Foods You Should Never Have in Your Refrigerator

Cold storage is important and necessary for many products, but cold air can also have a negative impact on certain foods. Did you know that there are a whole bunch of items that should never be stored in your refrigerator?

Avocados are one of the trickiest fruits to manage. You should avoid putting them in a refrigerator because this will halt their natural ripening process. As a result, an avocado may never ripen properly if chilled.

Instead of keeping garlic in a refrigerator, choose a dark, cool place – such as your pantry for example. It is also important to make sure that you place them in a ventilated container. Keeping it in an airtight container may cause them to get moldy.

You should never put your olive oil in a refrigerator. And if you already did, you need to take it out as soon as possible, otherwise, its flavor can be affected.

Just like avocados, putting unripe bananas in a refrigerator can mess with the way they ripen. Moreover, cool air also makes them mushy and soft.

Just like many other fruits, there is no need to refrigerate citrus fruits because their thick skin naturally prevents them from going bad early. Moreover, the cool temperatures in your refrigerator can dry citrus fruits out.

One more fruit that should not be in your refrigerator is a tomato. There is actually scientific proof about this. According to recent research, exposing certain fruits to cold temperatures can damage their flavor-enhancing cells.

Do you want your potatoes to be converted into sugar? Probably not. The best way to preserve your potatoes is to keep them in a dark place, away from extreme temperatures.

You may be surprised but the cucumber is tastiest when it is stored at room temperature. Keeping cucumbers in a fridge leads to watery and pitted cukes. It is actually one of the main reasons why cats do not like cucumbers.

All coffee experts say the same things: do not put your coffee or coffee beans in a refrigerator. Your fridge is a very humid place that can make your coffee less aromatic and completely tasteless.

Another product that should never be in your refrigerator is honey. It is known for its properties to crystalize and size up in cold temperatures. Therefore, if you put it in a fridge, it can turn into a sugary, clumpy mess.

If you bought an eggplant, and you are not planning to eat or cook it within a few days of purchasing it, it is better not to refrigerate it. Just find a cool place with no direct sunlight and leave it there.

Unless you want your peppers to become mushy quickly, do not refrigerate them. Peppers can easily last several days on your kitchen counter.

Due to their contents, most pickles do not need to be refrigerated. However, if you bought pickles in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, it is better to store them in your own fridge.

There are many people who prefer keeping chocolate refrigerated. However, they may not know that the cool air in the fridge can actually damage chocolate’s taste and texture.

A refrigerator is definitely not the right place for nuts. Cool temperatures in your fridge can make their nutty flavor too smooth. There is not enough moisture in nuts to cause rapid bacterial growth. Therefore, they can be safely stored at room temperature.

It is never a good idea to keep bread refrigerated. A refrigerator will make your bread dry and rapidly cause it to become stale. So if you want to keep your bread fresh and soft as long as possible, it is better to keep it at room temperature. If the bread is pre-sliced, it will stay fresh for a week.

Many people think, for some reason, that keeping basil in a fridge will help it stay fresh. However, the truth is that the cool air in a fridge makes basil turn into a wilted brown mess.

If you want melons, including watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe to maintain their great flavor, you should keep them at room temperature. Moreover, some researchers have found out that storing melons at room temperature helps keep their antioxidants intact.

Since apples are an ethylene-producing fruit, keeping it in the refrigerator is one of the worst decisions you can make. It is even worse if you decide to keep apples alongside other vegetables and fruits because that will cause them to ripen too quickly.

Squashes like cool, dry, and dark places more than a cool refrigerator. The perfect temperature for them is no more than 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Squashes can last up to a month on a counter or in such places like cupboards and pantries.

Stone fruits include nectarines, plums, apricots, and peaches. Just like many other fruits, they do not like being refrigerated. Unless you are not planning to eat them right away, it is better to leave them on a kitchen counter and eat them within a couple of days.

Believe it or not, but you can actually leave the butter out of the fridge. And after trying it at least once, you will understand why. Room-temperature butter is soft, smooth, and spreads on bread like heaven on earth. Wouldn’t you want that?

