This Pantry Staple Is Supposed To Banish Fridge Odors. We Put It To The Test

Lately, my fridge has been just a little stinky. I tried cleaning out old leftovers and wiping down the shelves, yet this mild but gross odor lingered inside my appliance, causing me to wrinkle my nose each time I pulled the door open. Online, various blogs advise that oats could be an easy solution for an unpleasant-smelling refrigerator. From appliance business blogs to the websites of oat companies, a lot of people recommend this staple dry good, claiming that oats are actually able to soak up bad smells. Despite scouring the internet, however, I could not find a shred of scientific evidence to support or deny this. So, I decided to give this method a try.

The idea is that, by setting an open bowl of dried, rolled oats in your refrigerator, you'll easily get rid of that persistent odor. This is touted as a natural and inexpensive option that won't leave its own smell behind. To test out this method to eliminate funky kitchen odors, I used Quaker Oats Quick 1-minute Oats, which are whole grain rolled oats. Since the container of dry cereal was already sitting in my cupboard, this trick ended up being free. However, an 18-ounce package of the same oats costs about $4. As someone who typically relies on baking soda to tackle fridge odors, I was curious to see how oats would hold up in comparison.

Though the stinky smell in my refrigerator was not severe, I still wanted it gone and for my fridge to be completely unscented. To find out if oats really were an efficient way to finally say goodbye to funky fridge odors, I simply scooped some into a ceramic bowl. I used a shallow bowl with a rather wide top. My thinking was that this type of bowl would let more of the oats be exposed to the air than a deeper container, providing more surface area for odor absorption. After I had about a cup and a half of the rolled oats inside my bowl, I slid it onto a small, center shelf in my fridge. I thought this spot would keep the bowl safe from being knocked over, though it could have gone anywhere inside the appliance.

Depending on what you already have on hand, this hack could be completed differently. Any open container, like an old takeout container or even a little plastic cup, will hold your oats inside your fridge. You could also use the old-fashioned type of oats rather than the quick kind, or any other dry rolled oats you have on hand. After setting the bowl of oats in my fridge, I left it alone. I checked my fridge periodically throughout the rest of the day and the next two days to see if the slight odor would disappear or continue to linger.

I had hoped that, since this trick was so widespread, there would be some validity to it. Unfortunately, it seems like this healthy tip for absorbing odors is a bust. I checked my fridge approximately three hours after setting the oats inside, and it smelled pretty much the same as before. I figured I simply hadn't given the hack enough time, but several more hours later my refrigerator still had that hint of a rotten odor.

By the next morning, I thought maybe the smell I was detecting could be something else, so I decided to really test if oats could absorb food odors specifically from the fridge. After the second day of oats sitting in my fridge, I left the lid to my leftovers slightly ajar and put them in the back of the appliance. Sadly, the following day my fridge still had a stink, though just a tad stronger now because of my test. In the end, the bowl of oats was unable to remove any food odors from my fridge after a few days. Besides that, the bowl itself took up a fair amount of shelf space in my fridge and I was concerned that it would get bumped and spilled. 

Oats seem like a quick and easy solution to help your fridge smell better in a pinch, but it's not worth wasting the food. Instead, try odor absorbers with more scientific backing, like baking soda or activated charcoal.