Cooking ahead of time and keeping leftovers is a great way to save time and money down the road, but you could be making your fridge work harder than it needs to. Here’s why you should let food cool off first.
Photos by Osseus.
The inside of a refrigerator is a delicate environment that’s more susceptible to temperature fluctuations than you might realise. Suzanne Raga at Mental Floss explains that radiant heat from hot leftovers can dramatically raise the temperature inside the fridge, making the compressor work harder to cool the fridge back down to its preset. This is especially true for older and smaller refrigerators. If you want to keep your fridge running efficiently, let your food cool down to room temperature before you store it. Just make sure you remember the 2:4 rule to store and enjoy your leftovers safely.
7 Tips for Keeping Your Refrigerator Running Efficiently [Mental Floss]
Comments
6 responses to “Maximise A Fridge’s Efficiency By Letting Leftovers Cool Before Storing”
http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/basics/mistakes/
There’s always a yin to the yang. 🙂
You beat me too it.. Do you want food poisoning? Because that’s how you get food poisoning.
Wasn’t there also a Lifehacker article recently (i.e. within the last few months) that said it was a myth that you needed to let food cool before putting it in the fridge? I will have to dig for it…
Beat me to it as well
While it is inadvisable to leave food out for a long time, you can leave it for a short period to cool. Leaving it for two hours is longer than necessary – food should be adequately cool by around 30 minutes. Even if it isn’t at room temperature by then, the heat that has been lost should reduce how hard your fridge has to work.
Lifehack: Save on refrigeration costs(as well as future food bills) by leaving your food out to grow pathogenic bacteria.