Organize the Healthy Refrigerator and Freezer

Get REAL With Perishable Food!

When I say organize the “healthy refrigerator and freezer,” I’m not just talking about health in terms of nutrition or food quality, but also food safety. When my son first lived on his own, he had quite a few “stomach bugs”. We finally realized he was eating expired sandwich meat! Food safety matters and that’s why we call refrigerated foods perishable-not only do the foods perish, but a person might too!

General Principles of Organization

Before I get started on how to organize the Healthy Refrigerator and Freezer, here are some general principles of organization:

1. Throw out what you don’t need.

2. Group like things together.

3. Label all food items with a date and a description if not obvious.

4. Labels need to face out and not be hidden.

5. Put things close to where you use them.

6. Put least used items in the hardest to reach area.

7. Keep cold items that are oldest towards the front of the refrigerator/freezer: First in First Out-FIFO

8. Always arrange things so that you can see what you have-don’t have small items behind big ones.

9. Put items in an area that has the right temperature-this is very different for different areas of the refrigerator

10. Know what you have-keep an inventory of your freezer.

11. Put heavy items where they’re easiest to access.

12. Label shelves to that it’s obvious to all what goes where.

13. Keep the healthiest foods toward the font when they’re easy to see and reach.

For more on kitchen organization, see my post “GUIDE TO ORGANIZING YOUR KITCHEN”.

The Specifics of Organizing the Healthy Refrigerator

Keep uncooked bananas, potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes and avocados out of the refrigerator-unless they’re cut.
Tomatoes only belong in the fridge when they’re ready to eat. Refrigeration keeps them from ripening.
Clear plastic bins that pull out-make as many “drawers” as possible.
Square storage containers are a better use of space. In the refrigerator, stick to glass containers. Plastic might be OK for some fruits and vegetables that are whole.
Lettuce and spinach freeze easily-watch out!
Lazy Susans are great for condiments.
An egg box can keep eggs from breaking and may allow you to stack some things on top if the fridge gets crowded (like when you’ve just bought groceries.)
Check labels of condiments to see what requires refrigeration after opening.
If you’re thawing something in the fridge, be sure it won’t leak on anything. Put it on a plate or in a bed.
Do NOT put leftovers in the refrigerator uncovered, unless you’re just cooling them quickly to store later.
When storing leftovers, DON”T cover with a paper towel..this sounds very funny, I know, but this was a favorite trick of my mother-in-law. Saving plastic??
Cut fruit/ veggies need to be in a dish with a tight-fitting lid, preferably glass.
If any food items, especially leftovers or meats/poultry/seafood need to be eaten right away, use a special sticker or sticky note. Better yet, keep them all together in a specific place in the fridge that’s easy to get to.
Put healthy snacks within easy reach of your kids. They’re much more likely to eat them.

Benefits of a chest freezer

I have a bottom freezer on my fridge and also a small chest freezer in my laundry room. I can’t tell you what a lifesaver my Haier Refrigerator is! It’s 5 cubic feet and measures 30.5″L x 23.1″W x 34.6″H. It holds 175 pounds of food. I got tired of doing an archaeological dig every time I needed something out of it and took the measurements to the Container Store. With two large plastic bins with handles that stack on top of each other and two small ones that fit side by side-on top of the larger ones, I’m in business.

The freezer comes with a wire basket for the top of the end of the freezer, and there is also storage under that. NEED PHOTO. This has been the greatest for freezing extra produce, stocking up on meats and chicken that are on sale, specialty breads, and unopened bags of frozen fruits and vegetables-or those 3 pound bags of frozen blueberries or nuts. I also have large frozen containers of leftovers in the chest freezer that I’m now religious about labeling!

