August 17 2007, 14:28

Tomatoes and Cucumbers Should Not Be Stored in Refrigerators

Tomatoes and cucumbers lose their taste properties while stored in fridges - in opinion of Dutch professor of university Wageningen Dr. Olaf van Kooten, whose words are cited in the portal FreshPlaza.com. Italian tomatoes are much more delicious than Dutch ones because Italians do not store their tomatoes in refrigerators.

To professor's mind, after vegetables are cooled in the fridge, they need about 5-7 hours to restore their taste properties. Cooled fruits and vegetables practically lack scent, as it is gas that they practically does not educe in cooled state. At the same time, fragrance is the most important constituent of taste.

There are also other reasons why tomatoes should not be stored in the fridge, professor van Kooten thinks. Cold damages fruits. For example, many enzymes lose their qualities under low temperatures. The same is true with cucumbers, also with tropical fruits. The only vegetable tolerating the favorable effect of cold is the lettuce. So the expert recommends consumers to store cucumbers, tomatoes, and tropical fruits under room temperature in plastic packages to avoid their drying.

At the same time, according to analysts of CIS fruit and vegetable business weekly "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" , in Ukraine, quite considerable part of tomatoes and cucumbers sold at city markets and retail chains, does not subject to preliminary cooling. However, chains prefer to purchase cooled vegetables and fruits to ensure their ideal marketable look during longer period of time. However, far not all the producers have at their disposal refrigerators and transport vehicles with cooling system.

At the same time, one of the largest Russian greenhouse farm "Moscovskiy" uses lack of cooling as a marketing move. The Company brands all the vegetables supplied to retail chains of Moscow and guarantee their freshness by withdrawing from the chains residuals of unsold during 1-2 days vegetables. Thanks to retail sales monitoring and lack of cooling, consumers consider these vegetables fresher and tastier and pay for them higher price than for imported greenhouse products.