Do you want to put the leftovers in the refrigerator immediately or wait until they are cold? Will putting hot dishes in the refrigerator really damage the refrigerator? Many people have struggled with these problems. Ruan Guangfeng, director of the Science and Technology Communication Department and deputy research librarian of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, said in an interview with China Consumer News that the truly scientific approach is to put the food that cannot be eaten into the refrigerator while it is hot. The faster, the safer. And the refrigerator is not as fragile as many people fear. Ruan Guangfeng explained that the bacteria in the air began to "settle in" from the time when the hot food came out of the pot to the time when the temperature began to gradually drop. The study found that when the food temperature dropped to 60 ℃, bacteria began to grow; When the temperature drops to 30-40 ℃, bacteria begin to multiply vigorously; When the temperature dropped to 4 ℃, most of the bacteria stopped and went into dormancy. Therefore, only by rapidly cooling the food to below 4 ℃ can we inhibit the propagation of bacteria and make the food safer, which requires us to put the food in the refrigerator as soon as possible. The World Health Organization (WHO) also recommends that food should not be stored for more than 2 hours at room temperature. As for many people who worry that the refrigerator will break, they don't need to worry. From the perspective of refrigerators, hot meals may indeed affect the cooling effect for a certain period of time after they are put in, but the impact is not as big as people think. In general, when a cool refrigerator is invaded by hot food, the internal temperature detection and feedback system will start the refrigeration process in time to reduce the temperature in the refrigerator. A short and small warming process will not have too much impact on other foods in the refrigerator or the refrigerator itself. Of course, some people worry that if the food is too hot, the glass partition in the refrigerator will not be able to withstand the "stimulus". In fact, this problem is also very easy to solve. You can put a clean towel under the food container, or you can put the refrigerator when the temperature of the food drops to a level where it is not hot (in this process, it is better to cover the container that holds the food). (Outlook New Times)