Cleaning and organizing your fridge is probably one of your least favorite chores, up there with scrubbing the bathtub or the oven. It feels like a thankless task.
However, think about how often you found old food you had to throw out because it hid behind other items in the fridge. It’s not just wasteful; it costs money.
With some organization, you could prevent unseen food from going bad and simplify cleaning your fridge. Here is what experts think you should be doing to make your life easier when organizing your fridge.
Using the Deli Drawer Wrong
If your fridge is older, you probably wonder what a deli drawer is. As the name suggests, this compartment, common in newer refrigerators, stores deli meats like ham and roast beef.
You shouldn’t use it to store leftovers or produce. These belong in other parts of your fridge. Why? Temperature control. The deli drawer’s temperature is perfect for lunch meats.
Putting Onion and Garlic in the Fridge
Some things don’t belong in the fridge. Onions and garlic are prime examples. Potatoes and pumpkins don’t belong in the refrigerator either.
These items don’t need refrigeration, so they take prime real estate away from foods that do, like open jars of natural peanut butter. Instead of refrigerating onions and garlic, put them in a cool, dark place to prevent them from getting soggy.
Too Many Plastic Organizers
While using plastic organizers is a great idea, having too many of them can create cluttered chaos and keep perishables hidden. If you can’t see what’s in them and, more importantly, behind them, you’re not using them properly.
Plastic organizers work best for small items that can be grouped. Avoid deep ones that take up much space, especially if you only store a few items.
Not Using Fridge Mats
Fridge mats have a dual purpose. They can prevent bottles from sliding around and make cleaning easier by absorbing spills. They’re inexpensive and work great for storing wine and plastic bottles on the side.
If you notice a spill on your mat, wipe it clean right away to make your life easier in the long term. Don’t let it set and contribute to the nasty odors that can build up in a fridge.
Filling It to the Max
If your refrigerator is full to the max, it must work harder to keep everything cool. Worse, it will be even more difficult to see expired food rotting away at the back of the fridge.
Consider whether you’re refrigerating items that don’t need it or if you fail to rotate food so that older items continuously get pushed to the back. Out of sight means out of mind regarding an overfilled fridge.
Produce on Every Shelf
When a refrigerator is disorganized or overfilled, it often has a mishmash of different types of foods on every shelf. For example, you may have run out of room in the crisper, so your strawberries are on the bottom shelf next to the steaks you plan to cook later.
Not having items on the shelf or in the container they belong to means they don’t get to the correct temperature. Moreover, storing meat and produce on the same shelf causes cross-contamination.
Refrigerating Bananas
Overripe bananas turn black and may tempt you to throw them in the fridge to prevent them from rotting. The bad news? They turn black in the fridge even faster. While they don’t become inedible, they’ll look pretty off-putting.
If you bought too many bananas, peel them and put them in the freezer. You can thaw them in no time and throw them into a smoothie or make banana bread.
Too Many Jars
Having too many jars in the fridge restricts your visibility. You also can’t tell if you still have those green olives you want to put on your pizza or an unopened jar of mayo hiding at the back.
There’s a simple fix to this problem. Don’t put unopened jars in the fridge. Moreover, keep open jars in the door, where they’re visible. If they start taking over the shelves, you’ll often push them to the back and not see them again.
Condiments Throughout the Fridge
Like jars, condiments belong in the refrigerator door. They’re easy to see, and you can tell if you’re running out of your favorite hot sauce or mustard immediately.
They get lost in the general mayhem if you can see them throughout the fridge. Besides, they don’t need constant temperature, as milk does. The fridge door’s design bears this in mind.
Meat on the Top Shelf
The bottom shelf of a refrigerator is the coolest, so you should store all your meats and fish there. The middle shelf works well for leftovers, and the top shelf works well for beverages.
If you put meat on the top shelf, the warmer temperature can cause it to spoil faster. Besides, it may drip all over your items below, causing cross-contamination. Always store meat in a container that’s easy to clean if you need to store it on the top shelf.
Herbs at the Bottom of the Crisper
Herbs tend to end up in the crisper and get tossed to the bottom when you pick vegetables for your daily meals. There, they often rot. Did you know you don’t need to refrigerate herbs?
Instead, store them in jars or even a small vase like you do flowers. Giving them a little water will keep them fresh and tasty for longer. In the fridge, they often wilt away.
Playing Loose With Zoning
Zoning refers to creating a clear area for each type of food in your fridge. As we mentioned above, the bottom shelf is your uncooked meat zone. The crisper works great for vegetables because it maintains more humidity.
