I live in a humid climate (especially in the summer), and if we don't refrigerate our bread and tortillas, or any baked goods, they get moldy in like 4 days.
Have you tried freezing it?
Refrigerating baked goods accelerates staleness, but most baked goods freeze well.
Frozen bread or bust. No one's wants that cardboard you kept in the fridge.
Freeze it every time.
If you're anything less than a family of four, leaving bread at room temperature is just eating half a loaf of bread and then throwing away half a loaf of mouldy bread.
Most supermarket bread has indeed already been frozen before you get it.
I even freeze all the cakes from Costco, since they only seem to come in packs of about a thousand.
This is the way. It's all I do.
If I'm going to use the bread in the next couple days? I'll keep it out. Otherwise, I put all my baked goods/bread in the freezer, and extra freezer I bought. Keeps for months. 6+ months if you're lucky and willing to deal with it being overly dry.
Yes, we freeze some as well
people are downvoting a scientifically verifiable statment.
owning the bread chillers
Likewise. I enjoy my bread lasting more than four days.
I refrigerate my bread, english muffins, and tortillas too!
I had air conditioning growing up and my family tends to make desserts more in the winter.
The first summer living on my own, I made a beautiful blueberry pie, and the next morning I took it out of the microwave (to keep bugs away during the night- I have since learned this was also an idiosyncrasy from my parents. Most people just cover it) and it was already visibly moldy.
I’m glad I got a slice the first day, and I definitely learned a lesson but holy shit was it a surprise.
I too grew up in a humid environment and got used to using either a bread box or the fridge.
Then I realized that our bread was just cheap sugar infused garbage, and that if you pay a bit more for better bread, it does not mold anywhere nearly as quickly.
Same. In the winter here, bread can last two weeks, but in the summer it'll mold in a day or two.
That's legit. Not really in Canada though.
Well, yes...but 4 day old bread from the fridge is basically inedible as well because of the bad taste.
My SO got a chuckle out of me because I instinctively put chocolate in the fridge. I grew up in a hot climate but I live in Canada now.
I put dark chocolate in the freezer, not for preservation or anything I just love the texture.
crystalline chocolate is the shit, then when you chew it it just sort of turns into gravel and melts, so good
Gotta give the lead some fridge time too
Wait, yeah I guess it does make sense that people living in cold climates wouldn't put chocolate in the fridge. TIL
I’m here for crunchy chocolate. Also really depends on what season for Canada definitely can get toasty.
I know i'm not the only one prefering chocolate refrigerated (and some variants frozen). Not the creamy type for me.
Lindt with nuts is way crunchier in the freezer.
I keep Reese's peanut butter cup minis in the freezer when family sends them (not for sale in Japan currently). My wife likes Alfort which are chocolate + biscuit cookies and turned me on to putting those in the freezer. Somehow, it's much better that way; I didn't expect the biscuit to be changed or, if so, certainly not better, but it is.
Mine refuse to refrigerate cheese (other than cream-cheese) and butter. Infuriates me as it gets super oily and rancid real fast.
One of my wife's friends got persistently sick last year. She just could not get better. Sometimes she'd be fine for a week or two, but then she'd get sick again. Eventually it came down to her needing to document everything she did each day - and they discovered she was getting sick from warm butter.
Turns out her mom had come over at some point and saw that she refrigerated butter and said "you don't need to do that, it's so much easier to use when warm and it doesn't go bad." Yeah, that's the case if you eat a stick of butter in a few short days. But you can't leave it out for more than that or it starts getting filled with all sorts of germs.
For the last few years, I've been using butter I leave out in a covered butter dish on the counter since I learned that's fine. It's always been a stick of salted butter which I typically finish within 2-3 weeks and that's never caused any problems. I wonder if it being unsalted would really change things that much...
I've been made fun of for thinking butter tastes/feels off after sitting out on the counter, but it absolutely does. If you want soft butter, take it out like an hour before or soften it with heat and whip it back into a homogeneous mixture. I usually cut a pad and melt it on top of whatever I'm making before spreading it. Anything but leaving it on the counter to go bad...
