Living without a fridge

Nickitree30

Agapanthus wrote: »

The cooling effect of the water doesn't rely on it being extremely cold when it comes out of the tap - though obviously that helps. It's putting a teatowel or cloth over it and letting the water evaporate away that really cools things down.

When travelling I have been known to do this with a small can of milk in a hotel bedroom handbasin overnight, using my face flannel! It really works.

I can remember my Mum, in the early fifties, having a couple of unglazed earthenware coolers. She stood the milk bottle in a bowl of water, then put the cooler over it so it soaked up the water. As the water evaporated, the milk was cooled. I think she had a smaller one for butter.

You can do this with flowerpots (not plastic ones though) look on Youtube for flowerpot fridges.:)

hannahsmamma

Do you really need a fridge? I need more space in my kitchen and am thinking of getting rid of the ancient, huge fridge. I have a big chest freezer in the garage and a cool box. Was thinking of
a) not buying so much stuff, very mse
b) storing stuff in the freezer
c) putting butter in an insulated butter dish, milk in insulated jug, already have these
or keep in cool box in pantry
Seems like fridge 'eats' everything at the moment, meat, cheese, bread, fruit, veg, jam..................................

lostinrates

I used to live without a fridge, and now have an undercounterfridge withonly one shelf. Tbh, i would hang on to a fridge, especially if you live in a modern heated house. Here i can keep milk fresh for a day, but leftovers, meat not frozen etc....a fridge really is a fairly basic tool against food safety.

peachyprice

I think it would turn out to the a very expensive venture.

You'd fall into the trap of never having enough fresh food in the house so you'd be popping to the shops every day 'just for dinner' and we all know where that leads!

Could you not just get a smaller fridge?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

It can be done if you live about 500 yards from the shops and a market, with butchers', fishmongers and everything else you need (as I do).

But it's a heck of a lot easier just to switch to a smaller fridge, keeping it in the pantry if necessary.

I have an undercounter fridge, one that has a large amount of space inside (Bosch Easy Access) and I find it invaluable for keeping vegetables fresh, not getting killed by food poisoning , defrosting foods from the microsized freezer safely/unmolested by cat and, although I could get by now with a microsized fridge, I wouldn't want to go without one altogether.

zippychick

we do have an older thread on living without a fridge. Do let us know what you decide

Zip

Ben84

I think you'd be forced to shop much more often and buy smaller packets, so spending more time and money as small packets tend to have quite a high cost per Kg. More food spoilage could further damage the savings too. However, I do like my fridge a lot so am very much in the keep it camp. I don't care if it's £80 of electric a year to power up my Jurassic era under counter fridge, a glass of cold ice tea with ice cubes during a heat wave is worth it Plus crispy salad.

Anyway, if you really want to find out, I guess you can turn it off and stop using it for a while and see what happens before committing to anything?

Oliver14

hannahsmamma wrote: »

Seems like fridge 'eats' everything at the moment, meat, cheese, bread, fruit, veg, jam..................................

I agree with everyone else about you may need to shop more often. We downsized to a smaller newer fridge last year. It actually made a noticable difference to our electricity bill (though the one replaced was 30 years old and built like a nuclear bunker.

Also to add the reason i've highlighted bread is that keeping bread in your fridge actually makes it go stale quicker. This is because of the high amount of starch in bread .

In order for bread to go stale the large amount of starch starts to crystallise. More crystals form in cooler temperatures such as a fridge this causes the bread to go hard at the edges therefore stale

miss_corerupted

i don't think there is any need to keep butter or cheese in the fridge. We don't and no problems

Dunroamin

hannahsmamma wrote: »

Do you really need a fridge? I need more space in my kitchen and am thinking of getting rid of the ancient, huge fridge. I have a big chest freezer in the garage and a cool box. Was thinking of
a) not buying so much stuff, very mse
b) storing stuff in the freezer
c) putting butter in an insulated butter dish, milk in insulated jug, already have these
or keep in cool box in pantry
Seems like fridge 'eats' everything at the moment, meat, cheese, bread, fruit, veg, jam..................................

Why would you keep these in the fridge, particularly as you have a larder?