The middle and top shelves are warmer than the bottom, so they’re ideal for water bottles and cooked food. Don’t ignore zoning if you want to stay healthy and have long-lasting food.
Storing Eggs in Plastic Containers
You may enjoy seeing everything in the fridge outside its original packaging, yet experts suggest caution when storing food items this way. Moreover, for best results, store eggs inside their carton.
Eggs can absorb odors and bacteria because their shells are porous. Their carton helps reduce this phenomenon. Although it’s not pretty, it keeps them protected from strong smells, like that of melon.
Leaving Leftovers on Plates
If you’re like me, you may have put some plastic wrap over your plate and put it in the fridge after dinner because you were too tired or stressed to care. However, leaving leftovers on plates takes up a lot of space in the fridge and isn’t safe from cross-contamination, especially if you put them on the same shelf as the raw meat.
Instead, put them in airtight containers on the middle or top shelf.
Ignoring Spills
Ignoring spills in the fridge is easy, especially if it’s crowded. After all, you’re usually single-minded when you open the door — you’re there to grab something, not admire the view.
Spills can create bad odors, cross-contaminate food, and make it much more difficult to clean your fridge. Besides, when it comes to cleaning, the dirtier your fridge, the more you’re likely to procrastinate. Avoid this by cleaning out spills as soon as you detect them.
Playing Tetris With Your Food
In my family, when the fridge is full of leftovers, we call it “playing Tetris.” It refers to haphazardly fitting more items when the fridge bursts at the seams.
Don’t play Tetris with your food. It’s unsafe and will ruin whatever plans you may have made to organize and clean your fridge. If your meal turned out bad and leftovers are unlikely to get eaten, don’t throw them in the fridge. Compost them — your plants will thank you.
No Labels
If you have ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, you probably remember how furious he gets when freezer items aren’t labeled. While Gordon can go over the top on many things, he’s right about this.
Always label your fridge and freezer items with the content and date, especially if you don’t store them in their original packaging. Alternatively, you can label items based on the day and meal you plan to use them for.
Organized but Filthy
Having a well-organized fridge is only half the battle. You also have to keep it clean. You can respect zoning and use the right mats and containers, but it will all be in vain if the shelves are dirty and you have old spills underneath the mats.
Always approach your refrigerator like you do the rest of your home. Clean first, organize second.
Using Opaque Containers
Containers are a great way to organize the refrigerator, but only if you can see what’s in them. Opaque containers make this impossible.
While you can still circumvent this problem by using labels, it’s much less time-consuming to simply use clear containers for your leftovers or prepped veggies. You’ll instantly see what’s what.
Overbuying Perishables
We all stock up on items when they’re on sale. If you have a Costco membership, you know some perishables come in humongous sizes that not even a large family can go through before they spoil.
Avoid buying more perishable items, like fruits and vegetables, than you need. When you do, you overcrowd the crisper and hasten their demise. In the long term, you’ll waste less food and money if you only buy what you need.
Ignoring Maintenance Cleaning
We don’t advocate weekly fridge cleanings but don’t wait a year before cleaning your refrigerator. Instead, try the middle ground.
Clean your fridge on a schedule. In my household, we clean it at the beginning of each season and before the major food holidays, like Christmas and Easter. We also wipe down spills when we notice them and try to do maintenance cleaning when we purge old items.
Ignoring Expiration Dates
Ignoring expiration dates is a major food safety issue. Besides checking expiration dates, you should also use labels to figure out when you opened a yogurt jar, for example. Once you open a vacuum-sealed item, it’s more likely to spoil than before.
Also, check out the expiration dates of your condiments. These items seem to live forever, but often, they’re long past the time they’re safe to consume.
Not Changing Messy Packaging
This one is common. Think about butter. Unless you use a butter keeper, the packaging gets messier whenever you grab a new stick. You get it on your fingers and transfer it to the fridge door and any other surface you touch.
If anything looks runny or sticky when you return it to the fridge, throw away messy packaging and give the container a rinse or a wipe before putting it back in.
No Food Planning
Food planning refers to making a weekly menu and inventorying things you must buy each week. Without food planning, we buy too many perishables that go to waste.
One tip for food planning is to designate a section of your fridge for the ingredients you’ll cook for dinner each evening. Don’t mix raw meat and vegetables Instead, group the ingredients you’ll use to accompany them to give you a visual reminder of your plan.
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This post was previously published on Wealth of Geeks.
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