March 24, 2024
Category: Education and 3 others
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How to store food in the refrigerator safely, always fresh
How to properly preserve food in the refrigerator is probably the question of most housewives today. And if you don't know how to preserve food properly, follow HC's article below!
1. How to preserve food by type (leftover and perishable food, fruits and vegetables, eggs, meat)
Preserving food in the refrigerator for each type will be different, so we need to pay attention and know.
1.1. Store leftover and perishable foods
- Perishable foods should be stored in the freezer or refrigerator for only 1 or 2 hours.
- The general rule is to only keep leftover food for 4 days.
- How to store cooked food in the refrigerator : For pizza and cooked meat or poultry, you can keep it for 3 - 4 days.
- For meat, eggs, tuna (processed), mixed noodles can be kept for 3-5 days.
- How to preserve: You just need to put the food you want to preserve in a food container or ziplock bag and then put it in the refrigerator.
- You should choose food containers from items that fit tightly into it. Glass food containers or bottles are beneficial in helping users easily check the food inside, can be used in the microwave and are more environmentally friendly.
- If you use plastic bags, you should check to make sure they do not contain BPA (labeled "BPA-free"), which is harmful to your health.
- Quite a few people have the habit of storing food and forgetting to use it until it actually expires and is thrown away:
+ To avoid the above situation, you should get into the habit of arranging them in order of reserve time.
+ Older food is taken out, new food is placed inside, or if you can't remember the time you put the food in the refrigerator, you can stick a small piece of paper to record the time on the container.
1.2. Preserving fruits and vegetables
- Storing these can be difficult because some fruits and vegetables are not suitable for storage together.
- Some fruits produce ethylene gas that can easily damage vegetables:
+ You should keep gas-producing foods such as avocados, bananas, peaches, pears, plums and tomatoes out of the refrigerator.
+ On the other hand, you can put apples, apricots, cantaloupes, figs and some sweet fruits, but remember to keep them out of the vegetable compartment, this compartment is used to preserve vegetables that are easily affected by ethylene gas.
- Most refrigerators today are designed with a vegetable compartment to preserve fresh food longer, and you should occasionally adjust the humidity and temperature. This is probably a good place to store vegetables because it is separate from other parts of the refrigerator.
1.3. Preserving eggs
Eggs you buy unwashed can be kept for 3-5 weeks, but eggs that have been cracked can only be kept for a few days.
But if your eggs have been washed, they will be stored for a shorter time. That's something you should know when learning how to store food in the refrigerator as some foods should.
1.4. Preserving meat
- Preserving pork:
+ For raw meat, you should wash it and put it in a plastic bag before storing it in the refrigerator at a temperature of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius.
+ For cooked pork, wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in the freezer at temperatures from -15 degrees to -18 degrees Celsius. The meat can be stored for 2 - 6 months. In the refrigerator with conditions between 4 - 5 degrees Celsius, cooked meat can be preserved for 3 - 4 days.
- Preserving beef:
+ For raw beef in whole pieces, the storage time in the freezer (temperature from -17 degrees Celsius to -18 degrees Celsius) can last from 4 to 12 months. At a temperature of 1 - 3 degrees Celsius in the cooler, meat can be stored for about 5 days (regular beef) and 3 days (corn beef).
+ For cooked beef, if you use a vacuum cleaner and store it in the freezer at a temperature of -15 degrees Celsius to -18 degrees Celsius, the meat can be stored for 2 - 6 months. In refrigeration conditions of 4 - 5 degrees Celsius, the preservation time of beef is 3 - 4 days.
- Preserving poultry meat:
+ For raw poultry, if wrapped carefully with many layers of plastic or using a food vacuum sealer and stored in the freezer at a temperature of -17 degrees Celsius to -18 degrees Celsius, the meat can be preserved. longer. But if stored in the refrigerator (from 1 - 3 degrees Celsius), you should not store it for more than 2 days.
+ For cooked poultry meat, if stored in freezer conditions from -17 degrees C to -18 degrees C and vacuum sealed, the meat can be stored for 3 months. But in refrigerated conditions of 1-3 degrees Celsius, cooked poultry should only be stored for 5 days.
2. What principles should be followed when preserving food in the refrigerator?
- Store food in separate containers with lids or clean plastic bags.
- Keep raw foods separate from cooked foods.
- Raw foods that are processed on the same day should be kept in the refrigerator. If you want to keep them longer, you should put them in the freezer or refrigerator.
- Foods when placed in the freezer should be labeled with the food name and storage date for easy time management.
- Food stored in the freezer or freezer when you want to defrost for processing, if you have time, should put it in the refrigerator and then leave it outside at room temperature. If you want to prepare it immediately, you can use the defrost mode of the microwave.
- Do not leave raw food in the refrigerator for too long.
3. Foods that should not be stored in the refrigerator
- Tomatoes: low temperatures will destroy the structure of tomatoes and make them pulpier.
- Onions: onions easily become rotten and moldy when left in the refrigerator for too long, causing odors to the foods around them.
- Bananas: cold temperatures will slow down the ripening process of bananas.
- Fresh herbs: will absorb surrounding odors, making the food next to them unable to return to their original flavor. Besides, they also lose flavor and dry out quickly in the refrigerator.
- Potatoes: when the temperature drops below 7 degrees Celsius, the starch in potatoes will be broken down and converted into sugar. This means you will not get any nutrients from potatoes.
>> See more: Knowledge you should know when storing honey in the refrigerator ?
- Garlic is a food that cannot withstand cold temperatures. Even if you keep garlic in the refrigerator, it will get moldy and spoil faster than leaving it outside.
- Watermelon, melon: melon will lose antioxidants that are beneficial for the body, reducing nutritional value.
- Honey: At low temperatures, the sugar in honey will thicken, affecting the taste, texture and nutritional value of honey.
- Bread: Bread easily dries out when kept in the refrigerator. In addition, it is also a food that is easily contaminated with bacteria. If you keep all kinds of foods in the refrigerator and don't clean them for a long time... bread will easily get moldy.
Thank you for following HC's article on how to preserve food in the refrigerator . Hopefully this will be useful information for every family when using a refrigerator.