IN: Do you really need to refrigerate eggs?
Do all foods need to be refrigerated? (iStock)

It's generally considered a good idea to refrigerate—say—raw pork, and fresh vegetables, and dairy products. Those are kitchen all-stars.

But what about the supporting players—the condiments, the sandwich fixins, the baking supplies? Check out this list of items you could refrigerate, items you should refrigerate, and items that would also be very happy in the freezer.

Foods you don't technically have to refrigerate, but why not?

Most condiments exist in a gray area relative to refrigeration: they've been fermented during the production process (think Worcestershire sauce) or are otherwise acidic (yellow mustard), so they're pretty capable of just preserving themselves. Yet most manufacturers recommend refrigerating these once you open them, because while they might not go bad at room temperature, they'll lose more flavor and freshness over time when stored that way.

This category includes the aforementioned Worcestershire sauce and mustard as well as horseradish, soy sauce, fish sauce, and ketchup. You also don't technically have to refrigerate prepared mayonnaise, but...come on.

Foods you really should refrigerate (aside from the obvious)

This category entire comprises nuts and nut byproducts, whose highly fragile fats will go rancid if they're left at room temperature for too long. You'll want to put the chill on flax seeds; nuts like pecans and walnuts if you think they'd otherwise sit in the cupboard for a long time; nut oils, including walnut oil and Asian sesame oil; and natural nut butters, including tahini.

Most conventional peanut butters could survive the apocalypse, but natural peanuts butters should go in the fridge once they've been opened; they'll stay fresher, and the cool temps will also help keep their oil from separating.

Sort of a category of their own, because you don't really need to refrigerate intact, uncooked eggs...unless you happen to live in the United States, in which case you actually do. When they're laid, eggs come coated in a cuticle—a thin membrane that keeps bacteria out—so in their natural state, they're fine left on the counter; it would indeed be a weird quirk of evolution for an animal to lay an egg that needed to be kept on ice. But owing to fears of salmonella, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that eggs laid here be washed after laying, which removes the cuticle and makes the eggs more susceptible to spoilage—thus necessitating their stay in the refrigerator.

In Europe, egg-laying hens get a salmonella vaccine, and their unwashed eggs don't need to be refrigerated; both American and European methods, reports NPR, achieve basically the same result.

Some recipes call for eggs to be at room temperature, and it's fine to leave them on the counter for a while for them to get there; you can also bring them to room temp faster by placing them in a bowl of warm water.

In the freezer, dried yeast will keep forever instead of turning mysteriously ineffective the next time you decide to bake bread. The freezer is also a great place to store flours, particularly whole-grain flours, since their bran has oil that will go rancid if they're left at room temperature for too long. Just make sure they're well-sealed in a plastic bag so they don't pick up any odors.

Nuts and flax do great in the freezer, too, if they're cluttering up your fridge; their high fat content ensures they won't freeze too firmly, so they'll be available for snacking at a moment's notice.
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT: A few tips on which common ingredients to keep cool—and which to keep in the freezer.


IN: Donald Trump and Barack Obama Meet in the Oval Office
President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama met in the Oval Office Thursday morning to begin transition discussions.

Both men were sunny to the press after the meeting, with Obama saying their discussion was “excellent” and he was feeling “encouraged.” Trump said he “had great respect” for Obama looked forward to his counsel. But the cheery outlook belied years of animosity between them.

Since 2011, Trump was a leader of the birther movement, which claimed that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Obama mocked him as a lightweight at the White House Correspondents Dinner that year, with a joke that takes on new light now that Trump has won the presidency with no previous political experience. “We all know about your credentials and breadth of experience,” Obama said. “In an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ — at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn’t blame Lil Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled.”

All humor was taken out of their contentious relationship when Trump ran for president. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly criticized Obama and his policies as a “disaster,” and it wasn’t until September 2016 that he said publicly that he believed Obama was born in the United States (while falsely claiming that it was Hillary Clinton who started that theory in the first place). In the final weeks of the general election Obama painted Trump has a threat to the republic itself. “I always felt as if John McCain and Mitt Romney were basically honorable people,” he said at a rally for Clinton in October. “I always felt as if, push comes to shove, they would do the right thing if they ended up occupying the position of president. I wasn’t concerned about the republic if they had won… Fundamental values are at stake in this election.”

Still, as TIME editors and authors of The Presidents Club Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy write, “No matter how personally or politically hostile an outgoing and incoming president may be, once voters have selected a new member of The President’s Club, a different dynamic takes over. Only those who have held the job can understand what it does to you, or the help that you need to succeed at it. And so upon the election of a new president, the sitting president takes the opportunity to pull back the curtain, and give his successor a glimpse of the challenge that lies ahead.”

Despite their years of public feuding, this moment, captured by Associated Press photographer Pablo Martinez Monsivais, was the first time Trump and Obama had ever met.
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT:
The pair have a complex relationship