Foods you should never store in the fridge - even though many of us do

There is probably a bunch of things in your fridge that doesn't need to be there. Removing these items from your fridge can free up space and improve the taste and quality of items that should be stored at room temperature.

Take a look at this list and then go rummage through your fridge.

Hot sauce stays fresh up to 3 years without refrigeration, even after opening it.

Potatoes should be stored in paper bags in cool, dry pantries. Putting them in the fridge can make them taste funny and rot faster.

Onions do best in dry, ventilated areas. Keep them away from potatoes, though. These tubers can make onions rot faster.

Like onions, garlic is just fine in a dry, ventilated area of the pantry.

Basil absorbs fridge smells, so it is best to keep your fresh basil in a cup or vase of water on the counter much like fresh cut flowers. You can also do this with any other fresh herbs.

Your avocado won't ripen? That's because it's in the fridge. Putting an unripe avocado on the counter will make it ripen much faster. To really speed up the process, put it in a bag with a banana or apple.

Putting berries in the fridge can make them rot much faster due to moisture. They'll be fine in a bowl or basket on the counter.

Bread is best when kept at room temperature in a sealed plastic bag. Storing bread in the fridge speeds up the dehydration process and makes it go stale faster.

You might have heard that keeping batteries in the fridge can make them last longer. This is false. The cold can actually be bad for them.

Storing tomatoes in the fridge can alter their flavor and make them rot faster. Keeping them on the counter in a bowl is your best bet.

Keep coffee out of the fridge and in a dry, air-tight container in the cupboard.

Most squash, especially those with thicker skin, do well for up to a couple months in the pantry.

Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil and it doesn't need to be refrigerated.

Most cakes don't need refrigeration. If it's unfrosted or has a buttercream or ganache frosting, it's fine to store it in an airtight container for around three days.

Uncut melons do best on the counter or in a dry pantry.

Bananas that are unripe should be hung on a banana hook on the counter to ripen. Otherwise, ripe bananas can be stored in the fridge or freezer to prevent further ripening.

Ketchup and mustard can be kept in the cabinet for around a month without refrigeration because they contain acids that inhibit bacteria growth.

Peanut butter doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be kept in the cabinet for months, unless it's organic.

Cooking oils can be kept in the pantry, with the exception of nut oils.

Apples, peaches, nectarines and pears can be kept in a basket in your pantry and will last around a week.

Rice only needs to be kept in the fridge if it's cooked. Dry rice can be stored in canisters or plastic bags in your pantry for years. If it's stored in an air-tight container, white rice can last 8 to 10 years. Brown rice can last 1 to 2 years.

Like rice, dried beans don't need to be refrigerated. In fact, the moisture found in a refrigerator can make beans grow sprouts.

Grandmas and some beauty blogs swear by storing your makeup in the fridge, but makeup was made to be be stored at room temperature. Cold temperatures may destabilize chemical compositions and the humidity can make powders clump together.

Peppers, both spicy and mild, don't need to go in the fridge. They taste much better when stored open-air in a basket on your counter.

Eggplants are hardy enough to keep out on the counter at room temperature.

Whilst we like to treat the fridge as a safe-haven for all things food and drink, there are, in fact, foods you should not put in the fridge. Which ones are you guilty of?
Putting these foods into the fridge won’t cause you any harm; however, it can certainly cause a nuisance for your palate as textures and tastes become ruined. To avoid removing the taste from your food, here are some foods you shouldn’t put into the fridge.

Oils

I’m not sure if this is classified as a food so much as a food ingredient, but nonetheless, putting oils into the fridge tends to turn them into a stodgy, almost butter-spread-like consistency. This is more common with olive and coconut oils, which tend to solidify at cooler temperatures and take a long time to become liquid again. (Hint: If you do make this mistake, put the oil into the microwave for a quick burst to get the consistency back).

Coffee

In its ground or bean form, coffee should never be stored within the realms of your fridge. The trouble with coffee is that’s practically a sponge with smells around it, so if placed in the fridge, the coffee will begin to absorb any smell that’s in your fridge and the whole batch will never go back to it’s original arabica flavor.

Another problem is that with the instant change of temperature, moisture begins to come off the coffee, which basically de-saturates the flavor right out of the bean.

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Tomatoes

The biggest problem with storing tomatoes in the fridge is that the cold temperature begins to play havoc with the texture and makes the tomato mealy. Ever had a salad with that tomato that tasted mushy and practically had ice crystals inside it? Chances are those tomatoes have been in cold storage for a while.

Onions

Much like tomatoes, onions tend to become incredibly mushy or moldy if left in the fridge for too long. If the onion has been cut, then the layers begin the process of drying up even if you do wrap it up tightly. Also, cut onions tend to engulf the location it’s currently in with its smell, which is why a lot of wooden chopping boards make everything taste like onion after a while.

Potatoes

The cold temperature generally starts to break down the starch within potatoes; therefore, refrigerating it will leave you with a sweet or gritty potato, which rarely tastes good at this stage no matter what you do with it.

Bananas

Whether or not you refrigerate bananas actually comes down to what sort of ripeness you like with bananas, since the cold temperature within the fridge it tends to slow down the ripening process. Therefore, placing a green banana in your fridge will mean that it’ll pretty much stay green for an incredibly long time.

On the other hand, if you have ripe bananas that are ready to be eaten, but no plans to do so, now is the time to put them in your fridge. The skin may turn black or brown, but the fruit inside will remain perfect.

Honey

Find a 1000 year old jar of honey, and it’ll be as fresh as the day it was put into that jar–honey a naturally preserved food. Putting honey into the fridge will increase the speed of the sugar crystallization which turns it into an almost dough-like form, making for a hard time to scoop out.

Garlic

Garlic likes to go off pretty quickly in the fridge, it’ll grow mold and go rubbery-soft when put into the fridge. What makes it worse is that the look on the outside rarely changes, so you’ll never be able to tell until you decide to slice some up to fry up with your chili and prawns.

Melon

It’s mostly advised to store any melon fruit in the fridge once it’s been cut open; however, until then, you should leave the fruit outside the fridge. There has been research to show that keeping melon out in room temperature will actually help with keeping the antioxidant levels intact.

Avocado

A lot of the times when you buy an avocado from the store, it’ll be solid, almost stone-hard; therefore, it’ll need a considerable amount of time to ripen properly and taste great! Putting the avocado in the fridge will just completely stop it from ripening–much like the banana, it practically freezes in time.

Breads

Breads don’t tend to do that well being stored in the fridge. The only time you should refrigerate bread is when it is in sandwich form, as it likes to go incredibly tough and chewy in the cold temperature. The cold temperature also promotes the bread to become stale far more quickly.

Fresh Herbs

Unless you wrap them up tightly or put them in an air-tight container, you shouldn’t refrigerate your herbs. Fresh herbs are like coffee in that they love to absorb smells around them, making them impossible to return to the original flavor. They also like to lose flavor and go dry in the fridge quickly, so unless you plan to wrap them up, it’s wise to keep them outside in the open and away from strong odors.

Whilst this whole article screams of #firstworldproblems we are all globally responsible for 4 billion tons worth of food wastage per year–food that could have been eaten. If the US cut food wastage by just 5%, that will be enough to feed 4,000,000 Americans. Taking small precautionary measures to understand food storage and the best practices will not only cut down on waste, but it will also increase the amount of people being fed too.