An unsystematic or disorganized fridge can rapidly turn into a great problem. From ignored leftovers to missing ingredients, a mixed-up fridge can pose a hazard to your health and budget. The wonderful news is that you can aptly avoid these problems by using a few simple organizational strategies. By keeping your fridge organized, you can effectively put to use your available space and keep everything fresh and ready to eat.
Clean and Sort
The first step to organizing a fridge is to clean and sort all of your fridge items. Drag everything out of the refrigerator, going over expiration dates, mold, or other signs of spoiled food as you go. Get rid of anything that is past the expiration date or looks crappy. For leftovers or food in plastic storage containers, if you’re not actually sure how long it has been in there, throw it out. When it comes to your food, it’s best to err on the side of caution.
With everything out of the fridge, take some time to deep-clean your fridge’s interiors. Employing hot, soapy water or a mild bleach solution, wide down and dry all surfaces, including inside drawers and bins. Then, you will easily start with a clean fridge for your new organization system.
Label Everything
The following step to an organized fridge is to have a listing of how long your food has been there. Even while lots of pre-packaged foods will come with an expiration or sell-by date on them, for fruits and veggies or food that you bring home or that is leftover from meals, you ought to have a system to keep track of when it was added to the fridge and when it will require to be thrown out.
One practical suggestion is to apply a dry-erase marker to write the dates of meals and takeout on the container. You could perform the same thing for other perishables, using the inside of your fridge. By writing down both when you brought them home and when they need to be used, you can better ensure that you are using up the groceries you buy before they spoil and avoid eating leftovers that can make you queasy or even sick.
Use Containers
Holding and keeping loose items neat in a fridge can be stressful, specifically things such as fruits, vegetables, and even small condiment jars. To hinder clutter and be sure that you have everything you’re looking for at hand, look into using clear storage bins to group loose items together. Consider investing in some quality reusable food storage containers with tight-fitting lids. This can help you store food safely and lower waste by reusing your containers repeatedly.
You can as well put to use a dry-erase marker on the bins and storage containers to keep track of the dates things were procured. Employing bins and storage containers in your fridge will provide space for larger items elsewhere and more smoothly track expiration dates of perishable items.
Develop a System
As you begin replacing items, it’s significant to develop a system for storing everything. This has two benefits: first, that you will easily identify where things are, and second, that it can make your food last longer and keep it safer. As an illustration, notice that certain items should be kept in certain places.
Meat should always be kept on the lowest shelf to ward off dripping and contaminating other food. Additionally, never store milk in the fridge door – it can spoil quickly in the event that it’s exposed to warm air too many times. You can equally separate your fruits and vegetables, and apply trays for unorganized messy items to prohibit spills.
Plan Ahead
Whenever your fridge is clean and organized, the most critical thing you can implement is to make a plan to keep it that way. Even the most organized fridge will need to be cleaned, and old items thrown out periodically. Try putting together a cleaning schedule to bear in mind that your fridge stays organized. By way of illustration, you could choose a day of the week or month to go through everything, rotating and updating your fresh produce, and wiping down fridge surfaces. By doing this frequently, you can avoid the fearful deep-clean and purge of your fridge (and freezer), a job very few want.
By adhering to these uncomplicated guidelines and tips, you can keep your fridge clean and organized week after week with less effort than you ever thought possible!
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