Your Messy Fridge May Be Fattening

The biggest consideration in organizing your fridge is that it not kill you.  :- ) This can be helped along a lot by not putting meat where it will drip onto other things and make them spoil.  Dairy could also be a problem in this area, but not nearly as bad as thawing meat.  A plate or bin that is a permanent home for thawing meat and will catch potential drips is a solution to this problem.  I like glass better than plastic because plastic can get tiny scratches on it that harbor unhealthy germs.  The experts did not mention metal, but I think it is worth considering a square or rectangular cake pan for meat thawing.  I must say that it is necessary to clean the meat/dairy/whatever drip catcher often enough to avoid killing yourself too.  I believe this is every time you defrost something in there and it drips.


It is hard to eat a healthy diet when your fridge is so gross it sends you fleeing for the junk food every time you open its door.  We can use getting ready for the Holidays for an excuse or motivation.  I doubt that anyone doesn't know that we need to do this the night before garbage pickup day or early enough to beat the garbage truck to the dumpster/garbage can.  Once you have all the bad stuff out in the garbage, you can clean the fridge and see what you are dealing with.   All the food needs to be where you can see it at one time.


There are two main theories of fridge organization.  The most common is by type of food:  all the dairy together, all the condiments, etc.  The other one is my favorite.  You put things together by purpose.  You put all the breakfast things together.  If you eat a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, you put the cream cheese and bagels in a bin together, for example.  You put all the sandwich things in a bin.  This allows one to carry the whole thing to the preparation and/or eating spot, and then dump it all back into the bin to carry it back to the fridge.  Theoretically this encourages other family members to put things back in the right place as well.


There are two main theories of placing tall objects.  One is to put them at the back of the shelf so you can see all the shorter stuff in front of it.  The one I like the best is to put the tall things to the side of a shelf and the short things along the opposite side of  that area.  I hate knocking over the green chili sauce when I drag out the whipping cream.  You can still see the short stuff with this method.  If you have nice big door shelves that you can put all of your tall things like milk or juice jugs on, then you have one less thing to think about when you organize your fridge.


There was a suggestion I read that one use one crisper bin to put veggies and fruit in and the other for meats.  Since most fridges have the crispers located at the bottom, this will help contain meat drips.  Crispers mostly keep produce fresh and crisp longer.  If you don't have a crisper bin,  you can make do with a plastic container lined with paper towels.  The paper towels soak up moisture and slow down rotting.


I will give you links to give you more information if you want it. 

This is a basic fridge orrrganizing blog post. 

This link is how to organize your fridge by a professional organizer

This is by a pro organizer who includes weight loss tips on organizing your fridge

I was going to put in places that sell fridge organizing containers online, but nah.  Once I get ads on here, the organizing items will be here.

 Go forth.  Organize.  Be Healthy and Happy.

I am going to write about good stuff to have handy to eat to keep down the bad stuff binges, next.