How To Organize Your Refrigerator And Freezer In Your Kitchen So As Not To Waste Food
How can I organize my refrigerator and freezer so as to not waste food?
The key to organizing your refrigerator and freezer is to know when something went in there. You know, a lot of times you're looking at something and thinking, 'how old is this,' and you start smelling it, and then you're not sure, and it gets kind of crazy and sometimes you don't even recognize it. It's not a good thing. And this, particularly in the freezer, is tricky, because I know people who have had certain cuts of meat in their freezer since the 1990's; so, that's not a good thing. So, when you put something in there, you want to label it just with a date. It's what restaurants do. Basically, the best rule of thumb for storing food is put a date on it. Then you know this is from two months ago or two years ago. Again, in organizing a refrigerator, I like to say, 'this is the space for the beverages, this is the space for the fruits and vegetables, this is the space for the meats.' You don't have to get completely obsessive about it, but it's nice to have an idea of what you want to keep where. That way you're not finding one soda brand on one shelf and another two shelves up and something else down there. You sort of know if you're going in the refrigerator looking for leftovers, this is kind of the area it is going to be in. When it comes to the freezer, it is good to be a little more ‘anal retentive' - should we say, about it. If you've got drawers in your freezer, I always love saying 'this is poultry drawer, this if for the meats and fish or vegetables'. Sort of keep it separate like that if you can. Again, date everything that is going in there. Put all of the ice creams together if you can. Just doing that, grouping things, will really create better organization and will also help you when making grocery list---trying to figure out what you don't have and have. You can look and eyeball it and don't have to dig around and peel things open to try to see what is in there. You can write on it--- halibut - July 2007. It'll give you an idea; so, that's a general way to keep your refrigerator organized.
