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How to Organise an American Style Fridge Freezer
Keeping your American Style fridge freezer well organised is the least that it deserves. You didn’t spend all that money just for it to become a box of chaos, did you?
With today’s American Style fridge freezers, staying on top of what you have in stock has never been easier.
Take the LG InstaView range as an example. With their forward-thinking technology, you can look into your fridge freezer without having to open the door. And with the door spending more time closed, your food stays fresher for longer. By keeping your fridge organised you can make the most out of this technology. That way, when you tap on the glass, you’ll be able to clearly see everything you have in.
Or check out the Samsung’s Family Hub American Style fridge freezers. With a built-in tablet, this fridge becomes the organisational centre of the home. View the inside of your fridge from the built-in tablet, or on your phone whilst you’re out shopping. You can even automatically tag expiration dates to help you keep everything organised and prevent waste!
In this helpful guide, we’ll be talking you through how to get the most of your American Style fridge freezer. From how to organise your fridge to freezer organiser ideas, we have tons of tips and tricks for refrigeration organisation.
Why Should I Organise My American Style Fridge Freezer?
Before we dive in to the how, let’s look at the why. Keeping your American Style fridge freezer well organised is important for a number of reasons:
Minimise Your Food Wastage
Over 9.5 million tonnes of food gets wasted every year in the UK. As this food decomposes, the greenhouse gases emitted significantly impact global warming. Keeping your fridge organised will help you to use food before it expires. This will save both the environment, and your bank account!
Safe Food Storage
A disorganised American Style fridge freezer can increase your chances of food poisoning. By knowing how to organise a fridge for food safety, you can reduce illness. You can do this by storing your food in the correct containers and in the right part of the fridge.
Home Efficiency
When you keep your fridge organised, the fridge door will spend less time open. This is because you’ll spend less time searching for what you need. Even better, your smart fridge lets you see inside without the need to open your door. The less time your fridge door is open, the less your fridge has to work to keep the internal temperatures stable.
Less work = less energy used = a more energy efficient home
Because!
Another great reason to organise your fridge freezer is because it just looks better. Our American Style fridge freezers look fab on the outside; why not look beautiful on the inside too?
How Do You Organise Your Fridge?
Wondering what the best way to organise your fridge is? It’s important to get it right, as you’ll be reducing your chance of food poisoning. Each food category has an ideal shelf in your fridge to prevent cross-contamination.
Top Shelves
The top shelf of your American Style fridge freezer is for ready-to-eat foods. Your leftovers, sandwich meats and so on. This keeps them safe from cross-contamination with raw foods. This can also be a good place for herbs and drinks. By keeping your herbs on the top shelf they are less likely to get squashed. You could also place fresh herbs upright in a mason jar with a little water to help them stay fresh.
Middle Shelves
The middle shelves of your fridge is your dairy section. This includes butter, milk, cheese and yoghurt. It’s also a great place to store your eggs too. To help cheese from going bad sooner, and to keep it fresh, keep it in a baggy or container. And as tempting as it is to put your milk in your fridge door, it should actually be kept on a middle shelf. This is because your fridge door is the warmest part of the fridge. Meanwhile, the middle shelves have less temperature fluctuations and will keep milk fresher.
Bottom Shelves
The bottom shelf is for raw meat and fish. The bottom shelf is often the coldest part of your fridge. That’s because cold air sinks down. However, if your fridge has an ice-cream maker at the top, your top shelf will be the coldest. The colder temperature will keep your meat fresher for longer. It will also reduce your risk of food poisoning by preventing raw meat juices from dripping down onto other items.
Drawers
The crisper drawer is for your fruit, vegetables and salads. These foods are most sensitive to temperature changes. Keeping them in a drawer protects them from temperature fluctuations caused by opening of the fridge door. This will keep them fresher for longer. Some fridges can also adjust the temperature and humidity inside of these drawers. This will help them to stay fresh for even longer! But be careful, not all fruit & veg should be in the fridge at all – we’ll go into that later.
