Hi all,

Unfortunately I am limited to a 1.7 cubic foot mini-fridge for a while (with an extremely small freezer box) Therefore I need to be careful which foods I have in the freezer.

My understanding is most fruits and vegetables do not need refrigeration but it does help extend their freshness. So which ones do require refrigeration?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2010 09:58AM by Delta223.

Definitely refrigerate berries and leafy greens like lettuce and spinach. It's also a good idea to refrigerate celery.

Herbs like parsley and dill can be kept with their stems in a glass of water on the kitchen window.

Fruits with thick peels (not bananas!) can generally be stored at room temperature for several days to a week, longer if you have a cool environment like a cellar or garage to keep them in. You can put them in the fridge if they start to go bad faster than you can consume them.

Root vegetables like carrots (not baby) and beets do well with refrigeration, but also store pretty well in cool, dark places outside of the fridge if you take the leaves off.

The fruits below do not need refrigeration until softening or slicing into (at that point you can refrigerate them):

avocados
melons
peaches
apricots
nectarines
apples
plums
persimmons
pears

Do not refrigerate the following:

bananas (they will blacken)
tomatoes
onions (bulbs)
garlic
potatoes
sweet potatoes
mangos
winter squashes (butternut or acorn)
pineapple
chilis

You can also use how it is stored in the grocery store as a loose guide. Items that are not in the refrigerated cases/counters at the grocery store do not need refrigeration.

Actually, you can refrigerate bananas if your fridge is not too cold. I do it all the time in a little mini fridge I have to keep my nanas from ripening too quickly.



Swayze
[www.fitonraw.com]

Yeah, you can, but it will turn the skins black and if you're looking to store less in the fridge, bananas would be among the last produce you'd store there.

Don't refrigerate mangoes? Thanks for that advice.

Not really on topic but thought this video was cool of time lapse food decomposition... it's unrefrigerated, so sort of on topic.

[www.youtube.com]
Those strawberries went fast! And I am surprised that the cucumbers lasted as long as they did... I wonder if they were wax coated?

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2010 08:45PM by RocketShip.

veghunter, that was some really good info there!

I'll add this one thing (a bit off topic): never keep any kind of whole fruits in a closed plastic bag. That includes avocados and tomatoes, berries, whatever. Greens yes, whole fruits, no. (Notice the perforated berry containers or the perforated bags of apples at the store.) Whole fruits have to breathe. Once they're cut up or peeled, they do OK sealed in plastic in the fridge for a little while, depending on the fruit.

Those videos were neat. strawberries are really sensitive to touch and bacteria.

Good advice, suncloud.

Another item to note is that some fruits are ethylene producing like bananas, avocados, tomatoes, and apples. Storing these together will speed up ripening of these fruits. Separating them will slow down the process. Storing ethylene producing foods close to ethylene sensitive foods like cabbages, and lettuce may damage the ethylene sensitive foods.

[www.thekitchn.com]

veghunter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, you can, but it will turn the skins black
> and if you're looking to store less in the fridge,
> bananas would be among the last produce you'd
> store there.

The skins don't turn black as long as the fridge isn't too cold. Not sure what the temperature is in mine, but it's set to medium.



Swayze
[www.fitonraw.com]

Thanks guys, I've been reading on the topic and apparently sea vegetables don't need refrigeration, so I'll be on the lookout for those next time I do my shopping

I agree with the list, except for avo and mango. I think that avo tastes worse after refrigeration. Likewise (ripe) banana. Mango, however, is fine to refrigerate, once it's ripe.

I haven't noticed an off-taste with refrigerated avocado, but have been able to keep them for an additional week after ripening, which has been great. On a couple of occasions when I have put a few mangos from a case in the fridge to slow ripening, I've noticed the refrigerated ones take on a different texture, slightly grainy and sometimes ropey.

Trive recently posted a nice link on the topic, here: [www.bostonorganics.com]

What causes the avocado to get 'meaty' with lots of stringy strands in it? Is it refrigeration or over ripening? Actually, now that I think about it sometimes they are like that without appearing over ripe. They look 'normal' but when cut into they are fibrous and meaty. Yuck.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2010 10:26PM by RocketShip.