A disorganized fridge can easily become a big problem. A messy fridge can, without question, threaten your health and budget, from forgotten leftovers to missing ingredients. The good thing is that you can successfully evade these nuisances by using just a few simple organizational strategies. Keeping your fridge organized makes the most of your available space and keeps everything fresh and ready to eat.
Clean and Sort
The first step to organizing a fridge is cleaning and sorting all your items. Cautiously pull everything out of the refrigerator, noting for expiration dates, mold, or other signs of spoiled food as you go. Clear out anything that is past the expiration date or looks unclean. For leftovers or food in plastic storage containers, if you’re not positive how long it has been in there, throw it out. In terms of your food, it’s ideal to err on the side of caution.
With everything out of the fridge, take the time to clean its interiors properly. Wash and dry all surfaces, don’t forget to include inside drawers and bins, putting into use hot, soapy water or a mild bleach solution. In this regard, you will get started with a clean fridge for your new organization system.
Label Everything
The next step to an organized fridge is to keep an inventory of how long your food has been there. Though a number 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 need to be thrown out.
One effective tip is to use a dry-erase marker to write the dates of meals and takeout on the container. You could certainly do the same thing for other perishables inside your fridge. By noting both when you brought them home and when they need to be used, you can warrant that you are using up the groceries you buy before they spoil and avoid eating leftovers that can make you sick.
Use Containers
Keeping loose items tidy in a fridge, specifically fruits, vegetables, and even small condiment jars, can be taxing. Weigh on using clear storage bins to group loose items together to prevent clutter and make sure you have everything you’re looking for. Moreover, look into having quality reusable food storage containers with tight-fitting lids. This can greatly help you store food safely and reduce waste by reusing your containers repeatedly.
You can also use a dry-erase marker on the bins and storage containers to keep track of the date things were procured. Using bins and storage containers in your fridge will free up space for more oversized items elsewhere and make tracking the expiration dates of perishable products easy and smooth.
Develop a System
As you set out to replace items, it’s necessary to develop a system for storing everything. This has two benefits: first, you will constantly know where things are, and second, it can make your food last longer and be safer. Be mindful that a few particular items should be kept in certain places.
Meat should routinely be kept on the lowest shelf to avoid dripping and contaminating other food. Aside from that, never store milk in the fridge door – it can spoil immediately when exposed to warm air pretty often. You can additionally separate your fruits and vegetables and use trays for rather messy items to prevent spills.
Plan Ahead
In the event that your fridge is clean and organized, the main thing you can bring about is a plan to keep it that way. Even the most organized fridge will need to be cleaned up, and old items thrown out now and again. Deem creating a cleaning schedule to warrant that your fridge stays organized. In particular, you could decide a day of the week or month to go through everything, rotating and updating your fresh produce and wiping down fridge surfaces. By accomplishing this on a regular basis, you can avoid the dreaded deep-clean and purge of your fridge (and freezer), a job very few are crazy about.
By observing these trouble-free tips and advice, you can keep your fridge clean and organized week after week with less troubles than you thought at all possible!
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