Which fruits and vegetables should and shouldn’t be stored together

You’ve brought all your food home from the grocery store or farmers market. Now it’s time to unpack.

The task seems rote enough, but you’d be best served to at least put a little thought into it. What you store where, and when, matters in part because of ethylene, a plant hormone that is responsible for ripening and can, over time or under the right circumstances, shorten shelf life and cause spoilage, says Laura Strawn, an associate professor and extension specialist at Virginia Tech’s Department of Food Science & Technology.