How to Safely Pack Your Fridge

Admin/ October 13, 2024/ Storing/ 0 comments

No one wants to spend their precious free minutes sorting through the fridge, we get it. But, unless you want to risk a surprise (and prolonged) visit to the ivory throne, it’s definitely a good idea to be mindful of how you pack your food. If you want to know how to safely pack your fridge, we will go through what you need to know in this article. 

In the same vein of things, if your fridge is looking nasty, you might want to consider cleaning it first… you know, because hygiene, food poisoning, all that good stuff. Anywho, moving on.

Why is Packing Your Fridge Properly Important?

So, why is knowing how to safely pack your fridge important in the first place? We touched on food poisoning and general hygiene above, and that just about sums it up. Cross contamination is a big problem, and it can lead to a plethora of unpleasantness, from allergic reactions to food poisoning – both of which you would rather not experience. 

Bacteria can easily transfer from raw food to cooked if you aren’t careful. For example, storing raw chicken next to a fresh salad, or storing said salad beneath the raw chicken where its juices can drip onto it… We don’t need to tell you that it’s bad.

Do we?

How to Safely Pack Your Fridge

If you want to have the pace of mind that a fart is just a fart, there are some very simple rules that you can follow to pack your fridge correctly and safely. We’ll go through these in the sections below, and you’re going to smack yourself in the face when you realise how logical it all is. Or, at least, we hope so (we do not condone violence). 

What to Pack in the Doors

Starting with the fridge doors. This is where the temperature will fluctuate the most, so you’re better off not putting anything too sensitive here. We suggest storing foods with plenty of preservatives (natural or otherwise) that will keep it from going bad. 

For example:

  • Juice
  • Jams
  • Condiments/Sauces

What to Pack in the Drawers

Next up is the drawers, located all the way at the bottom of your fridge. The draws of your fridge are meant to be nice and crisp – perfect for extending the life of all of our favourite ingredients: vegetables! 

With the price of fruits and veggies these days, you’re going to want to make them last as long as possible, right? Especially considering how often we forget to use them…

Anyway, the drawers of your fridge are perfect for:

  • Fruits (*usually in its original packaging)
  • Vegetables (*usually in its original packaging)

*NOTE: Not all fruits and veggies will last the longest in its original packaging! We might do an article on how to optimally store ingredients to extend life to go through this.

What to Pack on the Bottom Shelf

The bottom shelf is the coldest part of the fridge, which means that it’s perfect for all the meat you decided to bulk buy because it was on offer (please freeze what you don’t think you’ll use within four days). Make sure to wrap up raw meats and fish to prevent those juices from leaking everywhere. 

What to Pack on the Middle Shelves

Now, the middle shelves. This part of the fridge is perfect for dairy items, from butter and yoghurt to cheese and milk. Now, understandably, if you have a smaller fridge, and you can’t manipulate the shelves, storing your milk here might not be possible (leaks and all that), so just do what you can. 

Chances are, you’ll go through your milk quickly enough to not need to worry about it going off regardless, but the same can’t always be said for other dairy products. 

What you’re mostly going to want to keep here:

  • Dairy of all varieties 

Please remember that eggs and margarine are NOT dairy. You would be shocked to realise how many people weren’t aware of this fact.  

What to Pack on the Upper Shelves

Finally, we come to the upper shelves of your fridge. By this point, you can probably guess what should be going here, but we’re going to go through it anyway for the sake of completion. 

In the upper shelves of your fridge, you should be keeping:

  • Leftovers
  • Deli meats
  • Any foods that don’t require cooking

Final Thoughts

When you break it down, packing your fridge properly is a logical process, and it’s certainly worth the little time it takes. If you are questioning the packing of your fridge, and you have five minutes, why not give it a once over and save yourself some trouble down the line?

If you like our articles that much here at Showing You the Whey, why not check out some of our other masterpieces (we say that very loosely)? Make your own cornstarch, essential oils, flavoured salts, granola, or cold cuts. Fancy something else? Check out our blogs on what you need to know about kitchen hygiene, how to clean an oven, and how to store items like egg and ginger.

And there you go – how to safely pack your fridge! It’s easy, and it should take too long for you to do a little rejig (energy and willpower allowing). Good luck!

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