hey it's Kay welcome back to HUB neat
home have you ever wondered what those
settings on your crisper drawers were
for do you want to stop your cucumbers
from going from crispy and delicious to
mushy and disgusting well today I'm
going to take away the mystery about
what those settings are for and how to
get the most shelf life out of your
vegetables stay tuned now before we
begin if you're not already subscribed
just click the Subscribe button it looks
just like this and you'll become part of
the hubnet home family I give home care
tips and organizing tips every Monday
Wednesday and Friday if you've seen my
how to organize your refrigerator video
some of this will sound familiar but if
you haven't you can watch it after you
watch this video I'll put a link down
below uh and as well as an annotation in
there uh you can see that video and then
I'll talk a little bit about what's
going on in here but I'm going to go a
little more in depth today about why
certain things can't live together so
let's talk about the crisper drawers
most refrigerators uh as a matter of
fact most of that I've seen I actually
did see one with only one but most
actually I have two separate drawers and
they're for two separate things based on
two factors um and they usually have a
little slider where the vent opens
encloses um that's to keep certain gases
in and to keep certain gases out so
let's talk about what goes where what
you store in these drawers is dependent
on two different factors one is ethylene
gas and the other is humidity first
let's talk about ethylene gas that
sounds very sciency doesn't it ethylene
gas anyway ethylene is used in uh in
commercial industry to actually make
Plastics because it's double bond is
very reactive and things like that and
also if you hydrate it you can make
ethanol which is the alcohol that's in
all your vodka your beer your wine all
that stuff so it's a really kind of
funky molecule um it's a hydrocarbon
it's also a plant hormone that most
plants are making ethylene acts as a
hormone for plants the same way that
hormones work in your body it tells your
body to do certain things uh some
hormones tell your body to like grow
body hair or or you know do different
things plant hormones do the same thing
to plants so they tell plants whether to
like make flowers um whether to drop
their leaves or whether to ripen and age
While most things you're bringing home
from the produce section in the grocery
store are making a little bit of
ethylene uh a lot of fruits are actually
sensitive to that ethylene which means
they can ripen too much and potentially
spoil and some fruits are producing a
lot of ethylene you need to know which
ones go into which category so that they
don't mess with each other as most
some of the biggest offenders and the
ones that are making the most ethylene
in your refrigerator probably are apples
and peaches those are making a
tremendous amount of ethylene as well as
avocados actually avocados are actually
very sensitive to the ethylene as well
so avocados and apples should never be
kept close to one another uh usually
you're not keeping avocados in the
fridge uh I like to keep them on the
counter until they're really really
really ripe and then you can get a
little bit of extra time to eat that
avocado you you know how it can go from
like totally perfect to like brown in 4
seconds if you don't use it in that
perfect time if you you can get a little
extra time by poping into the fridge
I've gotten an extra week out of an
avocado that way however you want to
keep it away from Apples because they
will definitely over rpen each other and
it won't be a good thing at all so these
ethylene producing Foods you want to put
in the fruit uh compartment or you want
to keep in the low humidity Department
because that will allow ethylene gas to
escape and it won't uh spoil every in
the drawer now let's talk about humidity
humidity really does matter when it
comes to uh leafy greens and vegetables
such as lettuce spinach uh Swiss chard
things like that those things are
basically essentially the leaves of the
plant and they're filled with all kinds
of moisture and that's what makes them
really crispy and delicious and uh when
they have a chance for the moisture to
actually get loose from the leaf they
can Wilt and lose that really delicious
crispy texture and get really disgusting
so you want to keep a humid environment
for those vegetables in order for them
to stay fresher longer these leafy
greens actually most of them tend to be
extremely sensitive to ethylene so
storing your apples next to your spinach
is probably not a good idea you're
probably going to end up with wilted
spinach now I personally cannot remember
which fruits and which vegetables go
together so I've created this sort of
cheat sheet that I'm going going to
leave in a link down below you can