Cheese is a weird one though. Definitely refrigerate cheese.
My SO is a counter butter er. I've told her it's grow but she won't listen. She gets her own butter now.
Yeah, butter changes color too. Something happens if it turns soft.
I do this with Colby cheese. mmmm, greasy cheese
If I don't put my bread in the fridge, it's moldy within a week. It's all meant to be toasted anyway.
Clean your cupboards. Mold spores can remain on surfaces for months. Give everything a good wipe-down with some cleaning spray or vinegar solution and then leave the cabinets open to dry out well. And do it again anytime food gets moldy.
Packaged bread should last more than a week, but fresh bread is meant to be eaten within a few days, if not the same day.
Greatly depends on your country. Dutch bread is very fresh when bought with little to no preservatives. So we freeze our bread, like 90%of us, cuz it will mold in the fridge after like 4 or 5 days if not sooner.
I'm guessing you don't live somewhere with high heat & humidity, or if you do you run your AC a lot. We keep bread on the counter and in the fridge but not all bread is equally resistant to mold, even some packaged bread. In the winter it's a lot more forgiving. Also we just open the windows and run fans quite a bit in the summer.
Naw, I'm too lazy for that.
I've gotten some bread with no preservatives and it went in a couple days
Mine didn't refrigerate bread when I was growing up, but I do now. There are less people in the house so the bread stays around longer.
My suggestion would be to freeze half a loaf and pull it out when needed. Bread thaws quite well and it doesn't get stale that way.
I didn’t learn this til recently. My bread use to spoil after a week. Now I just keep it in the freezer and toast it when I want to use it. Comes out perfect every time.
Slice it first and you can then fetch a slice from the freezer and pop it into the toaster, easy peasy hot bread in the morning.
That's what I do. buy baguettes for the entire week at once, then freeze most of it, thawing what's needed every day.
Refrigerated bread goes stale faster.
But not moldy, which is dangerous as opposed to inconvenient.
Can always throw the bread in the microwave for 10-15 seconds to give it some life anyways.
It goes stale faster, but molds slower. If it molds before you can use it, then staleness isn’t the issue.
I don't eat it fast enough to not get mold.
It's worked fine for me so far.
I didn't used to refrigerate bread but living in Seattle bread here can mold in like 2 days. It all lives in the fridge now to give it a fighting chance
I basically just go by whether or not it was refrigerated in the supermarket. However, once it's opened I mostly throw everything in there except for dry stuff.
Good general rule. Only exception I can think of is there are a few fruits they'll refrigerate in the back and then often display at room temp, since a few hours at room temp doesn't hurt them much. Apples, oranges, stuff like that.
products with any sort of packaging also say how they should be stores pre and post-opening, e.g. canned goods are generally fine to keep in a cupboard until opened where they then need to be in the fridge.
There are a lot of things sold unrefrigersted that need to refrigerated after opening. Like every jar of spaghetti sauce I've ever bought.
I've lived on my own for a while and I freeze everything I can. Nothing lasts long enough unless it's frozen or shelf safe.
This does mean I get a lot of my fruits in smoothie form.
I'm lucky most vegan things last longer than the non-vegan things I grew up with.
I'm vegan too, and God bless how long our food lasts.
I'm so confused right now. We aren't completely vegan but we mostly cook vegan at home. But like, that's the majority of the stuff that goes bad? All the fresh vegetables and fruit? Vegan spreads, milks and yogurts go bad just as fast as dairy ones. I have the feeling oat milk goes bad faster than homogenized cow milk. Eggs never go bad. I hardly remember ever tossing a piece of meat or fish, but hell whenever I have to buy a 2 kg sack of carrots because it is just so much cheaper than 700g of carrots and 1/2 of it goes bad (and it's still cheaper) or I buy a perfect bell pepper just to open it to find mold or that brown stuff in avocado or I buy organic lemons and they are 2/3 moldy the next day I can't even... I have a special storage thing for potatoes and they still go bad occasionally. Yesterday garlic from the store was half rotten. Or when you didn't notice a tomato got a hit in your bag and that injury proceeds to mold... Or when your kid tossed the apples on the floor and they all develop bruises faster than you can eat them all and they just aren't that tasty anymore... We are trying our best to go to the store for fresh stuff daily but I feel like it is still a fight against nature.
