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I am definitely an offender! This new list came out of foods you shouldn’t store in your fridge…but there’s a good chance you are. Tomatoes, bananas, avocados, bread, coffee, and melons, unless they’re cut up. Now that you’re wondering…. ‘what’?? Here’s the ‘why’.

1. Tomatoes, bananas, and avocados. The refrigerator DOES keep them from going bad. But it also prevents them from ripening, which kills the flavor. So just keep them at room temperature, and don’t buy them in bulk.

2. Potatoes. The starch starts turning into sugar when they’re in the fridge. Which messes with the texture, and makes them taste sweeter than they should.

3. Bread. It actually gets moldy FASTER in the fridge. And the starch crystalizes from the cold, so it gets stale faster too.

4. Olive oil and vegetable oil. They stay good for a long time, so there’s no reason to refrigerate them. And keeping it in the fridge makes them thicken up, so they’re harder to cook with. Which is also why you shouldn’t keep honey in the fridge.

5. Coffee. It loses some of its flavor in the fridge. And it slowly absorbs the smells of OTHER stuff in there, so it doesn’t taste right.

6. Cantaloupe and melons, until they’re cut up. Keeping whole melons at room temperature actually preserves the antioxidants better.

Now I have to go home and clean out the fridge! Oh wait. Nevermind. It’s empty.

-Shelly