Eggs. Hot sauce. Ketchup. Soy sauce. Pickles. Kimchi. Mustard. Sriracha. Olives.
Batteries. Paintbrushes.
My SO got a chuckle out of me because I instinctively put chocolate in the fridge. I grew up in a hot climate but I live in Canada now.
I know i’m not the only one prefering chocolate refrigerated (and some variants frozen). Not the creamy type for me.
Lindt with nuts is way crunchier in the freezer.
I keep Reese’s peanut butter cup minis in the freezer when family sends them (not for sale in Japan currently). My wife likes Alfort which are chocolate + biscuit cookies and turned me on to putting those in the freezer. Somehow, it’s much better that way; I didn’t expect the biscuit to be changed or, if so, certainly not better, but it is.
I’m here for crunchy chocolate. Also really depends on what season for Canada definitely can get toasty.
That’s legit though.
Even when in canada, because cold chocolate below 20°C is cronchier and doesnt melt in your hand as fast.
It changes the taste, though. Like, it’s probably not noticeable for cheap chocolate, as that tastes flat to begin with, but proper chocolate should be kept at room temperature…
It warms up and develops its taste in your mouth. Im pretty picky about chocolate quality but i still prefer the expensive ones below room temperature. Unless its like mousse ones. Maybe im just weird idk.
There are certain chocolates I won’t buy in the summer, because above 25 degrees they get spongy and below 15 degrees they are flat and hard. I think it’s why most drugstore chocolate in the U.S. tastes like cocoa scented candle wax. It has to withstand the heat.
False. All chocolate should be frozen.
I put dark chocolate in the freezer, not for preservation or anything I just love the texture.
crystalline chocolate is the shit, then when you chew it it just sort of turns into gravel and melts, so good
Gotta give the lead some fridge time too
Wait, yeah I guess it does make sense that people living in cold climates wouldn’t put chocolate in the fridge. TIL
The reverse is also true sometimes. Coconut “oil” for example is always a solid where I grew up, and it caught me by surprise seeing it actually being sold as a liquid in normal oil bottles.
Ghee is the same way. It becomes thick and granular in cool weather. Otherwise it looks like cooking oil.
I purchase mine as a solid but by the time I get it home it’s mostly liquid
I really enjoy coconut oil as a rough weather gauge.
I cook with it a lot, but prefer it to be in liquid form for easy measure (which only happens in the warmer bits of summer here), so in winter, I keep a jar of it on top of a particularly warm heat vent.
I keep my place at 60f/15.6c in winter or it costs a fortune to heat. When it’s relatively warm out, the heat doesn’t kick on often enough to melt it, but when it’s real cold/windy the entire thing will be liquid.
How are you able to keep yourself warm enough with 15-16c of room temperature, though? I can sleep with 18 and above, do daily stuff and touch water regularly without much hassle, but even that drains a lot of energy from me. Below 18 would be a high risk of catching an illness if I am staying home those days.
Heated mattress pads on my bed and couch, mostly. And a heated chair pad when working. They cost a ton less to run than filling a drafty space with gas-warmed air, and are mostly sufficient. A month of both of the big pads being constantly on, on high, barely touches my electric bill, but my gas bill for heat… I keep it that cold because that’s still around $200 usd/mth. If I bump it to 65/18.3, it shoots up to the $350-400+ range. And since I’m not actually comfortable at 18.3 either (26-33/80-90 is about my sweet spot), might as well just keep it at 15.6 and save the money :)
So those, and fuzzy socks, fuzzy pajama pants, and a fuzzy bathrobe. Maybe a high-heat pad here and there, if I’m feeling luxurious or my back hurts. A friend of mine does something similar, but uses heated vest and socks to take the warm along with (rechargeable ofc).
Hmm, good to know. Electricity rates here are not quite good to go with electric heating, even if for a smaller area, but might be worth checking out to use from time to time. Thanks for the details.
The nice thing about it is that this isn’t actually heating an area, it heats you and the mattress/blankets around you, basically making a microclimate in your sleepy cocoon. Very very efficient, even if your electric rates aren’t great (mine really aren’t either, but it still barely touches it, they just don’t use a lot of electricity). I put my heated pad under a padded pad to help retain and even out the heat, and it helps a lot.
Happy to help either way! So here’s some more info!
https://electricado.com/how-much-electricity-does-heated-mattress-pad-use/
Most of the below comes from that link-
60-100 watts is roughly average energy use, but you can get lower, and smaller pads will use less.
