The wrong habits make the refrigerator a disease

The refrigerator is a place for families to store food, helping to keep food fresh. However, if you do not know how to use it, users accidentally turn the refrigerator into a disease, degenerate food and cause harm to human health.

Assoc. TS. Nguyen Duy Thinh said that “Keeping food in the refrigerator is just a way to inhibit the growth of bacteria. Making their reproduction and development slow down, but not able to kill bacteria ”. However, the seemingly harmless habits of housewives when storing food in the refrigerator not only lose the nutrition of the food, but also create many bacteria in their own refrigerator.

Here are a few habits that turn the refrigerator into a place for bacteria.

1. Incorrectly storing or freezing food

As recommended by Associate Professor Thinh, food should not be frozen again after being taken out of the freezer. When thawed, the released bacteria were released to multiply and grow very rapidly. If frozen back to the cabinet, bacteria will continue to increase in numbers that can cause acute poisoning and some other diseases for the body.

Along with that, Dr. Dzoãn Thị Tường Vi (Institute of Clinical Nutrition) also informed about the principle of safe food preservation, after the slaughter of poultry and cattle is finished, freeze as soon as possible. Prolonged time in the environment will create conditions for bacteria to grow.

Note, do not leave food in the refrigerator for too long because nutrients can be damaged. Families should only buy the best amount of food stored in the cupboard a week.

For green vegetables, the storage time should only be 3-4 days. Green vegetables left in the refrigerator for a long time will lose vitamins and minerals, reducing nutritional value.

2. Use plastic bags to store food in the freezer

According to Assoc. TS. Nguyen Duy Thinh, in Vietnam, regular nylon bags are made from recycled plastics. Therefore, it does not ensure hygiene and safety when storing raw food, causing a lot of risk of lead and cadium contamination ... Using nylon bags to wrap and wrap food in general will lead to the possibility of contamination. Poisoning in food, harmful to health when we absorb it into the body ”.

There is a common mistake housewives make is to take advantage of plastic food bags when bought at the market. It is this process that makes the bacteria more attached to the food. In addition, we should store food in enough bags for each meal, to avoid thawing the whole food, but only cut it to eat a little and then freeze again. With food, though frozen, dead staphylococcus toxins soaked into food, when cooked can still cause poisoning.

3. Do not clean the food

Master and doctor Dzoãn Thị Tường Vi (Institute of Clinical Nutrition) also said that the process of slaughtering cattle, transporting and selling to consumers, food is susceptible to bacteria. Failure to clean it before storing it in the refrigerator will spread bacteria to other foods and stick to the refrigerator.

4. Put food together

This is the recommendation of MSc Le Thi Hai - former Director of Nutrition Consulting Center, National Institute of Nutrition, giving recommendations.

- Food arrangement: How to arrange food in the refrigerator is also very important. Raw fish and meat are required to prevent ice. In the cooler, food is cooked, but before storing them, remember to reheat, then let it cool, then put in the refrigerator.

- Food to be preserved must have a lid and cover carefully.

- Do not mix raw and cooked food because it can cross-contamination.

- Food in the cooler must be re-cooked and must not be eaten immediately.

5. Leave the eggs on the wings

According to research, you should not leave eggs in the egg trays on the wings as this is a place where the temperature is higher than elsewhere in the cabinet. According to British experts, eggs should be refrigerated and kept in the middle shelf at the right temperature (0.6-2.2 degrees C) so that the bacteria in the eggshell will not have a chance to enter. Eggs cause cancer and damage to eggs. Ideally, eggs should be placed in specialized cardboard boxes and stored in the upper compartments.

6. Open the refrigerator for too long

This is one of the reasons why a refrigerator loses heat. Therefore, it will create conditions for bacteria to penetrate. Some bacteria do not stop growing in the refrigerator, so they can be a source of food poisoning such as listeria (which causes cold-like symptoms, more severe infections of the blood or meningitis) that can develop in Temperatures from -1oC to 4oC and usually exist in foods such as soft cheese, meat, fish ...

7. Do not clean the refrigerator

Containing too much food in the refrigerator, making the refrigerated air not circulating, will limit food storage.

Need to clean, clean the refrigerator at least 1 time / week.