download it from my website it's
completely free it's a PDF you can go
and print it you can plaster it on the
side of your fridge like I have done or
on on the front of the fridge if you
want to get that right up in there and
it just reminds me about which ones go
where I have indicated with an asterisk
which ones are like extremely sensitive
and which ones are like extreme
producers of ethylene um and also keep
in mind that it's just a general guide
some of the things on the list don't
even really go with them for Ator
optimally like tomatoes and potatoes
really shouldn't go in there there's an
ongoing debate whether or not potatoes
and tomatoes are allowed in there and do
well in there however uh I'm going to
advise to keep them on the counter for
now but there seems to be like a hot
debate going on uh in terms of tomatoes
and potatoes um however it is a
comprehensive list that's probably great
for those of you who live in North
America Canada and the UK and most
places in Europe I don't have
information on um more uh exotic
vegetables and fruits um but I could
work on that if that's something that
you guys would like so just let me know
in a comment down below some fruits such
as uh cherries are a particularly
notorious one aren't particularly
affected by ethelene and don't really
produce it so it doesn't really matter
where they're stored uh as long as you
eat them while they're still fresh they
will go bad eventually everything does
uh they'll be fine so uh that is not on
the list now in our house we eat eat a
lot of fruits and vegetables and
sometimes the crisper drawers can
overflow a little bit and we need room
to keep things that are particularly
voluminous like cauliflower and lettuce
I mean if you put one head of lettuce in
the crisper drawer it's going to take up
a lot of room it's not going to leave
enough room for like your kale your you
know fresh onions or whatever so I have
been testing out this container from
Progressive it is a uh produce container
it's good for uh berries carrots celery
radishes cucumber lettuce um but I have
been mainly using it to store lettuce
because it has a little Reservoir at the
bottom for some moisture so that keeps
the lettuce from wilting I've noticed
that this container really helps keep
lettuce Fresher a lot longer um it's
available uh from Amazon I'll put a link
down below it's really really handy uh
this one I like a lot and this one is
the fresh saver from Rubbermaid I got
this one at Target I'll also leave a
link to this one down below this one um
I'm finding Works a similar method it
does have a little vent here to for
airflow and uh there is a grate here
down at the bottom for moisture to fall
into or for you to add it to I don't
love this one as much for other things
aside from lettuce uh strawberries
actually do really well in this one uh
but other vegetables don't do that well
I find that like berries um in their own
packaging that you got them from from
the store do really well as as long as
you leave them in the packaging
especially if they have that little
white little uh sheet down at the bottom
that actually is going to absorb athene
gas and keep them presser for longer if
you don't have that little container
with a little white thing at the bottom
that's going to collect your ethene
gases and things like that this little
Berry container actually works really
well I don't know why uh but it keeps
berries fresher for longer for some
reason I'm not really sure why it does
that but it's really cute and I really
like it a lot it's also from progress
iive it looks it's like a mini version
of the lettuce one I've talked about the
blue Apple before in another video but
I'm going to talk about it again because
I love it so much this is the blue Apple
so if you are storing things that are
producing a lot of ethylene such as
apples I'm picking on apples today uh
this can absorb that ethylene and turn
it into carbon dioxide in your fridge so
that it keeps other fruits fresher for
longer and things that are ethylene
sensitive it won't bother them as much
so if you have to keep things together
in some kind of way or close to one
another throw a couple blue apples in
it's going to help you you do have to
replace the packet after about 3 months
however uh the packet can be composted
and uh and recycled so it's not bad for
the environment at all so hopefully that
takes a little bit of the mystery away
from what those crisper drawer labels
are for and what that humidity setting
is for uh if you like this video press
the like button uh give me a big thumbs
up and uh let me know in a comment down
below whether your crisper drawers say
vegetable fruit or they say high
humidity low humidity let me know down
below and we'll see what happens anyway
I hope you enjoy this video and I'll see
you in the next one bye
[Music]