Energy Cost = (Wattage x Usage Hours) / 1000 x Electricity Rate
For example, let’s assume your heated mattress pad has a wattage of 75 watts, you use it for 8 hours per night, and your electricity rate is $0.12 per kWh. The calculation would be as follows:
Energy Cost = (75 watts x 8 hours) / 1000 x $0.12 = $0.072 per night
For one mattress pad for a 30-day month with the above assumptions, it would run you a whopping $2.16/mth.
80 to 90 °F is your sweet spot?! Did I read that right?
Yeah, I’m basically built for tropical environments. I’m cold at 75 unless I have a sweatshirt on. And I still wear that big fuzzy bathrobe through most of summer (I don’t have AC, and never have, but I do have dehumidifiers for when it’s really warm, and that’s generally enough).
Warm cloth. The problem is mainly that if it gets warmer during the day, then you end up having a lot of condensate from air humidity on everything and that is the perfect condition for mold to form.
yea if you live outside I guess
Not parents but I have a half gallon of milk that expired in 2015. It came with me when I moved from an apartment to my house in 2018.
Never been opened… yet.
I’m fine with refrigirating bread just to not let it try
Yeah because you should refrigerate bread
If I don’t put my bread in the fridge, it’s moldy within a week. It’s all meant to be toasted anyway.
Clean your cupboards. Mold spores can remain on surfaces for months. Give everything a good wipe-down with some cleaning spray or vinegar solution and then leave the cabinets open to dry out well. And do it again anytime food gets moldy.
Packaged bread should last more than a week, but fresh bread is meant to be eaten within a few days, if not the same day.
Naw, I’m too lazy for that.
I’m guessing you don’t live somewhere with high heat & humidity, or if you do you run your AC a lot. We keep bread on the counter and in the fridge but not all bread is equally resistant to mold, even some packaged bread. In the winter it’s a lot more forgiving. Also we just open the windows and run fans quite a bit in the summer.
I used to live in a desert and bread easily lasted for weeks. Once I moved to what is essentially a rain forest, it doesn’t last more than 5 days. I have to refrigerate it.
Yes, you’re right about the humidity being the biggest factor, and that will also make bread go stale. It also depends on whether it’s prepackaged bread or freshly baked. Prepackaged bread is less likely to arrive with mold spores, and the packaging keeps humidity out during transit and storage. Once it is opened to the humidity, especially in tropical climates, refrigeration will slow any growth.
For people in arid climates, their refrigerator might actually be more humid than their cupboards.
Humidity is an interesting metric. It’s a percentage of the airs total capacity to absorb moisture.
It’s not a measure of percentage of water(vapour?) in the air.
Air can have 100% humidity. It can’t have 100% water
Greatly depends on your country. Dutch bread is very fresh when bought with little to no preservatives. So we freeze our bread, like 90%of us, cuz it will mold in the fridge after like 4 or 5 days if not sooner.
I’ve gotten some bread with no preservatives and it went in a couple days
If i bake bread i will eat it within 2 days
*2 hours
This is why I don’t bake bread.
Well with some breads yeah… Its healthier and cheaper than store bought bread so I dont mind
Yeah, but…
Worth it
Try living with a French room mate and find out what doesn’t go in the fridge. Hint: everything.
I’m the first generation that decided to keep bread in fridge. My parents used wooden box.
How long does it take you to eat the bread that mold starts to appear ??? In my house bread is pretty much gone in two days, most times less than that.
We kept milk in the freezer.
i mean yeah it’s basically just water, why the fuck not? i do the same with margarine, so i never have to be caught with an empty packet and no backup.
But why do you eat margarine? If it’s a dietary thing I get it but butter is ten times better it’s worth the extra calories.
LOL why?
Lived in the middle of nowhere and the nearest grocery store was 25 miles away. Once every 4-6 weeks we’d go to town and get maybe 10-12 gallons of milk, a shit load of bread, and all the other stuff.
Milk in my country get pasteurized and heated to a very high temp for a short amount of time. Unopened it stays fresh for a few months that way. We keep like 10 packs or so in the cellar.
Living in the tropics, it’s rather common to refrigerate bread, else you run the risk of mould overnight.
Chocolate is much better refrigerated
I have an slightly odd one that I do myself: Carrots in a water filled container (in the fridge). That way they last really long and you don’t get that limpy half-dried version after a while that is hard to remove the peel off. They basically stay as if fresh from the store or garden.
Someone I lived with temporarily kept the processed parmesan cheese (the dusty stuff in a jar) in the cupboard instead of the fridge. It baffled me.