So for real, what are you guys talking about? Absolutely no offense, I am genuinely curious why our experiences differ so vastly.
Fruits from warm climates on the other hand, take cold damage and go bad sooner in 4°C.
I have an slightly odd one that I do myself: Carrots in a water filled container (in the fridge). That way they last really long and you don't get that limpy half-dried version after a while that is hard to remove the peel off. They basically stay as if fresh from the store or garden.
I don't know why but I feel like anything in water would spoil faster....but I have no evidence or even a theory as to why this might be. Perhaps you, keeper of the water carrots, could enlighten me as to why they keep longer?
Works even better for celery.
My mom recently taught my wife something similar. Now we keep them in a plastic container with paper towels between each carrot. The paper towels are moist, but I'm not sure if she wet them or if they collected it from the carrots. But the carrots are really fresh even after a couple of weeks in the fridge.
I assumed it would be enough if the container was just 1/4-1/3 full, when I have space I also do that, I'll try a full on water container next time. Btw that's also a great way if you have chopped carrot sticks, they stay fresh for the next day(s). I think this works with all root vegetables since, well, it's roots that are meant to take in water and transport it
I don't know whether this works in a horizontal position actually, I always assumed smth smth gravity, but on the other hand, when you fully immerse them then gravity can probably go out the window.
Yes, horizontal works. My family always stored in water vertically, but my in-laws did that horizontally. Aside from joke wars, it was the same
I have never had that issue with my carrots and they last for months in the fridge.
Mine start to wilt within three days for some reason (in the fridge). I wonder what I am doing wrong. I always see those bags of carrots in the grocery stores and never buy them because I think to myself no one eats that many carrots within such a short amount of time, except maybe if they are doing a carrot cake or smoothie or something else very carrot-centric.
"Only white people put ketchup in the fridge." - my Mexican roommate
Personally, I refrigerate anything that says Refrigerate after opening. Even if it's preceded by For best results. Ketchup falls into that category.
Ketchup belongs in the fridge, to cut the heat. Otherwise it's too spicy.
There’s two very distinct brands of white people: The “I like boiled meats because browning it makes it too spicy” brand, and the “if it’s not making me cry and shit bloody fire, it’s too bland” brand. There is no in between.
Wat. Tomatoes are spicy?
I'm laughing way too hard at this thank you
I always had ketchup in the fridge because it gives the mustard company.
I like the temperature contrast between cold ketchup and hot food so mine is in the fridge.
The best before date is based on it being refrigerated and the reason why we do it is to slow bacteria multiplication to a crawl
Growing up, our ketchup came in plastic bottles with that little aluminum seal between the nozzle and the bottle. Our rule was it stayed in the pantry until the seal came off, then it went in the fridge.
To your roommate's credit, we are "my brother got sunburns in winter" white.
Ketchup is for kids. Fight me
Ketchup is pretty meh to me and my opinion is that, for the most part, anything you put ketchup on is just going to taste like ketchup. So my rule of thumb is that if its dry as fuck or tastes worse that ketchup, add ketchup. Otherwise don't cause it's just going to make it taste worse.
Gatekeeping is dumb though, but I appreciate your desire for a pointless argument.
That's why I dip my fries in tomato soup
Batteries.
I read that in the 90s and having burned through thousands of batteries to power my Gameboy, i would have done anything to get more juice.
You could have literally told me that kissing the battery before you tuck it into the Gameboy slot gave 3% more juice and I would have did it.
This reminded me of another one that probably nobody does anymore: photographic film rolls.
Cooling down batteries literally saps their charge. Because there's less energy in the battery. You can gently warm up batteries to give them some extra charge.
The internet says that's not true (edit: at least for alkaline batteries, but for LiPo batteries I think you're right). It sounds like condensation is the main issue, so theoretically you might get a slight improvement if you put them in the fridge inside a plastic bag along with some desiccant.
