A refrigerator includes a storing unit for storing vegetables; a light emitting unit for irradiating light onto the vegetables stored in the storing unit to promote photosynthesis of the vegetables; an input unit for receiving an operation instruction on whether the light emitting unit is to be turned on or off; a timer for detecting a current time to output current time information; and a control unit for controlling the light emitting unit in response to the operation instruction. If the operation instruction requests that the light emitting unit be off, the control unit controls the light emitting unit to be off; and if otherwise, the control unit controls the light emitting unit to be on or off depending on the current time information.