Check out these best tips to organise your refrigerator and get rid of the cold chaos.
Remember how excited you were to consume all of your groceries after you removed them from your grocery bag and placed them in your fridge? You felt satisfaction upon looking at your freshly filled refrigerator. Unfortunately, not everything on your grocery list is remembered days after you put it in the fridge, and sometimes it simply becomes difficult to locate. The culprit? You could be arranging your groceries and farm produce in disarray.
How to Organise Your Fridge?
Refrigerator organisation is a good trend for lifestyle training. Having a well-organised fridge does not just make it easy on the eye; it also makes it easy for you to find your goods easily and preserve them for longer. You might be familiar with organising 101, where you put the meat at the bottom to avoid contamination, but organising your fridge is now more detailed and more fulfilling when properly done.
Read on to this quick guide to achieve a well-organised fridge and keep your food fresh for longer!
Know Your Refrigerator Sections
So you are ready to organise your fridge. But what goes where? Knowing where your food belongs in the fridge is fundamental to refrigerator organisation, especially when there are various refrigerator types and units in Singapore. Familiarising yourself with your refrigerator's sections is paramount to keeping your food safe and preserved for longer. And we bet you are doing it wrong most of the time.
When organising your fridge, you should know that food should stay in one section and that some refrigerator parts have different temperatures. Here are the general rules when putting your food in the fridge:
Freezer
Your freezer has a variety of foods to store, especially those that need to be frozen, like the obvious ice, ice cream, yogurt, and other frozen goods that you want to preserve longer. Since the freezer caters to many food varieties, make sure to categorise your items and keep your food in sealed plastic refrigerator containers to prevent cross-contamination. Spare your glass containers for the warmer parts of the fridge to prevent them from breaking.
Top and Middle Refrigerator Shelf
The upper and middle shelves are most likely the most versatile parts of your refrigerator, where you can store most of your food variety. Seal ready-to-eat foods in safe containers and keep them on the top or middle shelf of the refrigerator. This is to prevent them from coming into contact with raw foods that may contaminate them. These ready-to-eat foods include dairy products (yes, your milk is not meant for your fridge door), salads, packed foods, cooked meals, herbs, and leftovers.
Refrigerator Door
As opposed to what is usually done, dairy, like your milk, is not meant to stay in your fridge door. This is because the fridge door is the warmest part of your refrigerator. What should stay there are water containers, juices, and condiments, which are less prone to spoiling and can stand warmer temperatures.
Salad Section or Crisper
Your salad section must contain vegetables and fruit that have been washed and wrapped. When organising your fruit and vegetables, make sure not to mix them up in one container since they also have their own storage requirements. Some fruits, like avocados, peaches, apples, and bananas, produce ethylene that helps them ripen, affecting the quality of the vegetables. To avoid this, keep your fruits and vegetables in two separate containers. Do not peel and cut your fruits before storing them unless you are ready to consume them immediately.
Bottom Refrigerator Shelf
The lowest part of your refrigerator is the coldest. As mentioned earlier, raw meats such as pork, beef, fish, and poultry should be placed at the bottom of the fridge to prevent drips and contamination of other fresh produce. When storing raw meat, make sure to keep it in secure containers to avoid cross-contamination.
Do Not Put Hot Food in the Fridge
The key to preserving your food is to maintain the right temperature in your refrigerator. The last thing you want to do is put something that will affect the temperature inside your fridge. If you're going to store freshly cooked food, make sure to let the temperature go down first before sealing it and keeping it inside the refrigerator.
Track Your Leftovers
Always check the food that you have to consume immediately to prevent food spoilage. Remember that when a food item in your refrigerator spoils, it can contaminate the others and cause food poisoning. To make sure that you consume food at the right time, keep a post-it note on your fridge door for everyone to see or label your containers with dates to consume so you will know what to prioritise and what can stay longer. Also, when organising your food, store the items that can easily spoil or those you need to eat immediately in front of fresher items that you can consume later on. When you see signs of food spoilage in your fridge, take the item out immediately.
Eliminate Fridge Odours with Baking Soda
Since you store all sorts of food in your fridge, there is a big chance of it becoming smelly, especially because of raw meat. You can keep a container of baking soda inside a slightly opened refrigerator door to keep it fresh. Baking soda will help neutralise the smell inside the fridge.
Keep Your Fridge Filled But Not Too Crowded
To maintain the optimum function of your refrigerator, we advise that you fill it as much as possible, but be careful not to make it too occupied. This is to maintain the right temperature and proper airflow. If you notice that your fridge is crowded, you can take some items out that are better stored on your countertop. These are onions, garlic, tomatoes, squash, honey, apples, and pears.
Use Refrigerator Containers and Labels
Suppose you're done with putting your items in the right section of your fridge. If you don't put them in separate containers and label them well, there is a high chance that everything will end up in chaos after a few days. To keep your food and produce organised for a long time, use food containers and add labels so you can easily find the items in their proper places. Having these food containers also helps you remember food products that you will most likely forget when randomly stored somewhere in your fridge. If you include manufacture or purchase dates on your labels, you can easily determine what needs to be consumed first to avoid food waste.
Check out these refrigerator containers for effective fridge organisation:
- Stackable plastic fridge containers
- Refrigerator bin for fruits and vegetables
- Food jars for herbs
- Tiered refrigerator organiser
- Lazy Susan or turntable
- Baskets and trays
- Sealed bags
- Mesh bags for citrus
- Tinfoil
Your refrigerator is more than just a luxurious box that keeps your food cold. It is an innovative appliance that needs an innovative approach to work better. When buying a refrigerator or any appliance in Singapore, it's important to be familiar with the basics to enhance their functions. Now that you understand the fundamentals of refrigerator organization, you can enjoy your food without having to deal with the chaos.
Looking for the best refrigerator in Singapore? Start shopping online! Check out Megafurniture's extensive collection of innovative and energy-efficient refrigerators, including top-freezers, bottom-freezers, side-by-side refrigerators, French doors, and chest freezers.