Apples should always be kept in the fridge: Here’s why

If you’re leaving your apples out in a fruit basket, you’re making a huge mistake. Left on the counter, these crisp, healthy fruits will expire weeks sooner than the same fruit would if it were kept in the fridge.

Left in room-temperature conditions, apples last an average of seven days. That’s pretty dismal, especially if you’re coming home from apple picking with a whole bushel of them. If you refrigerate the fruit, however, they can last one to two months.

In the United Kingdom, the food advisory board WRAP (Waste Resources Action Plan) is teaming up with the Food Standards Agency to make sure everyone knows the best way to store their freshly bought foods. They hope to reduce food waste by arming consumers with helpful information on how to best store their produce and other items. Simply by increasing education on popularly sold items, WRAP claims it can cut 350,000 tons of food waste in Britain by 2025.

It sounds like a lofty goal - but think about how much food goes bad on your counter each week.

Many foods are marked with a “use by,” “sell by,” or “best by” date. These dates are confusing, and they’re also based on the assumption that you’re storing your food optimally. For items such as yogurt or cow’s milk, the storage method is obvious. You know to refrigerate your milk. But for things like eggs and, as of recently, apples, the standards for storing foods are a bit blurrier.

As part of the U.K. campaign, sellers are adding the information on how to best store each item to a label or sticker. If you’re supposed to refrigerate an item, U.K. grocery stores will label it with a tiny blue refrigerator icon.

So start storing your apples in the fridge - and leave out these 20 foods you’re not supposed to refrigerate.