How often do you clean out the fridge?

We get composting with our garbage service so everything gets thrown out weekly around here.

Garbage day is Thursday so sometimes we have "Wacky Wednesday" which is a fend for yourself smorgasbord from the past few days leftovers.

The dog loves Wednesday night....

Thursday is my grocery shopping day and we start the whole cycle over.

About once a month or so, I take everything out and wash the shelves and bins in hot soapy water. Jars and bottles of staples get wiped down. About 3/4 goes back in -- anything iffy looking gets tossed. I like leftovers but Mr.Irish doesn't so I don't usually double recipes.

Yeah, I have the refrigerator cleaned about every 4 to 6 weeks.

As for food, we use everything up during the week. I go to the groceries more often, so we never accumulate too much. Pickles, jam, pesto, and canned goods can stay in there for longer, fresh produce is used in a few days.

Sometimes, the salad in the big bins might get wilted and then I just toss
it, same with cucumbers. For some reason I always buy them and hardly
ever use them.

It's the oddest thing, jc. "Clean out the fridge." Taken by themselves, I understand every word just fine. Put them together, and well. . . .

You will be missing out on the main ingredient for Refrigerator Scraping Soup, but who listens to me?

Hardly never because I rarely buy food that I won't cook and eat so I have to eventually throw away.

For the most part, those other flatmates who use the fridge are somewhat vigilant in policing their own food stuffs. There are a couple of unknown containers in the freezer that could get the needed heave-ho.

I don't clean it often enough. I am ashamed but refuse to change my ways.

I clean the fridge evey two weeks, I want to keep it clear.

Get a Sharpie-type permanent marking pen, attach it to the front of the freezer with a string and magnet or tie the string to the door handle. Use the pen to label and date all those plastic bags and that will solve the UFO problem in the frig.


You can also print out this chart of the shelf life for most refrigerated foods and tape it on the side of the frig or inside a cabinet door. Once you get in the habit of dating the plastic bags and other items, this chart will make your frig dump day a no-brainer.

http://frugalliving.about.com/od/stockpiling/a/The-Shelf-Life-Of-Refrigerated-Foods.htm

There you go, I learned that from my mom. I don't waste food, I know what everything is by marking the containers.

Clean out the fridge?

We mark all the freezer stuff, and usually have a week about every month or so where we do the "eat through the leftovers" bit. This just so happens to be one of those weeks. This also means consolidating down anything that remains (so there's room for more leftovers). Too much refreezing is a problem, too, so anything older can sometimes just be tossed. Most of the stuff we eat during "eat through the leftovers" week is vegan so there is very little freeze/refreeze of meat.

As for refrigerated stuff, we do our best to make sure it's all gone by Friday or Saturday when we go shopping. By tonight, after dinner, the bagged salad should be close to done, as should all of the salad side thingies like sliced cukes and baby carrots.

If anyone is cleaning a lot of stuff out of the fridge on a weekly basis, it means you're buying too much and/or buying things that aren't being used. I fully expect that, by tomorrow afternoon, I will be scraping the fridge shelves as nearly nothing should be in 'em.

I usually clean it out when some one spills something in it. I start wiping out the spill and then notice the entire fridge is disgusting so then I empty and clean the entire thing out.

Refrigerators have to be cleaned?

I've lived alone for a while. At first, for a short time, I considered trying to cook for one but my every fiber says that's a waste of time and energy from my own energy to use of gas jets. So, I cook pretty much as I always have and save leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer. I label with a sharpie except for when I think it's obvious what I'm freezing, and so still find the odd surprise. I've started freezing what I can in accumulated/cleaned glass jars - never to the top - which are pretty good for detecting what's in them, plus I tend to label.

I like leftovers, sometimes better than just newly cooked food, and use the doggy bag food I sometimes take after eating in a restaurant... soon to be part of refrigerator soup, or little meat pies, sort of baby empanadas. Restaurants usually serve too much food for my appetite level. Plus it saves money and food waste.

I clean the shelving when I notice ookiness, and get rid of bowls of whatever that I've let get past their prime before putting in the freezer - usually the evening before trash day.
My failure tends to be that I buy lettuce since I've always liked salads, since I first found out about them, but somehow let lettuce keep lying there in its rest bin, or even in the salad shooter thingy. Summer's a cumin in, so I'll have another go at eating more lettuces - or just give up. In contrast, I use up greens like kale, spinach, collards, mustard greens, etc.

I have to run this action series more tightly since I got a new smaller refrigerator a while ago, smallest I've had since my first one that I traded a pastel drawing of a horse for. Anything after that fridge was a major move up.

When I buy a new fridge.


I have been inspired to clean more often in between, but the feeling generally passes.

I grew up in a family of 7, so it took me years before I could truly cook and shop for the number of people in the house. I usually don't create a bunch of leftovers... now.
I have the same type of fridge as you jc. I bought extra door shelve thingies so that I keep all the little stuff in them. That way fridge is mainly big stuff, so by the time I normally go shopping, it easy to wipe the shelves 'cause the fridge is pretty much empty.

I have a cousin who was lucky enough to be transferred to Zurich for his job. His wife food-shops everyday since the fridge in their apartment is only about waist-high and the market is just steps away. I've often thought I'd love that setup, but where we are, if I walked to the grocery store, I'd never make it back in time to cook dinner lol.

this is a great idea. I'll have to look into it. It really would make a big difference in keeping things organized. Too many things get lost in the cavern.

I bought two at a refrigeration part store, about $15 a pop.