Ya know, I enjoy having people ask me questions and tell me their safe practices in the kitchen. How they keep their food ‘safe’?
I was listening to a young man the other night who said his father always told him to have his food cool down before putting it in the fridge. Something about bacteria growth….
Now that made no sense to me. If you’re worried about bacteria…? Well we all know it grows in a warm, moist environment. What I’ve always done is take the food, let it cool so that it’s not piping hot, then cover it and put it onto a stand (so the heat doesn’t directly touch the shelf and crack the glass). I think that the minute it’s in the fridge, it’s headed to cool. And bacteria growth is stopped. Make sense?
MAKES SENSE CHEF!
But the story I was told says that’s not the case… that we should naturally bring it to room temperature, then put it in the fridge.
So it was time for ‘Chef Marian to the rescue’! lol I dug into the web to find the answers, cause my blog is never just about what I think. And I really saw this claim as an opportunity to do some research and expand my knowledge base.
So here I go….
An article on Chowhound has this to say, after doing some experimenting decided:
Generally put hot food directly into the fridge to get it to a safe temperature as quickly as possible.
Bacteria grows in heated food that sits…. just like I thought. They also did some testing to see if the hot food just put into the fridge affecting the food around it. No big difference. Today’s refrigeration works well enough, they say, that it can handle that task and not go into overdrive to cool it.
So that’s good.
But let’s keep researching. After all, that’s just one opinion. And we’re also worried about how hot food effects the other food in the fridge, right?
Still Tasty has this to say:
Don’t worry about overheating the fridge — as the U.S. Department of Agriculture points out, the refrigerator’s thermostat will keep it running to maintain a safe temperature of 40° F or below.
Now everybody realizes if you’re going to put a big deep pot into the fridge, you probably wanna break it up into bowls, so that it chills fast. Cause that’s the idea, right? Get it chilled fast!
Did you know that September is National Food Safety Education Month and the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE), in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture?
Fight Bac, and their effort to keep food bacteria free published this:
- Myth: You should not put hot food in the refrigerator.
Fact: Hot foods can be placed directly in the refrigerator. If you leave food out to cool and forget about it, then toss it! Bacteria grow rapidly in the “danger zone” between 40 °F and 140 °F. Always follow the “two hour rule” for cooked foods – eat them or refrigerate them within two hours at a refrigerator temperature of 40 °F or below. And, if left out in a room or outdoors where the temperature is 90 ºF or above, food should be refrigerated or eaten within just 1 hour – or discarded.
Aah ha! So this last article shows we’re both right. As long as hot food gets into a fridge within a couple of hours, it’s still good. And the real danger is? Forgetting that the food is out.
I think I’m gonna stick with ‘right into the fridge’. I can’t trust that I will remember that it’s on the counter…. Can you?
So that’s my blog about safe Practices in the kitchen.
DOES PRACTICE MAKE PERFECT CHEF MARIAN?
lol.
Yes. Practice makes perfect. Keep on cookin’!
Happy Eating,
Chef Marian