One of my roommates told me that it is hazardous to put metal in the refrigerator. Does this make sense, or should I smack him with a nicely chilled spoon spatula?
*spatula
Smack him. Have you looked in many 'fridges lately? There’s lots of metal already in there, from wire racks to hinges to icemakers. Beer cans are metal, too, in case your buddy hadn’t noticed.
What he heard was that it is hazardous to put your middle in the fridge. It can make you frigid.
'Course, there’s also the issue that some metal containers leach things into foods or otherwise react with them. There was the aluminum container and Alzheimer’s thing a few years ago (which I think got debunked). And there’s the galvanic reaction problem when you have a metal bowl with a metal spoon in it, the two being metals with different electrochemical potentials. Finally, acidic foods eat some metals.
But this would be storing food with metals, not putting metals in the fridge. The association perhaps stems from storing foods in the fridge.
correction: his original concern was more accurately about storing foods in metal containers in the fridge.
I say smack him, as you holler “CITE!”
In that case, it depends on the metal. Lead? Definitely not good. Aluminum? Maybe bad, maybe not (see Napier’s post). Stainless steel? No problem.
We were given this instruction in a professional food hygiene course I recently attended; the reasoning was that metals in contact with food can corrode and cause contamination; Personally, I think this risk is largely imaginary and I can’t for the life of me imagine why it is specifically presented as a danger in the fridge - where the temperature and therefore rate of chemical reaction is reduced.
I suppose if you left a silver-plated fork in a tin of food, there could be some kind of galvanic process from the two different metals and the food as an electrolyte, but… I dunno.
Ask him if he has seen the foil pans of lasagna at the grocery store. In the refrigerated section.
smack!
Storing tomato products, or any acid food, in aluminum containers in the fridge, or not, can cause problems. I’ve had delivery pizza eat holes in aluminum foil after two days in a fridge. Cheap, bare aluminum pots can likewise quickly become pitted.
Cast iron might have similar, if less severe, problems.
It turns out that putting the mayonnaise jar in the fridge with a (cheap silver-plated IIR) spoon in it results in a highly corroded spoon and a lot of wierd green/brown mayo, within very few days.
Also if you leave a tin can half-full for X days, you see corrosion on the inside of the can, especially at the edge of the food.
How dangerous this is I have no idea.
I think the origin of his statement is that you should not put anything acidic in aluminum containers or pans. This can result in contamination (bad).
Things that are highly acidic are best put in plastic containers.
-CynicalGabe
Former Institutional Chef and SafeServ Certifed person
It seems as well that it’s nothing to do with the refrigerator. It would happen if you were to use aluminium foil on something acidic and leave it on the kitchen table, or in the garden, or down the back of the sofa. It’s just that the fridge is where you keep this sort of thing.
In fact, the fridge probably slows the process down a bit, as most reactions like this take place more swiftly the warmer they are.
I suspect that he is confusing refrigerators & microwave ovens.
Just exactly what would happen if your food touched “corrosion” (aka a little rust)?
Anyway, my wife can’t stand when I pop open a can of chick peas, or olives and then opt to leave the leftover in the cans, covered with wrap and placed in fridge. She tells me I shouldn’t. I say, “Why?”, and then she insults me, getting off topic.
<hijack>
Never store ether in a refrigerator. At several labs, ether was stored in a refrigerator (it should be stored in a cool place) resulting in explosion when the compressor kicked on and producedd a spark. Note that explosion proof refrigerators do exist for this reason. I have also heard that banannas should not be stored in the refrigerator.
Cite: http://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/NewsAndStories/RefrigStories.htm
http://www.wardsci.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_158810_A_Explosion-Proof+Refrigeratorvetbridge, storing bananas in the refrigerator will not cause an explosion. Cite
:smack::smack::smack: Wait, I meant that storing bananas in the fridge is ok but will slow their ripening.
If it was iron rust, it would probably be good for you, although it might not taste or look nice. If it was oxides/hydroxides/salts of another metal, such as aluminium, copper or tin, it might not be so good.
I’m pretty sure that what he meant was that you shouldn’t test your mettle in the fridge: there’s no room to swing an axe in there.
So how did it taste?