Got it, to the microwave we must march lads!
Americans: Eggs
Europeans: WTF?That's because in America we're so concerned about contaminants on shells that we clean all the protection off the outside, making the shells porous enough for bacteria to get through. Store-bought eggs in the US so have to be refrigerated.
This is because of a difference in food safety standards. When eggs are laid, they’re covered in something called bloom. It’s a slimy coating which the chicken produces. It’s full of good bacteria, and it protects the eggs and prevents them from spoiling. So Europeans buy eggs with the bloom on them, and don’t need to refrigerate their eggs.
But in America, the Food and Drug Administration has strict regulations regarding animal poop near food. Namely, you can’t have animal poop near your food. Full stop, with very few exceptions. And since chickens poop out of the same hole they lay eggs from, part of the bloom is, in fact, chicken poop. So eggs in America have to be washed, to remove that chicken poop before they can be sold. But this also removes the bloom, meaning the eggs are unprotected and need to be refrigerated.
I don't eat eggs but my spouse does store them on the counter. Fresh farm eggs don't need refrigerators.
I was told that they last the longest if kept out of the fridge the first week or so and afterwards you should put them in a fridge. And for some reason if they are already refrigerated they need to stay refrigerated no matter how old. No idea if there is a scientific basis to it, but it sounds at least plausible that there is.
And for some reason if they are already refrigerated they need to stay refrigerated no matter how old.
It has to do with washing. Eggs, fresh from a chicken's poophole, have a protective layer around them that allows you to store them at room temperature. If you wash them though, the protective layer disappears and the egg shell becomes porous, and as a result you need to refrigerate them. If you buy eggs that are already refrigerated, they are likely refrigerated because they have been washed, so you should keep them refrigerated as well.
I am American but I buy my eggs from a local farm, where they do not do more than a light wash with water. No fridge for those.
My mother, for years, has frozen bread and then defrosted it two pieces at a time in the microwave.
If you've ever seen the Albert Brooks movie Mother, that's her. She even said it was her when she saw it. She's even started writing novels in her old age after wanting to be a writer when she was a kid.
My parents didn't just refrigerate bread. They stuck excess bread in the fucking freezer.
Edit: guess I've been sleeping on the freezer bread thing. Y'all seem pretty sold on the concept.
I used to live in the tropics.
This is standard. Half the bread goes in the freezer immediately.
When you finish the first half, move the frozen bread into the fridge.
Refrigerated bread is good once you get used to it.
Juuust skip that fridge step. Take slices out the freezer when you wake up. Slices thaw by the time your morning ritual is done and you're ready for brekky. If toasting anyways, don't even really need to wait for thaw. No stale fridge taste you need to get used to.
This thread kills me, so many people eating stale-ass bread. :c
Been freezing bread for years as I don't eat it fast enough.
Quick 30s zap in the microwave and it's warm and soft and ready for sandwiches
That works well for toast that you only ever plan to eat toasted.
The freezer does keep bread fresher longer (as long as you aren’t storing it in a self defrosting freezer long enough to get freezer burn). It literally freezes the staling process. And fridging bread actually accelerates staling. Something to do with water molecules getting squeezed out of starch molecules or something; I don’t remember the details.
I love hitting these threads a few hours late
"The sickos were FREEZING bread! UPDATE: I have since seen the error of my ways and apologized to my parents and thrown all bread I own into the freezer, and discarded any notion of leaving bread out"
When I bake bread I usually freeze half but thaw it when I need it because fresh bread goes bad fast.
Clearance rack bread.
My grandparents do that. I leave it on the counter, but always say I'm going to freeze it, especially if I get it at costco, which sells you 2 loafs at a time. The only problem is I never have enough room to shove an entire loaf of bread in there. Freezer for bread is fine. If you pull out a few slices, it basically defrosts in like 10 min or use microwave for 10 seconds, and if you wanted toast, just toast it.
I just threw out an entire loaf because it was on my counter for 5 days and saw mold... must be the type of bread as well since it normally lasts weeks just fine. Since I'm always buying what's near the cheapest that's on sale I am always buying different brands.
