#grouchy aunt j is not your internet mom

[swashbucklery]

I googled it and didn’t get answers so I thought I’d ask you, certified adult™️: how come you can’t put metal pots into the fridge because it’ll make food go bad when you can leave stuff in slow cookers all day? Is it a heat thing?

OK anon first of all: let me google that for you

Secondly: Food safety means that food for human consumption has to be kept either below 4C or above 40C; the temperatures in between are the temperatures at which bacteria can grow. You don't want bacteria in your food because it makes the food go off OR makes the food full of illness-causing bacteria. I will not be giving you these degrees in farenheit this is a celsius-only adulting service. The slow-cooker on the "warm" setting keeps food at a minimum of 60C, and 60 is bigger than 40, which is why it can stay on all day.

You can put a room-temperature metal pot into your fridge with wild abandon. A non-stainless steel one might make your food taste weird if it sits. HOWEVER, you shouldn't put a warm metal pot into your fridge. The food inside the pot might not go bad but you run the risk of making the rest of the food in your fridge go off.

The fridge is designed to keep food between about 1.7C and 4C, but above 0C (because: freezing), and designed to cool food from room temp to 4C or (ideally, in the case of food that you buy refrigerated) to keep food at 4C or cooler . If you put something super warm in there (say, a 40C metal pot), the heat dissipates throughout the fridge and will warm the food surrounding to above 4C. Metal is going to do this better, because it has a low heat capacity , meaning it both absorbs and gives away heat faster - so you're going to get a bigger short-term jump in the temperature of the foods around that metal pot. The fridge is going to then have to work harder to re-cool everything to below 4C (where, you'll recall, bacteria can no longer grow), because it has to overcome the heat from the warm food PLUS the heat from the warm pot. During that time where surrounding foods are warmer, you can have active bacterial replication thus leading to spoiled food.

If you do need to chill food, putting it into a room-temperature container (so, a tupperware/a room temperature bowl/whatever) and THEN putting it in the fridge is going to minimize the amount of heat energy you're bringing to the inside of your fridge environment, and help the food cool to 4C faster. For more information, google "food safety and handling" + your local area - your public health department will have a detailed guide.