC models also. Their refrigerators are far more efficient than Energy Star certified major brands.

Refrigerators only consume 10% of household electricity. Upgrading to a high efficiency HVAC system can save more energy than replacing a refrigerator.

Dry foods like grains and beans are easy to store and efficient with space. Cooking from scratch has lots of benefits over packaged foods, but a lot of the inefficiency in storage and preparation come from small households. A fridge for a one or two person household doesn't use much less power than a fridge for a large family. I will give the singles and couples credit for not overpopulating the planet, but I think in a future of economic decline, we'll have more communal living arrangements and hopefully save some energy in refrigeration and cooking that way.

What are the most practical alternatives to refrigeration, and are there any simple, step-by-step instructions for "how to" available on the internet?

A vented root cellar is on my list of wants, its best if you have a winter where you live. Plenty of stuff on the web, I recommend this book.

What are the most practical alternatives to refrigeration

But, why do we care?

The SUN FROST RF16 typically consumes 15 KWH per month. That's 21 watts, on average. That could be supplied by 60 watts of wind power, which would cost about $120 in upfront capital costs - that's an annual amortized cost of $12 per year! Or, by 100 watts of PV, which at the moment, might cost $800 before subsidies (or $80 per year). Surely, these are better alternatives than labor-intensive storage schemes.

"What are the least energy-intensive ways to store food?"

"Store" vegetables in the vege garden just outside (apart from what you have to store over winter-spring-summer till next harvest).
"Store" eggs by having your chicken house just outside and collecting the eggs that day.
"Store" your goose by not killing it till when you want to cook it.

Traditional means of food preservation:

salting, curing, etc.

Make preserved meats like salami, salt pork / beef, preserved vegetables like pickles, and eggs.

We do home solar drying of food. I have built two types of dryers.

After building the first, I realized that the dryers don't have to be as complicated as the first one which had a plenum to collect the hot air feeding a box of food racks.

The second type I built is just a clear plastic box (Safeway cake box) in which I cut holes for air flow and glued in screening to keep out the bugs.

Setting out food on the roof or pavement would work

See photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/acomfort/SolarDehydratorsOvens#

- Acomfort

I suspect that home delivery is going to grow in popularity, then these deliveries can be migrated to electric vehicles (possibly via LPG?). The route can be pre-calculated to easily fit within the vehicles range/charge.

Supermarkets are increasingly conscious of their 'green credentials' -a big PV array on the roof and a fleet of 'zero carbon' delivery vehicles is going to do a lot for their brand and the saving when expensive fuel hits should make the payback ROI timespan lower.

Nick.

Vacuum Flask Cooking. A couple of different ones are shown here. Takes about 6 hours to cool down to 155 F, cooking is slow.

I agree that there are many benefits, but saving energy is not among them. Take grapes or any other similar crop.

Growing grapes in Chile is very energy efficient because the people who work the fields consume little energy, e.g., they walk or take a bus to the field. Transporting the grapes to New York requires a trivial amount of energy because the boat carries vast amounts of grapes. Compare that with grapes grown in upstate NY. The farmer and his family run around in pickup trucks, run AC, have a big screen TV, ... The immigrant labor that does most of the picking also has a much more energy intensive lifestyle than their colleagues in Chile.

Studies on the locavore movement have shown that locally produced and transported food results in substantially less CO2 emissions and energy use versus typical national distribution. The typical food in the US travels 1,300-1,500 miles from farm to plate.

Jason,

You have made some good points ,but a couple of things have been overlooked so far in this thread.One is that if localization is to succeed to the fullest extent,rather than just supplement shipped food,processing and storing fruits and vegetables for off season use is a necessity.

Energy has always been so cheap that I personally have never given any serious thught to the energy needed to cook and dry food,or to freeze it,but my Mom used to cook and can on a wood stove to save electricity.

It seems very likely that in the near term the energy used to cook,can,freeze ,or dry food will continue to be a bargain,compared to the energy and cash costs of buying shipped food in the off season.And cash might be in short supply.... next winter.

In the long term the energy will likely be very expensive,but shipped food will be still more expensive,so the numbers will still more than likely work out in favor of preservation of any food not immediately needed.

If you are going to can,a very large pressure cooker,one capable of holding at least a dozen quart jars, is your best friend,time and energy wise.They are safe as can be if handled correctly,but as dangerous as hand grenades in the hands of anyone unaware of proper usage.Beware!

You can also use your cooker as a stew pot for family gatherings,etc,which takes some of the sting out of buying it.

Root cellars are great but great care must be taken to dig them in spots that are not subject to flooding after a few days of heavy rain;I'm not talking about a flood in the usual sense,but rather just water logged soil weeping a couple of feet of water into your cellar,if it isn't placed so it can drain.

We have a dozen "apple wires" which are made of heavy galvanized "rat wire" with a quarter inch mesh framed with one by two furring strips,about three feet wide and six feet long.My Mom used to dry up to a thousand pounds of apples on them(three or four hundred bushels of otherwise unmarketable apples,TWENTY THOUSAND POUNDS FRESH,sometimes more) between mid September and Janaury with no tools other than a good paring knife.Screens like these will last just about forever if store out of the weather when not in use.

Ours are anywhere up to seventy five years old,the oldest ones being (used) gifts from her own mother in the late nineteen forties.

As you can easily imagine,she worked at this job at odd intervals during the day and far into the night six days a week,in addition to doing all the other "womens" work involved in living on a small farm and raising a houseful of kids.The men sometimes helped,as did older kids.

But she often enjoyed the company of a couple of other local women as all worked together on this task-taking turns visiting each others homes.

You can dry other friuts and veggies with these screens outside anytime the weather is suitable-
clear and not too humid.

The trick is to cover the bottom screen -the one with the fruit on it-with a second screen to keep the various flying critters such as yellow jackets and honey bees off.If you use reasonably straight wood to make the frames,they will fit against each other snugly enough to keep the bees out.

You can dry sliced apples on such a screen mounted over a wood stove in 24 to 48 hours,but they don't look as nice as sun dried,which takes up to five or six days locally.

If all this is already covered,sorry, I'm a one finger typist.