A shopper has questioned whether her "whole life is a lie" - all because she spotted a symbol on her bag of potatoes.
TikTok user @bethking61 took to the social media platform to share the discovery after doing her food shop, showing in a short video clip that her bag of potatoes sported fridge symbol with simple instructions written underneath: "At home store below 5°C." The five short words sparked a huge debate over the right way to store potatoes, with many people adamant that they had always been told to store them in the cupboard.
Questioning whether the suggestion to keep them refrigerated was a new move from supermarkets, the shopper asked: "Does anyone else keep their potatoes in the fridge? Is my whole life a lie? Maybe I have been living under a rock but I always thought they belonged in a dark cupboard?"
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But there seemed to be no clear-cut answer as hundreds of people took to the comments section to share their opinions on the matter, with some saying they always kept their spuds in the fridge while others insisted they would never be stored anywhere other than the cupboard. "I've never met anyone that kept their potatoes in the fridge," one person said.
Others swore that other bags of potatoes recommended storage in the cupboard. "It's like the Mandela effect - I can literally envision 'keep in a dark place' on the packet," someone commented.
Vouching for the cupboard method, another shopper wrote: "Potatoes go months in a cool dark cupboard and I can't imagine using up space in my fridge for them."
But the debate raged on as others disagreed. "Always keep mine in the fridge, they sprout roots too quickly otherwise," one person insisted.
"I've been keeping mine in the fridge for as long as I can remember," another commenter wrote. "Never have sprouts or spoilage."
"Who doesn't put them in the fridge?!" someone else asked. But experts have seemed to be just as divided as shoppers on the subject in the past, with some saying that storing your spuds in the fridge may not be the best course of action while others disagree.
Recipe website Love Potatoes advises keeping your potatoes in a "dry, dark place" that is well-ventilated, as exposing them to light or moisture can lead to rotting. While they recommend cool conditions to help them last longer, they advise against keeping potatoes in the fridge to achieve best results.
According to health website WebMD, keeping your raw potatoes in the cold temperatures found in your fridge can turn the starch in them into sugar, meaning that they can turn sweeter and darker during cooking. The Food Standards Agency previously seconded this advice, explaining that the potatoes forming more sugars while in the fridge could lead to higher levels of acrylamide - a natural chemical that "has the potential to cause cancer" - when cooked.
However, a more recent study by Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) on spuds found that "home storage of potatoes in the fridge presented no material increase in acrylamide forming potential", challenging the FSA's recommendation that they should not be kept in the fridge - so this may explain the change on supermarket packaging.
WRAP's research found that potatoes can last more than three times longer if stored in the fridge compared to the cupboard. So to sum up, it's perfectly fine to keep your potatoes either in the cupboard or the fridge - but the latter has the edge in helping to avoid food waste.
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