How to efficiently store food in your refrigerator

Many find it easy to store food in the refrigerator, that too, in vessels, in which the dish has been cooked. Keep these tips in mind before storing cooked food in the fridge.

Instead of storing the entire dish in a single vessel, distribute it in small portions before keeping it in the fridge. It helps the food to get cooled quicker. The bacteria spread rapidly if the food takes long to get cooled.

Uncooked fish and meat should be stored in the freezer. Cover them well before refrigerating. Else the moisture from it will be lost, which hardens it and makes it unfit for consumption.

It is not healthy to defreeze the fish or meat by leaving it open in the room temperature or soaking them in hot water. The fish or meat should be transferred to the fridge section of the refrigerator the previous night itself. However, such food should be used within a day itself. Do not freeze it again.

The temperature inside the refrigerator should be below 5°C. It is said that hot food shouldn't be kept inside the fridge as it may alter the temperature that is already set. The refrigerator door shouldn't be opened frequently.

Cooked food should be re heated and used within three days. Food should be re heated well until steam comes off it. Else it would lead to bacterial infections. Food items which are re heated shouldn't be refrigerated again.

Refrigerator should be cleaned once in at least one or two weeks. Take out all the vessels and dishes and wipe the stands and sections well. Home-made cleaning solutions made by mixing vinegar and water or baking soda or water could be used to clean the fridge.