Why do refrigerators keep food cold?

Answer: A refrigerant absorbs heat as it turns from liquid to gas

Ice blocks stored inside the freezer chill the air — Early iceboxes really did keep food cold with blocks of ice delivered to the house, and that is probably where this idea comes from. A modern refrigerator has no ice in it; the cold you feel is produced continuously by refrigerant boiling inside the evaporator coils, and the freezer stays frozen for the same reason.

Electricity directly cools the air inside the fridge — Electricity runs the compressor and the fan, but there is no electric element that chills air directly; the cooling comes from the refrigerant changing from liquid to gas. A heater can turn electricity straight into heat, but there is no equally simple way to turn it straight into cold, which is why a fridge needs a compressor and a refrigerant loop.

A refrigerant absorbs heat as it turns from liquid to gas ✓ — A refrigerator moves heat rather than making cold. Inside the cabinet, liquid refrigerant flows through the evaporator coils at low pressure and boils into a gas, and boiling absorbs heat from the food and air. The compressor then squeezes that gas, raising its pressure and temperature, and pushes it into the condenser coils on the back or bottom of the fridge, where it gives up its heat to the room and condenses back into a liquid. The liquid returns inside and the cycle repeats.