Do you store tomatoes in the fridge?

Cinisajoy said:
I am 200 feet above you in elevation. Our trees are mesquite and scrub oak. Within an hour of us, there are 4 different colors of sand.
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That sounds wonderful. We have very little soil where we are, mostly it is bare rock and quite sandy. The areas that have a touch of soil are basically the woodland where it has formed and been held there by the trees. We have a touch of pine in amongst the native eucalyptus (also called red hardwood gum because when the beetles drill into them, they exude a deep red gum that fills the holes, or drips onto the floor! - it looks like the tree is bleeding tbh!) There are a few other tree types but they only grow along the creeks where the soil is (it has been washed down there and forms a mini flood plane (the sort of thing I am talking about is 10-50m wide if that and in places not at all)). There are photos in the café somewhere in a thread about the view from your internet access...

Here we are... https://www.cookingbites.com/threads/the-view-from-my-internet-access.7511/
Obviously it has gone green since they were taken. I might add some more to update it. It could be interesting to document it through the seasons... and my veg plot is very visible from one of the places I sit and use for internet access... later today perhaps
 
Cinisajoy said:
I am allergic to eucalyptus
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That's a new allergy to me!

mind you at the moment I am living with a runny nose and a pocket full of tissues... I suspect it is hayfever because I have never experienced any of these Australian flowers in flower before and I know I always had issues in May in the UK (May was the worst month for me, and I always got chest infections as a result of not being able to clear the mucus from my nose and throat etc).
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
  1. tomatoes - not until they are very ripe.
  2. bread - never
  3. onions - sometimes - depends on storage space
  4. avocados - only when ripe and I don't want them to spoil
  5. Basil - never
  6. Marmite - vegemite here and it is stored in the fridge simply for convenience next to the other sandwich material
  7. Cake - can't eat it, so never
  8. ketchup - not allowed in the house!
  9. Bananas - never, they don't last that long here to get ripe (come summer this may change but...)
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"Huffington Post" adds potatoes, garlic, olive oil, coffee and honey to that list, none of which I store in the fridge, by the way.
 
This is another list I came across recently. All the foods that are listed should NOT be kept in the fridge (according to "Healthy Leo"). The ticks are specific to us and our habits (N/A signifies either we don't eat it or we eat it immediately):

food in the fridge lsc.jpg
 
Yorky said:
"Huffington Post" adds potatoes, garlic, olive oil, coffee and honey to that list, none of which I store in the fridge, by the way.
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Interesting.
Potatoes I do keep in the fridge. That way they don't go greetings me. But I'm about the make some Hessian sacks up for onions and potatoes (separately) so that I can dig up my potatoes from the garden.
Garlic, olive oil, coffee and honey I would never store in the fridge. Though I thought I recalled being advised to store freshly ground coffee beans in the fridge once the packet was opened or if you'd just ground them yourself. But not drinking coffee from coffee beans, it's not a problem!
 
Yorky said:
This is another list I came across recently. All the foods that are listed should NOT be kept in the fridge (according to "Healthy Leo"). The ticks are specific to us and our habits (N/A signifies either we don't eat it or we eat it immediately):

View attachment 5705
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You must have a gigantic fridge to keep all that stuff in it!
 
Now scientists have figured out why: It's because some of their genes chill out, says a study that may help solve that problem.

Cooling tomatoes below 54 degrees stops them from making some of the substances that contribute to their taste, according to researchers who dug into the genetic roots of the problem.

That robs the fruit of flavor, whether it happens in a home refrigerator or in cold storage before the produce reaches the grocery shelf, they said.

With the new detailed knowledge of how that happens, "maybe we can breed tomatoes to change that," said researcher Denise Tieman of the University of Florida in Gainesville.

She and colleagues there, in China and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, report their findings in a paper published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They showed that after seven days of storage at 39 degrees, tomatoes lost some of their supply of substances that produce their characteristic aroma, which is a key part of their flavor. Three days of sitting at room temperature didn't remedy that, and a taste test by 76 people confirmed the chilled tomatoes weren't as good as fresh fruit.

Tomatoes stored for just one or three days didn't lose their aroma substances.

Further research showed that the prolonged chilling reduced the activity of certain genes that make those compounds, Tieman said.

Her lab is already looking into the possibility of breeding tomatoes that don't lose flavor in the cold, she said.

In the meantime, "Just leave them out on the counter, or leave them in a shaded area, something like that," said Banscher, whose farm is in Gloucester County. "A tomato has a decent shelf life."



https://phys.org/news/2016-10-tomatoes-flavor-fridge-genes-chill.html

For the more scientific approach
Chilling-induced tomato flavor loss is associated with altered volatile synthesis and transient changes in DNA methylation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1613910113
 
The only time we refrigerate tomatoes is when the garden was producing more than we could eat or give away.

Garlic, onions, and potatoes get refrigerated of tgey start to sprout.

Honey goes in the cupboard, xame as olive oil.
 
  1. tomatoes - not until they are very ripe.
  2. bread - never. I keep my bread and biscuits in those big plastic sweet containers (the kind you usually see only at Christmas)
  3. onions - only once cut, but they are not in there for long
  4. avocados - only when ripe
  5. basil - never - I grow my own on the window sill. It dies when the weather is too cold
  6. Marmite - the only place to store Marmite is in the bin - I hate it.
  7. cake - same as bread, unless it's got fresh cream in it
  8. ketchup - not allowed in the house, but I make my own tomato sauces and they are kept in the fridge
  9. bananas - never - I can't even touch them let alone eat them
  10. garlic - never. I keep it on the window ledge, like you are supposed to.
  11. honey - never
  12. jams and marmalade, and yeast - only once opened. I find home made jams keep better than commercially made ones.
  13. olive oil - never - unless I want some olive oil spread
  14. potatoes - never
  15. ground coffee - never, it gets damp - I keep mine in the freezer
  16. pickles, sauces, and peanut butter - only once opened and then only the "quick" home made ones, otherwise they stay in the cupboard
  17. dairy - yes
  18. green veg - yes
  19. soft fruit - only once ripe
  20. meat - of course, cooked meat at the top, raw meat at the bottom
I was always told that if the supermarket doesn't keep it in the chill cabinet or freezer, then you don't need to. For some food items, a cold stone floor is better than the fridge.
 
Elawin said:
For some food items, a cold stone floor is better than the fridge.
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Not something we have here (37degC today).

One of the main reasons that we keep certain foods in the fridge is to keep the ants at bay.
 
Yorky said:
Not something we have here (37degC today).

One of the main reasons that we keep certain foods in the fridge is to keep the ants at bay.
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I get ants in the kitchen too in hot weather but I expect your ants are bigger than our ants :)

The worst problems I ever had storing food was when I lived in a block of flats. We used to get mice - on the 8th floor!!! Needless to say I kept a very efficient mouse trap (my first cat)!
 
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Elawin said:
I get ants in the kitchen too in hot weather but I expect your ants are bigger than our ants :)
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Actually we do have some very big red ones (which can give you a nasty bite). The Thais cook those. However, they tend to stay outside. Inside we get the really tiny ones which appear to be able to get into any sealed food container.
 
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