My parents didn’t just refrigerate bread. They stuck excess bread in the fucking freezer.
My parents did that too, and they're the reason why I don't do that, because I grew up despising thawed bread.
We do that with sandwich bread because it is cheaper to buy a double loaf pack and the freezer keeps it fresh until the second one is needed with zero noticeable difference in taste and texture.
I'm kinda intimidated by this whole thread. I'm scared to mention that I really hate thawed bread (I tried room temp, microwave, oven and toaster). (I even tried different freezers.) If I buy bread, then it's either the very smallest amount at the bakery when I really feel like good bread, or just a bun, or supermarket bread with preservatives. But mostly I just live a bread free life.
Fresh baked bread without a ton of preservatives only lasts four or five days if you don't freeze it.
It's much better than putting it into the fridge
Jars of stuff which expired years or even decades ago. They still do.
My parents (and grandparents, I think) used to put batteries in the fridge. I did too, until I learned that it’s not a good thing to do. Something about the humidity.
I do freeze bread. Mainly because the bread I can eat (gluten free) is expensive and not easy to get in the size I like (there are sizes!), so I buy multiple and freeze the excess. I also freeze my ground coffee (I really should start grinding my own; with the horror stories I’ve heard about pre ground…). I do refrigerate butter, jelly, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and hot sauce.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I got a cheap [electric] burr grinder a while back ($40 I think?) and it's a wonderful thing. Being able to choose your grind to your own taste is a wonderful thing.
Edit: If you're on the fence, you can get an even cheaper ($10) hand burr grinder to see if you like it. Definitely worth a try.
WhoTF is not refrigerating mayonnaise?
Ah, about ground coffee.
Summary: a fatty substance containing cafestol (raises LDL cholesterol only in humans) gets hold back by paper filters but not by French press, Turkish and boiled coffees, or coffees using mesh filters.
This I knew. It should also be noted that when you use anything other than a paper filter (those reusable brass mesh ones), then you risk higher ldl cholesterol; not just French presses.
I'm on a keto diet right now, and while keto bread is an amazing innovation that's made it much easier than the last time I did this, I have to keep that shit in the freezer because it seems to get moldy a lot faster than normal bread, often well before the expiration date.
My grandparents would throw dying batteries in the freezer. They swore they’d get “more juice” out of them that way. No idea if it actually did anything.
I was told to warm them up to get the last bits of juice out of them while camping. Wonder which it is?
That sounds like a great way to make stale bread…
Things we refrigerated that I’ve seen others not refrigerate:
- jelly(US)
- ketchup
- mustard
Things we didn’t refrigerate that I’ve seen others do:
- peanut butter
- honey
- oil
- soy sauce
- oyster sauce
Edit: Just to clarify this is what my parents did and doesn’t reflect my adult opinions.
My soy and fish/oyster all say to refrigerate right on the label.
Since they already made the shit I'm ingesting, I'm taking their word for it.
High salt/vinegar content condiments are perfectly fine at room temp for a weeks to months in dry to mostly dry moderate temp climates. That is why air conditioned restaurants which have consistent temps and low humidity leave them out on the tables.
The label is there so someone in Florida doesn't have it go bad in a couple months on their counter. Plus refrigeration extends the time it can go without spoiling, which is great for condiments that are rarely used.
I like my ketchup refrigerated, not because it has to be, but because I like the contrast between cold ketchup and hot food.
…the reason jelly/jam/preserves are canned is because they are not shelf stable otherwise. I just threw out a jar because it molded in the fridge…
Peanut butter is shelf stable, but we usually get the stuff that’s just peanuts and salt, so it separates at room temp.
Mustard, ketchup, & soy/fish sauce… sometimes it’s just convenient to keep most of my bottles and jars together in the fridge door.
I’m hypersensitive to rancid oil. Also the healthy parts of olive oil & fish oil degrade with time, heat, sun and oxygen exposure. The fridge slows this down. That said, I keep my cooking oil under the counter.
Omigod honey.
Ours always crystallized and needed to be microwaved or soaked in hot water anyway so it’s kind of a 6 of one; 1/2 dozen of the other situation in my experience.
