food will spoil it if you refrigerate before cool? (health, best, refrigerator)

[Winter01]

My mother in law was staying with us and she made this huge batch of beans (that no one ever eats and end up just sitting in my fridge for two weeks). I always thought that unused portions or left overs should be covered and refrigerated as soon as possible to avoid spoiling. I went to cover the left over beans and put them in my fridge and she told me that if I did that they would be spoiled because I had to leave them out until they were cold. If this is true I am pretty darn shocked my family and I haven't come down with some mad food poisoning because I am the queen of clean up and putting away left overs quick. Does anyone know if she is correct about letting food completely cool down before putting it away??? If yes I need to revamp my entire food handling process!!

[himain]

Interesting post because my mom does the same thing and so do I.

[findinghope]

never heard that--i just but it away because i dont like to let food sit out too long

[Denise in Fla]

If something is really hot I will let it cool first, otherwise I put it in the fridge.

[frogandtoad]

I haven't heard that, but it seems that a lot of things the older generations do (the "old wives tales" )make a lot of sense. We just haven't discovered all the reasons yet! So maybe that makes it spoil, or maybe it means the nutritional value will go down, or maybe something else...but if it's something a lot of older people do I tend to believe it's the right thing to do!

[fjtee]

I always thought it was about not making the refrigerator work so hard at keeping things cool. Hopefully, I haven't outed myself as a complete imbecile when it comes to the way refrigerators work. I'm still putting things away sooner rather than later. But, I know people who leave things out overnight and still eat them. They're walking around to this day. Luck?

[South Range Family]

I broke my rule of never logging in from work, just to answer your question.

You should chill your food as quickly as possible. The danger zone is between 130 F and 41 F. That's where most of your bacteria grows. The best thing to do is separate food into smaller portions so it cools faster.

This link will help you out. The Chill Factor

I had to spend 2 days at a health department serve safe class when I bought my food concession trailer. They were very big on stressing how important it is to get the food cooled off fast.

[allforcats]

COVER AND REFRIGERATE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!!

Older people -- including my mother and grandmother -- used to let food cool down before fridging because older refrigerators didn't work as quickly or as coldly as current ones do. So putting hot foods in their 1940s or 1970s refrigerators would make the motors work very hard, warm up the foods around them in the fridge, and shorten the life of the machine.

Nowadays, not only are the motors much more efficient and can handle hot foods, but also we know a heckuva lot more about how botulism develops!!

[findinghope]

Originally Posted by South Range Family

I broke my rule of never logging in from work, just to answer your question.

You should chill your food as quickly as possible. The danger zone is between 130 F and 41 F. That's where most of your bacteria grows. The best thing to do is separate food into smaller portions so it cools faster.

This link will help you out. The Chill Factor

I had to spend 2 days at a health department serve safe class when I bought my food concession trailer. They were very big on stressing how important it is to get the food cooled off fast.

so which is it? do we cool and then refrigerate? or do we cool in the fridge right away?

[andreaspercheron]

Hmm... I dont know - I think that rule is more set aside for foods that have milk or foods that have mayo in them, like for example you wouldn't want to leave out potato salad, macaroni salad, etc... I have left beans out all night and then stuck them in the fridge the next day and ate them later, I didn't implode or explode LOL