A Light Revelation In Refrigerators

By John Brown


When you little, you may have remembered about trying to 'catch' the light when opening the fridge door to see if it always remained on or only turned on during certain times. Not long after, you would learn that the fridge would stay dark when the doors were closed. New research in food preservation may be able to shed some light into how we can improve on our current fridges.

Did you know that the vegetables and fruits that you keep in your small chest freezer are still alive? In a similar way when flowers continue to live on nutrients and water, even when cut, so too will your groceries survive under optimal conditions. Of course, you could leave these foodstuffs in the relevant drawers, but there may be a better method of expanding the life of the produce that we store inside by using light.

It actually makes sense that light helps produce live longer when you think about it. Light is necessary for plants to live because their very biology is made to respond to light. In their natural habitats they will experience the light of day and the darkness of night. As with many living creatures, darkness is a time of rest, while light is a time of activity. Daylight is the time that plants feed themselves and grow, thanks to photosynthesis, which only happens during times of light.

By knowing this, we can make some inferences about the effect of light on fruits and vegetables in the fridge. As we all know, it is dark inside the fridge when the door is closed and your groceries are only exposed to light when the door is opened for a brief amount of time. The darkness will make the foodstuffs think it is continually in a state of rest. However, by adding in periods of light within the refrigerator, it will make the produce think it is in the daylight and thus causing them to be active and grow, and in turn, allowing the food to remain fresh and healthy for longer.

Research on this matter is fairly new, but shows quite a bit of promise. It is very possible that the refrigerators of the future will cater to the circadian rhythms of fruits and vegetables by providing them with light for 12 hours each day. Just like you, your produce will be able to "wake up" in the morning, and "go to sleep" at night, all in an effort to help them stay nutritious longer.




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