If I put oil in the fridge it gets solid
Same for honey, as cold accelerate the crystallization process.
Peanut butter is basically oil already, but putting it in the fridge might help keeping it less oily. I eat organic 100% peanut butter and it is often oily when I open it. I think that’s why some have palm oil in it.
Soy sauce should be salty enough to store out the fridge but I prefer to keep it in the fridge for some reason.
Oyster sauce contains sea food, so straight in the fridge!
I used to buy a lot of """"natural"""" peanut butter. The kind in glass jars that separates after a while, so you have to stir the jar every time you use it. After a while, I started keeping it in the refrigerator because that stopped it from separating at all. Just stir once when opening the jar for the first time, then into the refrigerator it goes, and it never needs stirring again.
I'd be remiss if I didn't post this every time someone mentions palm oil.
Oyster sauce should be kept in the fridge, it helps it oxidize slower.
If it's in a sealed plastic bag it doesn't go stale until long after it would have molded on the counter. I refrigerate mine because I buy Costco sized sliced bread and it takes me 2 months to go through it. If you toast your bread, the staleness is unnoticeable
A lot of these things only need to be refrigerated to preserve flavor, not to stop spoilage. If you go through a bottle of ketchup in 3 months there is little benefit to refrigerating it, if it takes 3 years for you to finish it, it should probably stay in the fridge.
Some peanut butter brands require refrigeration to prevent mould. Others recommend it because it stops the oils from separating. Brands like Kraft don't require any refrigeration at all
Refrigerating oil will stop it from going rancid, but I've only ever needed to do this with used deep frier oil
Honey is just a hell no in the fridge
The Costco bagels are notorious for molding before you even get home…
Honey depends on the quality. Real honey will basically never turn bad (they found containers with thousand year old still edible honey), but the cheap stuff is sometimes mixed with sugar syrup etc. and then it needs refrigeration.
Sugar is also a preservative though.
The refrigeration is either to extend flavor or to prevent spoilage in hot and humid locations where mold can build on the parts of the container that dry out if it isn't used often.
I'm with you, but the first three only after they've been opened.
The unrefrigerated jelly is the only one that bugs me.
I actually switched my peanut butter stance as an adult, but only because I switched to real peanut butter and it separates slower in the fridge.
peanut butter
This one absolutely turns on what kind of peanut butter you have. Jif/Skippy etc. shouldn't go into the fridge. It was engineered, for better or worse, to be shelf stable and turns into silly putty if it's cold. Most "Real" peanut butter separates like a mofo if it's in the pantry, requiring frequent stirring, and many recipes will never quite be solid enough to spread well. In the fridge, they are much easier to deal with, though my latchkey Xennial ass still prefers the wondrous combination of peanut-inspired substances and mid-century food science.
Peanut butter.
Why.
If you use "natural" or "organic" peanut butter (read, ingredients: peanuts) you'll want to refrigerate it. It helps keep the oil from separating. It'll be the consistency of jiff or other sugared brands for most of the jar. I usually take mine out of the fridge when you get towards the bottom so it doesn't get too hard.
I seem to be one of the very few people in the world who actually enjoys the ritual of stirring the oil back into the peanut butter.
Oh damn! I've been a fool this whole time, Teddy's here I come again!
Yeah I've primarily had JIF creamy peanut butter... no reason in the world why my mother needed to put it into the fridge. I would have to take it out the fridge and wait a few hours before using it.
If it's the more natural kind it can go rancid if you don't eat it fairly quickly. If it's peanut butter flavored frosting like Jiff then it doesn't matter really
The original patent for peanut butter (literally called peanut-candy) specified the peanut paste is mixed with sugar. So Jif is legitimate peanut butter even though you want to be snarky about its sugar content.
I have peanut butter in the fridge. I hate PB and it's only used for my dogs kong. Fridge firms it up and keeps the oil from separating. Much easier to work with than when it's room temp and runny.
So what do they do, chip it out of the jar and microwave it so it can be spread?
I've seen this but never investigated the logistics of consuming peanut butter that's hard as a rock.
