The Incredible Shrinking Refrigerator

LAT1963

I have a refrigerator full of food so that there's no room to put more in it, yet when I go to try to put together a meal I have nothing to eat.

How does this happen?

How do you guys approach managing refrigerator space so that you have enough healthy fresh food and nothing in the back turns to mulch before you can eat it? Is this some secret of "adulting" that nobody bothered to teach me?

MikePTY

Go through your refrigerator, clean out and throw out the things you don't actually eat. There will be a decent amount. It is more wasteful sitting in your refrigerator taking up space than in the trash. Once you do that, I imagine there will be some space.

Susieq_1994

Don't impulse buy. Plan your grocery store visits by making a loose meal plan that's made up of meals you actually eat, rather than something pulled off a diet website. Check what ingredients you have on hand for those meals and what you need to buy to have enough to last the week. This doesn't have to be exact or planned down to the ounce, but should reasonably accommodate what you eat in a week. Avoid buying "wishful" things, like a pile of vegetables that you never eat anyway. If you're feeling adventurous, plan ONE new meal for that week including just one new vegetable or product; then, if it doesn't happen, you aren't throwing out a whole pile of perishables.

Hope this helps!

BarbaraHelen2013

Good advice above, to start with! Impulse buying is probably my biggest problem. 😳 I’m a keen cook and love to experiment!

I often find myself with far more food than I could eat in a month. No room in the fridge, or the cupboards, for that matter...but then nothing to eat either!

Some of it is not about ‘nothing to eat’ but ‘nothing I want to eat/can be bothered to prepare and cook’. When it’s that I just make myself do it, or decide I wasn’t hungry anyway!

I also empty my fridge once a week, give it all a wipe down whilst I can, then rearrange stuff so the items that need using up first are at the front. This helps a lot with food waste because not only can I see immediately what I should use I’ve also spent all day knowing what was in there so have already subconsciously formulated a vague plan on how to use it.

Same with the cupboards, but that’s more like once every two weeks that I go through and mentally inventory/tidy them.

GrizzledSquirrel

All of the above.

Also - get to grips with soups and salads.
Soups are great for using up all that veg that has started to look a bit sad. Whizz up with a stock cube, maybe some herbs, that last bit of blue cheese - get creative. You can even add lettuce and fruit (an apple can be great in some soups)

Salads - thing have to be fresh, yes - but you can always put some combo of veg together and again - make more interesting with a few hard boiled eggs, nuts, dried fruits, croutons (made from leftover stale bread), cheese. The good thing about a salad is you don’t need much of any one thing to make something delicious and satisfying.

Use your creativity and love of cooking to come up with some awesome combinations. Cooks such as Nigel Slater (UK) is always very good on leftovers - look up his “Simple Suppers” show or pretty much any of his books.

mochapygmy

A lot of space is taken up by jars and jars of condiments. Sometimes people have multiple bottles of the same exact ones and more than one open. Check the expiration dates on all of them. Make sure all similar items are grouped together

I try and eat down the contents of my fridge/ freezer and pantry 1-3x a year. Check the expiration dates of the food in your pantry too and if bought something "aspirational" that you won't make donate/ give it away before it goes bad.

88olds

I’ve found the trash bin to be a valuable weight loss tool.

And the problem with wasting food? It was wasted when I bought too much. Me eating those leftovers that put me over my numbers does not change them into something useful.

LyndaBSS

I keep most of my seafood frozen and only put in fridge the day before I eat it.

Most veggies and fruit don't need refrigeration so that saves tons of space.

I don't drink anything other than water and the very occasional glass of wine, so there are no huge bottles taking up valuable space.

I sort my fridge according to temperature, the top shelf being warmest, the bottom coolest. The top shelf is used for leftovers, mushrooms and defrosting fish.

Middle shelf is eggs and berries.

Bottom shelf is Ezekial and lavash breads and wraps, along with carrots and celery.

Door is bottled ingredients like salad dressings, fish oil, mustards, pestos, one bottle of wine, 1 bag of Hershey dark chocolate kisses and the butter container.

Cheese drawer has cheeses and sugar snap peas.

Crisper drawers have veggies that need refrigeration like lettuce, spinach and brocolli.

LAT1963

I think the condiment containers are part of my issue. No duplicates but some are things I use very rarely.

I drink milk at bedtime for the tryptophan-->(biology)-->melatonin, to offset the effects of artificial lighting (I hope). It does make me sleepy. But I buy pasteurized un-homogenized bottled milk, so that takes up some space.

grinning_chick

Meal plan, eat leftovers until gone before putting together something new, stick to a grocery list more often than not, only shop for 7-10-14 days max at a time if planning to eat things that can last a week before being used. Condiments get checked and ruthlessly culled 1-2X/year. I eat down pantry, cabinets, and both freezers at least once a year as well since I will stockpile when raving deals on things I routinely use are present.

The only times I have a fridge space logistics problem is when I impulse buy BOGO free chicken breast family packs or pork shoulders are under $1.49/lbs. when I look. But the problem only lasts until the chicken is poached and the shoulders turned into carnitas/caramel pork/etc. and all frozen.

LyndaBSS

@grinning_chick

What is caramel pork? Sounds yummy!