is this her life?

Forget The Fridge: Using Chemistry And Nature To Store Food | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

this. is. amazing.

“The refrigerator is a paragon of modern convenience. A magic box that keeps your food so cold it doesn’t spoil. It’s a miracle. But it’s the kind of miracle that can make us a little lazy. You get home from the store and just throw everything in the fridge. But, in fact, many foods aren’t so happy sitting in the ice box, and would be tastier and last longer if stored on the counter. More importantly, nature has given us some helpful tips on how to get the most quality from our foods, if only we would listen.

That’s the object of Save Food From the Refrigerator by the artist Jihyun Ryou. Instead of a deep chill, the project finds ways to store foods to make them keep the longest, often in symbiosis with other produce.”

His cool tips?

• “Apples generally cause other fruits to spoil quickly (“one bad apple”) so it’s good to keep them separately. But in a special trick of nature, the chemical in apples that makes most food go bad keeps potatoes from sprouting.”
• “Vegetables grow in the ground standing up… [and] the sand also helps keep the right level of humidity to keep them fresh.”
• “Fruit likes moisture. This bowl with water on the bottom will help your fruit last longer.”
• Eggs need to breath. “Eggs that aren’t fresh will float, so just drop an egg in the jar and see whether it’s ok to eat.”
• Rice keeps spices dry. This way “makes that a little more elegant, by keeping the rice attached to the lid of the spice jars, and keeping the spices dry”