Fridge hygiene...?

[Sam99]

Hello All,

A question: I was led to believe that putting cardboard food wrappers / box's in the fridge is not a good thing to do.

Yogurt for example: The pots are plastic, but wrapped in cardboard. I remove the pots from the cardboard wrapper , my girlfriend doesn’t.

Any truth in this, please??

Thanks,

Sam.

[Vieste]

[Sam99]

Yea, I know.

I vaguely remember someone telling me that bacteria breeds in cardboard in a fridge as it can get damp ??

Sam

[Vieste]

I think our immune system has adaptive to these bugs so not to worry.

[Simpo Two]

Sam99 said:

I vaguely remember someone telling me that bacteria breeds in cardboard in a fridge as it can get damp ??

Then don't eat the cardboard...

[Roger645]

Sam99 said:

Yea, I know.

I vaguely remember someone telling me that bacteria breeds in cardboard in a fridge as it can get damp ??

Sam

Make sure you keep her as just a girlfriend!

[21TonyK]

I suspect the idea of removing the cardboard comes from the practice of removing external packaging in a commercial environment. Usually external cartons are covered in contamination from handling, transport etc etc This is removed on delivery and the food product then stored in a clean environment. Same thing applies to what you buy in a supermarket where everything has been handled, put on various lorries, shelves etc etc The outer packs are likely to carry physical contamination and/or bacteria which you wouldn't ideally want in your fridge as it could potentially cross contaminate ready to eat products that aren't protected correctly.

That's the theory. In practice it doesn't sound like a bad idea but then I'm a bit anal about food hygiene.

[T84]

21TonyK said:

I'm a bit anal about food hygiene.

Not having dinner at your house then! What's wrong with putting them in the fridge like normal people?

[wijit]

It's true that bacteria can grow on certain things in fridges, but if it's temperature controlled and not primary packaging (ie; the stuff the food is directly in) you're perfectly safe.

[Simpo Two]

Amusingly of course everything in all our houses is plastered with bacteria, as is our skin. But we can't see them and 99.9999999% of them don't do any harm; indeed they can help to keep the bad ones out.

So we need to think of 'pathogens' rather than 'bacteria'. Pathogens prefer meat to cardboard.

[calibrax]

T84 said:

21TonyK said:

I'm a bit anal about food hygiene.

Not having dinner at your house then! What's wrong with putting them in the fridge like normal people?

Well, personally the one person I certainly DON'T mind being anal about food hygiene is someone who owns a restaurant! and if you'd ever seen what Tony can do with food, you'd realise that by not going round his for dinner then you'd be missing out big time!!

[Sam99]

21TonyK said:

I suspect the idea of removing the cardboard comes from the practice of removing external packaging in a commercial environment. Usually external cartons are covered in contamination from handling, transport etc etc This is removed on delivery and the food product then stored in a clean environment. Same thing applies to what you buy in a supermarket where everything has been handled, put on various lorries, shelves etc etc The outer packs are likely to carry physical contamination and/or bacteria which you wouldn't ideally want in your fridge as it could potentially cross contaminate ready to eat products that aren't protected correctly.

That's the theory. In practice it doesn't sound like a bad idea but then I'm a bit anal about food hygiene.

Thank You for a serious reply .

Sam

[Muntu]

Sam99 said:

box's