If you’ve ever opened the door to your refrigerator to discover and overwhelming and pungent smell of rotting food and general funkiness, then chances are that either it–or you–weren’t doing its job properly. There are several ways in which you can improve food safety in the fridge and knowing the correct way to use refrigeration technology is a big part of it. Correct refrigerator usage will ensure your food stays fresh, safe and hygienic for an optimum amount of time, saving you waste and money!
Temperature Control
Your fridge should be kept at 4 degrees Celsius. This is not so cold as to freeze your food, but it is adequately chilly to slow and prevent bacteria from making its way across your dinner! The temperature setting is usually located at the top of your fridge, possibly at the back, and will feature a dial with the temperature written on it. If you have things shoved up against the dial this could tamper with the settings so check it regularly to ensure it remains steady.
Cover Up
It is incredibly important to cover all open containers or plate when you put them in the fridge. Not only does this prevent your dishes from drying out, it also stops the smell of that food infiltrating all other foodstuffs. Garlic-chicken flavoured yoghurt? No thank you.
Maintain Your Equipment
A fridge that is in good working order is the first thing you need to make sure this whole ‘chilled food’ caper gets off the ground. You can be as conscientious as you like with all the other elements, but if your fridge doesn’t work then you may as well just leave the food out in the open air. Most fridges come with a warranty, but even once that warranty has expired it’s a good idea to have a repair person pay you a visit if you start to notice anything amiss. It could be something relatively simple that can be fixed there and then, and getting onto problems as soon as you detect them is a surefire way to keep your fridge healthy.
Regular Cleaning
Things spill. Smells escape. It seems like a no-brainer but fridges get cleaned shockingly less-frequently than they should. Set yourself a ‘fridge cleaning morning’ once a month and remove and rotate all the items inside, wipe out the shelves and invest in some vanilla-scented fridge wipes to keep it smelling pleasant.
Don’t Overcrowd
Like washing machines, small cars and single beds, fridges can’t do their job properly if you overcrowd them full of things.The cooling process is disrupted, not to mention that your fridge will become disorganised and food will go missing underneath the clutter, only to resurface months later as unrecognisable brown mush. Ew.
