Refrigerator Organization

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, nothing makes me happier than good old organized living. (Haven’t we already established I’m a dork?) And nothing makes me more upset than when I can’t find something, especially in the fridge. Just ask my roommate. She’s heard many a rant about how I swear it was right there and now it’s vanished. (And it always turns out that whatever I needed was right behind the pickle jar or huge tub of salsa my mom thought I needed.)

So in an attempt to end all that frustration, I’ve adopted a few refrigerator organization rules. And by golly I swear I’ll never lose the ketchup again.

1. Clean the fridge once a week. And, yes, this means taking everything out of the fridge and tossing items that have expired or will expire soon. If you don’t live in an apartment and have the luxury of a dumpster sitting outside your building, you should do this the night before your trash is picked up. (You don’t want leftovers smelling up the garbage for a week!) While everything is out of the fridge, you should also take the time to wipe everything down with warm, soapy water. And don’t use chemicals—they’ll leech into your food and cause myriad health problems down the road.
2. Place everything in its designated compartment. Fridge manufacturers have made this pretty easy on you. Put the veggies in the veggie crisper, the meat in the meat tray, and the cheese in the cheese compartment. Now’s the time to designate areas for all the other varieties of foods, too. Give your milk a place—preferably not on the warmer door where it’ll spoil faster—and your leftovers a shelf. HGTV can tell you the best places to store other foods.
3. Set boundaries. If all your leftovers don’t fit on the designated shelf, force yourself to get rid of something. You probably won’t eat that two-week-old meatloaf anyway. Some organizational experts even suggest placing specific food types—like salad dressings or taco supplies—in their own plastic container. If the containers get full, toss something.
4. Use clear glass containers. I hate opening a tub of food only to find moldy, smelly leftovers. Rather than hope and pray that what you’re about to open is the mac and cheese from last night and not the Chinese food from a month ago, put everything in see-through containers. Know what else I hate? Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing a plastic dish in an attempt to make it stop smelling like last week’s spaghetti. Use glass containers that won’t soak up the smell, like these snazzy ones from Pyrex.
5. Organize by perishability (that’s not a word, but you get the idea). Take a cue from professional chefs and physicists. Place the most perishable items—think poultry, fish, raw meat, and dairy products—on the bottom of the refrigerator. It’s the coldest spot because—as you learned in your high-school physics class—heat rises. Stack less perishable foods on top. And even though a chef or physics teacher may not suggest this, I’d recommend keeping items like nail polish, exposed film, or eye masks in the fridge’s warmest locales—like the butter compartment, door, or top shelf.

Whew. How’s that fridge look now? I must admit, every time I open my well-organized fridge I get a little giddy.

Until tomorrow,
The Home Know-It-All

Comments

[NoArtificialSweeteners]

I love these ideas! Thanks. :)

[Cheap Jordan Shoes]

You will do me the justice to remember that i have always supported the right of every man to his opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right makes a slave of himself to present opinion because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.