I grew up with PB in the cupboard. *Never *had a problem with it. My wife on the other hand, PB goes in the fridge. She swears it tastes bad if it's not kept in the fridge. Other than taking up more space, I'm not going to argue with the person that is most likely to eat the stuff.
Doesn't it turn into concrete when cold? I can't imagine trying to spread cold peanut butter onto bread.
That's bonkers.
Bananas. You shouldn't.
Refrigerating bananas pretty much stops them ripening, so if you have some fully yellow bananas you can pop then in the fridge and it will stop them from over ripening for a few days. The peel will still go brown but the flesh remains as it was when you put them in. You definitely shouldn't put green bananas in the fridge, but with yellows it buys you some time.
Lotions and meds
Medication will tell you if it needs to be kept in the fridge, probably best follow the instructions!
By lotion do you mean like moisturiser? I imagine that's just because it's nicer to apply it cold if it's a hot day (or you're sunburned).
Vanilla extract.
what the fuck
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Hmm. That's interesting, how come?
I make homemade ice cream and it can help to have the ingredients cold to begin with so you don't have to chill the base before you churn it. But there's not enough vanilla extract in ice cream (or probably anything) to even make a temperature difference so idk why anyone would refrigerate it.
I heard Australians put cereal in the fridge because of bugs
Oh yeah 😱 In some places in the tropics really only the fridge is safe from ants getting into everything otherwise. They bite their way through regular plastic bags no problem.
I'm from Oz and I feel like I wasn't informed of this knowledge. Maybe I've been eating bugs this whole time.
Most cereals have a plastic bag inside to contain the contents. Maybe people don't seal it properly and it let's in little nasty creepy crawly-ses.
Sorry had to make the Oz joke
Hmm that would also make sense.
Slightly related but there used to be things called bread boxes. I think it was to keep mice from eating your bread.
And not just mice. If designed correctly, they would help keeping the correct humidity so the bread neither gets too dry (and solid) nor too humid (and moldy)
I did this when I lived in a cheap apartment in Houston, Texas, USA. Cheap and sturdy, but we definitely had bugs.
I'm in the US and I do this after living in some questionable apartments over the years.
Paint brushes and rollers.
They lose their flavor pretty quickly if you keep them on the counter.
LOL 😂
One of mom’s friends kept on getting sick, turned out it was moldy paintbrushes the whole time…
10 seconds in the microwave brings the flavor back.
Too lazy to just store them in sealed plastic bags?
Wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer.
We kept milk in the freezer.
Madness
Eggs. Hot sauce. Ketchup. Soy sauce. Pickles. Kimchi. Mustard. Sriracha. Olives.
Ketchup needs to be refrigerated because it's a cooling fluid for boiling lava hot potatoes.
Hot sauce collector here, heaps of sauces specify they need to be refrigerated after opening.
Wait people leave kimchi out of the fridge?
Putting it in the fridge slows the fermentation process to trap the right flavor. Otherwise it's a bit TOO kimchi-y and not so tasty.
I can see it with eggs, if you don't wash eggs they're shelf stable for a couple weeks because of a natural coating. I was super confused when I went to the UK and all the eggs were on a shelf at the supermarket instead of in a cooler.
Yep. Definitely refrigerate eggs in the U.S.
If it is not salt fermented pickles but rather those pickled in vinegar, it is good to put them in the fridge after opening the glass.
Camera film
I'm fine with refrigirating bread just to not let it try
Fridge my bread to keep it good a week plus longer. gets a lil stale but toaster fixes that
Well... a lot but we live in the desert so peanutbutter isn't shelf stable otherwise
Batteries
When I see bread in the fridge I assume the people have mice
Only ever did it for mold reasons. I don't like refrigerated bread because refrigeration sucks the moisture out. If i'm going away for the weekend though and i've got a loaf and it's gonna be a hot weekend i'm certainly going to store the bread in the fridge.
When I buy half a bread I don't put it in the freezer but sometimes I put it in the refrigerator because my apartment gets really warm.
We don't have mice but put it in there because the humidity will cause it to spoil fast.