Door Shelves
The door is the perfect place for your drinks, sauces, condiments and pickles. Your door shelves become exposed to room temperature the most out of the whole fridge. This happens every time you open your fridge door. So, you need to store items here that are less sensitive to temperature changes. This also means that it’s the worst place in the fridge to store your milk!
What’s the Best Way to Organise my Freezer?
Where you place food in your freezer is less important than with a fridge. Once everything is frozen, it doesn’t matter where in your freezer it is. But, freezer organisation will help you find things more easily. Freezer organisers can also be used to help date your frozen foods and reduce food waste.
Tips on how to optimise your freezer:
Know What You Can or Can’t Freeze
Lots of people don’t know what can actually be frozen and what can’t. Don’t worry if you don’t. BBC Good Food explain what foods you can freeze here. If you need to, write up a list of freezer friendly foods and stick it on the door and you’ll be freezer-literate in no time.
Wrap and Label Well
You’ve just made a roast dinner. There’s chicken left over. You wrap it in foil and put it in the freezer. You soon forget what’s in there, and it blends in with all the other foil-wrapped items. There it stays, until it goes in the bin many months later. Labelling your food is a good way of seeing clearly what you have in stock. Eliminate the guesswork.
Flat Freezing
Flat freezing is a great space saving freezer organising idea. To do this, pour liquid foods like curries, sauces, soups and casseroles in zip-lock bags. Then, place a baking sheet in your freezer to store your liquid filled bags to freeze. You’ll then be able to stack them on top of each other on other shelves. No more half-filled containers wasting space.
Use The Fast Freeze Function
If your freezer has a fast freezing function, use it! When you place non-frozen items into your freezer the internal temp rises. Your freezer will then need to work harder to get back to normal. Turn the fast freeze function on about 3 hours before you place non-frozen items over 1kg in there. This lowers the temp so that they will freeze quicker, and your other frozen items won’t suffer.
Refrigeration Tips & Hacks
Here are some more tips, facts & hacks about storing your food in your American Style fridge freezer:
Invest in Some Baskets
Labelled baskets can be useful for storing smaller, loose items. By keeping them in one place, your fridge freezer becomes less cluttered and more efficient.
Keep Track Of What You Have in Your Fridge Freezer
We don’t always have the time to check what’s in before a food shop. Keeping a whiteboard or notepad around your American Style fridge freezer can help. Here you can keep note of what’s in stock. Alternatively, a Samsung Family Hub fridge freezer can keep track for you.
Designate a Freezer Weekend Once a Month
Once every month, try to use up everything that’s in your freezer over. This is easier done spread over a weekend. Doing this will help you cut the cost of that weeks shop, and free up space in your freezer.
10 Foods To Avoid Refrigerating
Garlic
Putting garlic in a fridge reduces its lifespan and will cause it to sprout.
Potatoes
The cold temperature can turn potato starch into sugar, impacting their flavours.
Coffee Beans
Refrigerated coffee beans will lose their quality and flavour.
Olive Oil
In the fridge, olive oil solidifies.
Bananas
Refrigerating bananas halts their ripening process.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes will lose their flavour in the fridge. If they’re already in there, let them come back to room temperature before eating.
Bread
Putting bread in the fridge causes it to go stale faster. Do put bread in the freezer however. In fact, we recommend it.
Honey
Honey has an everlasting shelf life (more or less) so there’s no need to refrigerate. Save some space!
Onions
Whole onions will soften and spoil in the fridge. Sliced or cut onions can be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days in a sealed container. Onions release ethylene gas which can cause other food in your fridge to go off.
Peanut Butter
Mass-produced peanut butter often has enough preservatives to keep it on the shelf for a long, long time. But, organic peanut butter often needs to be refrigerated. Check the label to know for sure.
Up your organisation game and get the most from your American Style Fridge Freezer. We have some amazing models in our refrigeration section. Be sure to check out the forward-thinking designs from Samsung and LG that our customers love.
For more outstanding kitchen appliances, browse from our cooking section. This includes our line of range cookers, with matching cooker hoods in our extraction section. Check out our laundry appliances and dishwashers too if you want a full revamp. Save money when buying multiple appliances with our easy to use My Multibuy feature:
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