Storing This On Top Of Your Fridge Might Be Why Your Food Tastes Off

Keeping a kitchen tidy can be a daily endeavour. This is especially true in an ingredients household, where the kitchen is stocked with everything needed to cook a meal, rather than snacks and the premade variety. As handy as having all the materials and tools can be, this can also result in limited storage space. While creating more storage space could be an option — possibly by repurposing a wine rack to store rolling pins — not everyone has this luxury, leading some to utilize space like the fridge top for staple ingredients like cooking oils. Although it's a common maneuver, you may want to rethink that move, as it could do more harm than good to both the oil and the appliance itself.  

Certainly, storing cooking oil on the fridge top might seem like a harmless, even genius, way to keep counter space clean; however, refrigerators do get warm or hot while maintaining their cooling cycles. Put simply, condenser coils dissipate any heat within the appliance through vents, which are typically located on the back and top of the appliance, where the oil will be. This heat won't usually reach the higher cooking degrees, but it could easily be enough to alter the oil's composition. Although it may not always be obvious, this includes not only the way it looks, but also the flavor, and even opens a pathway for it to go rancid.

When it comes to food and beverages, cooking oil isn't the only thing that can be ruined up there. That same high-temperature environment can hasten the ripening of fruit and other perishable foods like vegetables. The same goes for bread, as the heat can cause it to go stale faster and create condensation if it's in a plastic wrapping, possibly leading to mold. The heat also makes it a terrible option for storing alcohol, as it can also spoil beer and ruin the quality of wine and spirits. Storing cookbooks or an appliance here can also be risky, as books don't take well to heat and moisture, and both could wind up blocking the heat from escaping, which may unfortunately add "damage the refrigerator and become a potential fire hazard" to the list of the many things your KitchenAid can do. 

The safe bet is to just steer clear of putting anything on top of the fridge, so it functions properly without the risk of ruining anything. Of course, if you are in the market for more kitchen storage, there are ways to store ingredients like cooking oil while maximizing even the smallest spaces. If the space above the refrigerator is just too useful to resist, installing an additional cabinet may be the best option, as this would allow for ventilation space and keep what's inside safe. Otherwise, utilizing vertical space with floating shelves can be a game changer, keeping that counter space clear and clean while making what's needed just an arm's reach away when cooking.