It has been a hot summer here in Central Florida, with heat indexes often reaching into the triple digits. When thinking about people who have to work in this heat like farmers or construction workers, there's a group that doesn't often make the list--people who work on food trucks.
Despite temperatures inside food trucks reaching triple digits, and the health risks that come with that, some food truck chefs said their passion outweighs the heat.
“With a full board of tickets and the sun out, it can become pretty intense,” said Elliot Hillis, a food truck co-owner and chef. “You don't cook professionally because it's comfortable.”
Hillis started his love affair with food at the age of four and found an aptitude for the art of cooking. After working in the industry for multiple years, he pitched his hand-pulled noodle company to his business partners, known as Red Panda Noodles.
While Hillis and co-owner Seth Parker wanted a storefront, the expensive locations and operating costs made them turn to food trucks as an alternative.
“It’s a really exciting prospect to just be out all the time and to be where people are,” Hillis said. “With a food truck, you have a place to go to people, and so that helps in slow times because you can almost hunt situations down.”
Spice and stifling heat
But food trucks come with their own sets of challenges, including heat. Hillis said his truck has reached upwards of 180 degrees. After more than two years operating the truck, he noticed the heat of the kitchen was really affecting his workers, and not just the temperature.
“The first thing that our new employees have to contend with isn't actually the heat, it's the spice on the truck,” he said. “As you cook spicy food, it's an aerosolized thing, so you're just constantly getting hit with weak pepper spray.”
And the summer sun makes it worse.
“The heat contributes to that, because it's stifling,” he said. “That heat grabs a hold of your lungs, almost like you're in a sauna. You can take a long, slow, deep breath, but if you try to gasp and get air in, it's just going to punch you straight in the lungs.
So, Hillis said he learned how to manage his expectations of fresh, cool air to get through his shift.
“In the few times that it's gotten up in the 180 degree range, you kind of kneel down for a second and it's much cooler, like below waist level, and then you take a few breaths and you get back to the fray,” Hillis said.
![Inside of Red Panda Noodle’s truck, hot stoves, fryers, and dishes are lining the interior. A chef makes a quick dish before his shift.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9b6ee11/2147483647/strip/true/crop/512x384+0+0/resize/880x660!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnpr.brightspotcdn.com%2Fa4%2Fac%2Fbc06e8104e8586cec7a37f2f7162%2Fheat2.jpg%3Forigin%3Dbody)
Most of his customers had no idea how hot it really gets inside. When asked, customers outside the truck guessed anywhere from 95 to 130 degrees, nowhere near the normal 140 to 180 degree range.
Kiera Diehl is a frequent customer of Red Panda Noodles, and said she’s fearful for the safety of food truck workers.
“These food trucks, they have grills and ovens,” said Diehl. “It’s already hot enough out here; I can’t imagine being in an insulated metal box.”
Heat and health
It’s not just the customers concerned about the well-being of these employees, it’s also some health officials.
Thomas Clinton is a professor in the college of health and human performance at the University of Florida, and he said that food truck workers are at risk of heat related illness.
“One of the most common ones that those people would experience is heat exhaustion. Because of the effects of the central nervous system, people start making mistakes,” Clinton said. “There are industries over the summer months where their workers experience heat loads, and they’ll fall off of scaffoldings or cut their finger, they just don’t have as much control in terms of their motor function.”
![Red Panda Noodle’s co-owner Elliot Hillis fills up the tank on his food truck, ahead of Orlando’s Tasty Takeover event. The sun wasn’t out, but Hillis had already begun to break a sweat.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/156a881/2147483647/strip/true/crop/512x384+0+0/resize/880x660!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnpr.brightspotcdn.com%2F22%2Ffa%2Fb65931b24c56a572b19a6b6ca01d%2Fheat3.jpg%3Forigin%3Dbody)
But despite the risk, Hillis said that his love for cooking outweighs it.
“I've had a few situations on the truck where I didn't know if I was going to pass out or not, and there’s just no stopping,” Hillis said. “When you get done with that, and you didn't crash and you didn't die, you’re like, ‘wow!’ You appreciate life more, the air tastes sweeter.”
Passion outweighs the risks
For Hillis, that appreciation comes from his customers, including one woman’s experience with a single dish.
“I had this woman whose parents escaped Communist China for Taiwan when the exile happened. She said, ‘Oh, you doJjajangmyeon (noodle dish),’” Hillis said.
He said yes, and Hillis delivered his promise of Jjajangmyeon to the woman, but he wasn’t expecting the tears in her eyes when he asked her how it was.
“She told me about her dad. He died young, and he made aJjajangmyeon for her. Her connection to this specific noodle is to her father,” Hillis said. “She got to see it again, she got to feel it again.”
Being able to make that connection outweighs the heat -- even with the risk of short-term or long-term health problems.
“I feel like my life is better for having been a cook. That being said, I've most certainly shortened my life or damaged my body in ways that are irreparable because of the act of cooking,” Hillis said.
“We're all gonna die. We don't like to think about it. But if I can spend my time doing something that people enjoy, and I enjoy, if I have to die a little younger, I say that I’ve lived a good life so far.”
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