Close your eyes and imagine this incredibly typical scene, a situation which almost everyone will find more than familiar. You had a great day jam-packed with positive, healthy diet choices, but it is late at night now and those cravings have arrived. You are standing in front of your refrigerator and, to be perfectly honest, you are scanning the shelves and totally determined to keep up your good work. And why wouldn’t you be at the fridge? That is where almost all your fruits and vegetables are mostly likely to be, so that they stay cold and fresh for as long as possible. That’s where healthy foods automatically belong, right? Wrong.
The surprising truth of the matter is that the refrigerator can actually cause certain foods to spoil at an accelerated rate. That can be quite shocking to some people who have become so accustomed to trusting that one piece of technology with all of their comestibles. Here are five foods to store outside of the fridge to keep them fresh and tasting great for longer.
Bananas
Putting bananas in the refrigerator actually disrupts their natural ripening process. Once they hit those colder temperatures, they may actually never return to that natural state, even if you put them back to room temperature.
Sweet Potatoes
Exposing sweet potatoes to cold temperatures causes the starches within them to becomes sugars. This not only destroys the intended flavor and texture of the sweet potato, but brings all the issues that come with increased sugar content (from a health perspective). Unless you prefer your sweet potatoes to be both flavorless and worse for you, be sure to steer clear of the fridge with sweet potatoes.
Tomatoes
Think closely about your personal history with tomatoes in the kitchen. Can you honestly recall ever having a fantastic one straight out of the fridge? Certainly not. They not only become mushy in those diminished temperatures, but lose flavor too.
Apples
Much like tomatoes, apples suffer when exposed to cold temperatures for longer periods of time. They lose both flavor and texture after a while. If you prefer having cold apples with that great, crisp bite to them, plop them in the fridge 30 minutes before eating.
Onions
Refrigerators do something uniquely gross to onions after a while. They turn them soggy! The already strong presence of onions will then become a burden, causing the rest of the food in there to smell and taste like onions as well. Instead, store them in a paper bag placed within a cool, dark cabinet to improve their shelf-life.
By Josh Bezoni