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Cool tips for storing groceries in your fridge

If you have been stocking up on food amid the coronavirus outbreak, you are probably looking at all that produce and dried goods and wondering how to store them.

One of the biggest problems that comes with hoarding groceries is food wastage.

Often, we buy so much that we cannot finish them before the expiry date, or throw them into the refrigerator and forget about them. To help you avoid that situation, here are some hacks for properly organising and storing your stash.

Use pull-out refrigerat or baskets for easy access

Instead of pushing items all the way to the back of the shelf, store them in pull-out baskets with handles. This is especially useful for taller refrigerators with high, deep shelves, you may not be able to reach to the back.

Have an eat-me-first box for items that are about to expire

Keep those items in a clear box labelled "eat me first" in your refrigerator at eye level. This way, you will be reminded each time you open the refrigerator looking for something to munch.

You can do something similar for children - put all juice boxes, apples and yogurt into a box and leave it on a lower shelf they can easily access, making sure the ones with the earliest use-by dates are in front.

Line the bottom of your vegetable drawer for freshness

Often, fresh produce drawers accumulate bits of old vegetables. These build up odour in the refrigerator, and the only way to clean them is to take out the entire drawer for washing.

Keep your drawers clean - and your veggies fresher for longer - by lining the bottom of your produce drawer with paper towels or wax paper, and change these out every week when you go grocery shopping.

Label the purchase date on all food items

If you have bought a lot of food, it is often tough to keep track of how long that jar of mayonnaise or that bag of carrots has been sitting there.

Not everything has an expiry date, so it is best to label each item with the purchase date. Alternatively, keep a small magnetic whiteboard on the refrigerator door and update that.

Make the most of the shelf height by using stackable boxes

Instead of having boxes of different sizes and bags of fruit rolling around, store them in stackable clear boxes.

These help maximise the shelf height in your refrigerator, and you can see what is available at a glance.

Keep small items in sight with mugs or holders

Leaving food items that are small, or long and thin (like cheese sticks) in a deep compartment means they will be easily buried by other items and forgotten, only to be excavated months later when you are clearing out the refrigerator.

Store these upright instead - use a mug to hold them upright in the refrigerator door compartment, or use a small hanging basket with rubber suction cups that can be attached to the inside of the refrigerator.

This article was first published in Home & Decor Singapore (homeanddecor.com.sg)

 

Food & Drink