Having the chest freezer frees up space in my refrigerator freezer for opened bags of vegetables and fruits. Other frozen items I want to keep handy are small amounts of leftovers, like two hamburger patties, 14oz of tomatoes from a partially used can, lemon zest, extra herbs, and spices. I’ve been working on organizing that freezer too-a few small bins has really helped. Honestly, it’s really trial and error to see what works, but my general rule is if it will get lost in the chest freezer or I use it frequently, then it goes in the refrigerator’s freezer. I do keep the inventory of both freezers posted and this really cuts down on the “dig”. It also keeps me from throwing food out just because I just forgot about it and it’s now lost its flavor.

The “Black Hole”

Most important-don’t let your freezer be a BLACK HOLE where food items disappear for months! While freezing (zero degrees or below) will stop bacteria from growing, over time, foods can lose their taste as well as their nutrition. By keeping an inventory of what’s in your freezer and update it every week or so, you’ll have a lot fewer frustrations. When you do your planning for the week and organize your list for the store, the inventory makes your life so much easier and cuts down the “digs” for sure.

If you have a second refrigerator/freezer, it’s great for the times when you’re cooking for a crowd, need more room for drinks for a group, extra freezer storage, and lots of other things I’m sure I’ve forgotten. Whatever you do, make it easy for you and the rest of the gang to find what they’re looking for. And know what you have.

Steps to Organizing the Healthy Refrigerator and Freezer:

Maximize your space and minimize the “dig” and make it easy for your family to keep the refrigerator/freezer organized.
Check again to see that items that don’t require refrigeration and not taking up space
Group like items together: condiments, nuts, flours, cheese/sandwich fixings
Figure out how many bins that can be drawers will fit into your refrigerator.
See if you can use a lazy susan.
Keep perishable food from perishing!
Be mindful of temperature requirements of food and what area of the refrigerator works best.
First in, first out: oldest items toward the front. Assign a specific area for leftovers that need to be eaten soon. This will really help!
Make things easy to reach and limit looking into the refrigerator like watching television. When this happened, I knew I needed more organization!
Be sure you can read all labels easily.
Keep healthy snacks near the front of the refrigerator and easy to reach.
List freezer items in an inventory
Hold an “Orientation Event”-make it fun and introduce the organization plan to everyone!

Summary of Healthy Refrigerator and Freezer Organizing

First, get ready by getting your materials together: labels, marker, tape, bins and other organizing containers Get your kids involved! The more they’re involved, the more they’ll buy into the whole idea of organizing and you won’t be fighting them. They might monitor you! Kids love consistency and organizing rules will really appeal to them. Make it a game. For more on this topic, see my post “Building the Healthy Refrigerator ”.

Cleaning the refrigerator/freezer

I didn’t include cleaning the refrigerator freezer in prior posts, because it’s a job unto itself. Since the function of the kitchen revolves around food, I thought it was more important-and surely more exciting to talk about that first. So now onto the subject of cleaning, which I find way more boring and less fun-but necessary. Of course, having a clean refrigerator and freezer does take some work. It’s important to keep those appliances clean so they cool better and cut down on food contamination.

That’s for another post since those jobs are projects in themselves. Overwhelm is the enemy of progress! A clean refrigerator will surely smell better and have fewer germs. Get into the habit of wiping up spills promptly and do a serious cleaning of the refrigerator every month or two. There is a good article from Epicurious.com on how to do a deep clean of your refrigerator if you need to do it now. At least the junk is gone and everyone can find everything!

If you feel like you need to clean out your freezer right away (Maybe you can’t close the lid/door or frost buildup is so thick that you don’t have as much room as you used to.), check out there is a great wikihow article.

I think it’s a good one with one caution: I do NOT recommend using a hair dryer to aid in defrosting because of the risk of..ELECTROCUTION! especially with kids running around.

Keeping the refrigerator organized and clean is an ongoing project. You might have to have another “orientation” to keep everyone on board. I’ve found that humans are very trainable! Rewards are good, but positive reinforcement can work just as well. If you have kids, you could add something to their chore chart and have one of them responsible for checking it each week. Now the adults. That’s another story! Hopefully, the kids will inspire them. If you don’t have kids, the positive reinforcement usually works well with grown-ups. Send me an email and let me know how it’s working.