If you keep peanut butter in a fridge, it will become hard if not impossible to spread. Moreover, it will get very dry, and its taste will be affected. That’s probably not what you want. Therefore, there is no need to keep peanut butter refrigerated.

Vinegar is one of those food items that can preserve itself. For this reason, it has an indefinite shelf life. That is why you should not keep it in a refrigerator. Instead, store in a dark, cool, dry place like your pantry or cupboard. However, this is true only about plain vinegar.

If you are a cheese expert, you probably know that hard and aged cheeses should never be stored in a refrigerator. Yes, cheese is a dairy product, and most dairy products need to be refrigerated, but aged cheese is an exception. If you leave aged cheese in a fridge, it will become hard like a rock.

Do you ever have too many pumpkins left over from Halloween and you want to save them for later use? You can definitely do that. However, a refrigerator is not the right place for storing them.

What is worse than spices that are clumping together and losing their flavors? Unfortunately, this is what refrigeration does to dried spices. Many people do not know this, but ground spices can be kept in dark and dry places for years.

This much-loved sweet condiment, such as Nutella, is delicious on toast. However, if you keep it in a refrigerator, it becomes really hard to spread. Moreover, the chocolate flavor is also much more distinctive if the spread is stored in a dark and dry place at room temperature.

Berries are among the most tricky products to store. If you do not know how to do it properly, berries get soggy and mold very quickly. Therefore, it is better not to refrigerate them, especially if you are going to eat or use them right after purchase.

It is highly debated whether you should store ketchup in a refrigerator or cupboard. The main thing you should remember is that ketchup was sold years before refrigerators became common.

Mustard is one of those condiments that most people put in a fridge without even thinking. However, mustard does not need refrigeration. Just like in ketchup, there is a high acidity content in mustard, which makes this condiment self-preserving.

Some people put their cereals in a refrigerator and by doing so, they damage their texture. There is a lot of humidity in a fridge, so if you put your cereal in a refrigerator, they will lose their crunch rather quickly.

You may not know it, but hot sauce does not need refrigeration. Moreover, there are some hot sauces that will solidify if refrigerated, so you need to be very careful.

In its dry grain form, rice does not require refrigeration. The best way to store rice is to put it in a container and place it in a dark and dry place. Your pantry or cupboard would be perfect for that.

Just like with rice, a refrigerator is not a good place for dried beans. They actually should not be kept in the plastic bags that they are often sold in, either. Plastic packaging makes dried beans susceptible to pests and moisture. For this reason, specialists recommend keeping beans in an air-tight container in a dark and dry place.

If you read labels on soy sauce bottles, you may notice that they state that the sauce should be refrigerated. However, restaurants leave soy sauce on tables all day. They would not do that if it was not safe.

There are some types of salad dressings that need to go back to a refrigerator after you open them. This includes creamy dressings such as thousand island or ranch. However, oil or vinegar-based salad dressings do not need to be stored in a refrigerator after opening.

There is much debate whether you should keep jam in a refrigerator or not. But here is the verdict: there is no need to put jam in a fridge even after opening it. The main reason for that is due to the jam’s sugar content. Sugar, as a natural preservative, prevents jam from spoiling.

Since corn is a vegetable, it does not belong in your fridge. It is fine to put corn in a refrigerator for a day or to slow down the chemical reaction. However, if you store corn in a fridge for a long time, its taste may be affected, and your corn may lose its natural sweetness.

Pears are very delicate fruits, and refrigeration and cold air can damage their soft and delicate skin. For this reason, it is not recommended to keep them in a fridge. Moreover, the pear’s skin becomes devoid of any taste by making the fruit odorless.

Just like most other vegetables and fruits on this list, refrigeration is not the best thing for carrots. It will accelerate its rotting process due to the natural water contained in carrots.

You may be surprised, but sweet potato is more like a tropical fruit. Even though we associate it with harvest and Thanksgiving, sweet potatoes come from tropical and warm climates. For this reason, they contain components that make them ripen in the heat, and cold temperatures in your fridge can affect the molecular integrity of their ripening chemicals.