16 foods you should never put in your refrigerator

Whole melons like watermelons, honeydews, and cantaloupes retain their flavor best at room temperature. Storing them at normal temperatures may even help keep their nutrients intact. Plus, they take up a lot of space in the fridge.

Only once they're cut should you refrigerate them, and only for a few days at most.

Bananas keep their flavor better at room temperature. Plus, cold temperatures will only slow them from ripening, and the moisture from the fridge would only speed up the rotting process.

It's fine to store potatoes in a cool place — too much heat and they'll rot — but a refrigerator is too cool. It'll break down the starches and make the texture gritty, and possibly turn the flesh brown or black.

Like potatoes, onions are stored best in cool and dry places. Unfortunately, the humidity of a fridge can turn onions moldy very quickly.

Keep your garlic somewhere dry to prevent the accumulation of mold or a mushy texture. The chopped cloves, though, can be stored in a refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

For the candy inclined, frozen honey is an underrated snack. But at merely cool temperatures, honey crystallizes and becomes lumpy. Honey almost never spoils, so feel free to store it at room temperature for as long as you want.

The temperature can dull the flavor of tomatoes and make the texture mealy, so store them on the counter instead. If they start getting too ripe, feel free to put them in the refrigerator, but not for too long.

The vinegar in most hot sauces will be enough to stop any bacteria or mold from growing. Dig it out from the back of your condiments shelf and give it a spot alongside your cooking spices.

The same goes for ketchup. The high vinegar content should preserve its integrity and keep it fresh at room temperature.

Trick entry. Bread is best kept in the freezer, where it'll basically last forever. The countertop is also a viable option if you'll eat it quickly. But in the fridge, your bread is doomed to become moldy and dry very quickly.

Nutella or chocolate hazelnut spread will be fine at room temperature. When it's cold, it gets clumpy, harder to spread, and loses its flavor.

For the most part, apples will last pretty long on a countertop. It'll also give your kitchen a nice splash of color. If it takes you more than a couple of weeks to eat them, then put them in the fridge to make them last a little longer.

When it gets cold, olive oil turns semi-frozen and becomes a clumpy, slippery form. It's best to store it at room temperature.

The watery condensation that often comes from a fridge can begin to change the flavor of ground or solid coffee beans. To optimize your coffee flavor, all you need to do is keep it sealed in an airtight container on your counter.

The cold temperature from a refrigerator can ruin the nutty flavor. Plus, shelled nuts will start to absorb other odors and smells from within the fridge, so it's always best to just keep them sealed up in your pantry.

Stone fruit can probably last a few more days in the fridge if you didn't have enough time to enjoy them, but room temperature is the best situation to allow them to ripen and remain fresh.

There's an urban legend that storing batteries in cold or freezing temperatures will increase their durability. It's false. Just keep them in the same drawer where you keep other appliances and mismatched wires.

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