When Did Refrigerating Food Become So Haram?

The week before Thanksgiving is almost the perfect time for the age-old debate to return with roaring virality and vitriol. Pune-based self-described nutrition and fitness coach Sneha Sharma set off a firestorm with a few simple sentences. “Stop romanticizing freshly cooked, garam-garam khana,” she wrote on X. “You can half-cook, store pre-mixes in the fridge, and mix n match later.”

The backlash was swift, as other women quickly chimed in with “stop romanticizing stale food” and “please cook daily.” It didn’t take long for the conversation to expand into wider themes: women pulling other women down, expectations around the “purity” of food, confusion over the science of refrigeration, and more. We chatted with food historians, anthropologists, chefs, and more to dissect why many from the Indian subcontinent have such a huge problem with leftovers, reheating food, and even that damn refrigerator. Is it time to stop? And if not now, when?