Buying too many fresh produce and meats and waiting for them to last for weeks in the refrigerator is a common mistake.
By:
Agencies
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Whether it’s leftovers, ready meals, or fresh food, the goal of storing food is so you can eat it later.
The problem is that storing food the wrong way can cause it to deteriorate or suffer so much loss of quality that you don’t want to eat it. Either way, you end up throwing it away instead of eating it, which somehow feels worse than if you had thrown it away to begin with.
Here are the top five worst food storage mistakes for you, so the next time you wrap something up and put it in your fridge or freezer, it won’t be your last stop before littering.
Keeping food fresh too long
This is one of the most common mistakes: buying too many fresh produce and meats and waiting for them to last for weeks in the fridge. In most cases, that is simply not feasible. There are exceptions, such as apples and celery, for example. But in many cases, a week is too long, and you should instead try to eat the most perishable products in two to three days.
When it comes to raw meats, poultry, and seafood, you should cook or freeze them the day you bring them home. This may mean adjusting your shopping habits if you can, so that you buy less every time, or if you are buying infrequently, as many of us do, adjusting your eating habits and being diligent about safe storage.
Refrigerating the wrong foods
Another big mistake is assuming that everything must go to the fridge. Yes, cooked food, like leftovers, and obviously everything you bought in the refrigerated section of the store should be stored in the refrigerated section of your home.
But many foods not only don’t need to go to the refrigerator, they also suffer if you do. Examples: tomatoes, citrus, onions, garlic and melon. Once they are cut, you should refrigerate them if you are not going to use them that day. But when you take them home, they should live on your counter, not in the refrigerator.
Storage in plastic bags
Do you know those flimsy plastic product bags you get at the store? They’re great for holding loose items so your apples, peaches, and potatoes don’t roll. But these are not food storage bags! When you get home, you need to take everything out of those product bags and store it properly.
And “properly” means something different for different types of products. But in no case does a plastic bag keep any item of product cooler. The product needs to breathe and the plastic obviously prevents it. Lettuce is an excellent example of this.
Misuse of product drawers
Most likely, no one has taught you how to use the fruit and vegetable drawers in your refrigerator. Most people treat them as the equivalent product to the sock drawer and just stuff everything, anyway, sometimes still in the dreaded plastic bag in which they got home. Do not do this!
Instead, think of your product in terms of high humidity and low humidity. There is a setting in each drawer, which can be as simple as a slide that opens or closes a small opening in the drawer. In this case, closed makes it very humid and open makes it low.
High humidity is great for green leafy vegetables like lettuce and fresh herbs, along with other vegetables that are prone to wilt, such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, cucumbers, etc. In other words, pretty much all fresh vegetables.
And guess what happens in the low humidity drawer? Practically nothing! Some guides recommend the low humidity setting for storing apples, pears, stone fruits, and bananas. But for starters, none of these foods belong in the refrigerator.
Store food in warm places
Not everything goes in the fridge. Potatoes and onions, for example, do not go in the fridge. But that does not mean that you need to store them directly on the counter. And forget about those hanging baskets too. The heat increases and the heat is bad for fresh produce. Which means that storing fresh produce in a high place will significantly shorten your life. The same is true of sunlight.
In fact, many foods benefit from being stored in the dark in a cool, dry place. And while not all kitchens have a place that meets these three criteria, in general, a low kitchen cabinet located away from the oven or stove is ideal.
Examples of foods that like the dark are potatoes (including sweet potatoes) and other root vegetables (rutabagas, turnips, parsnips), as well as onions and garlic. Grains like oatmeal or rice also like the dark, as they can get rancid, as is also the case with all cooking oils. All these elements must be kept in a cool, dark and dry place.
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