If you are in the practice of eating cooked food straight from the refrigerator, you aren’t doing anything great for your health.
Experts have said that nibbling your food right from the fridge does more damage to you more than starving. The reason being eating, cold, cooked food can increase your chances of getting infected with any food-borne disease due to bacterial build-up.
Ideally, you should consume your food within three hours of its preparation. So most people opt to refrigerate extra food after a meal and most people don’t bother reheating it before eating it hours later.
The process of degeneration and bacterial build-up starts even when the food in is the fridge. Therefore, refrigeration of food doesn’t guarantee that your food is free of harmful bacteria.
So reheating your food is the better option to eat healthy.
Tips on reheating:
- Don’t reheat your food at high temperatures. This can rob your food of all the nutrients. Instead, do it over a low flame to kill the bacteria build-up.
- Opt for steaming rather than heating. Sprinkle some water over your food and steam it over a low flame. You can also do this with foods that you re-heat on a microwave to retain the moisture.
- For soups and gravies, try to bring them to boil while heating them. In case of microwave heating, stir them once for uniform heating.
- If the food has been in the fridge for more than two days, give it to the dog. Ahem. Throw it out.
This doesn’t apply to frozen food. Because normally, people don’t generally eat frozen food before actually defrosting and making a meal out of it.