Strange things lurking in the back of the fridge and freezer
By Boingboing
@boiboing (13153)
Northampton, England
January 2, 2016 10:58am CST
Tomorrow the new fridge-freezer is arriving so for the last few days we've been sorting out the old one to get it empty and defrosted and ready for collection. I could not face having an obsolete monster FF in the garage so it has to go.
The things we've found have been shocking. The jar of kosher pickles I bought in New Jersey more than 11 years ago - they moved in with us back in the summer of 2004 - hung around for too many years because I couldn't find anybody strong enough to get the jar open and have now gone into the bin. I was amazed at how many almost empty bottles of ketchup we had and some of the 'not quite finished' jars of sauce that our lovely cleaner had been sneaking back into the fridge were qutie a shock.
The freezer revealed a large amount of old frozen soup and frozen stewed apples. I kept the apples but the soup has gone in the bin. We had a shocking amount of Quorn (a meat substitute) in sausage, mince and chunk form which clearly needs to be used up pretty pronto. And then there was the massive trout that a friend gave us about 6 years ago and that we didn't have the heart to say no to (but didn't eat either). All in the bin and good riddance to it.
It's good to change your appliances because the new ones are almost always more energy efficient than the old but also because it's a great excuse to find the alien products hiding in the back of the fridge and the freezer, some of them several years past their best.
I admit I have lousy stock control discipline but I doubt I'm the only one.
16 people like this
17 responses
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
2 Jan 16
You don't have to keep ketchup in the fridge, that should save you some space in the new one!
I keep my fridge fairly clean and void of stuff we don't need/use.
1 person likes this
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
2 Jan 16
@boiboing I know that a full freezer works better, never heard that for the fridge part.
1 person likes this
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
The problem is that sometimes we have more space in the fridge than we do in the cupboards. All sorts of odd pickles that don't need to be kept cold creep into the back of the fridge. And I was told a FF works better when it's not too empty.
1 person likes this
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
@AbbyGreenhill I had a colleague whose boyfriend stored telephone directories in his freezer to make it more efficient.
1 person likes this
@Raine38 (12257)
• United States
3 Jan 16
Oh no, you're not the only one, trust me. I am a self-confessed fridge science project "creator". There are times that I have stuff in the fridge that were no longer in their original packaging, and so there is no way to identify what they could have been in the state that I discovered them in. Good luck with the new freezer and fridge, hope we find better ways to keep track of our stuff in there.
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
3 Jan 16
Sounds like the time I took a tub of what I thought was ratatouille to work to defrost and put with my salmon steak and it turned out to be vegetable curry.
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
2 Jan 16
since it works you might post up on the village page if anyone wants. sometimes people like to use those as spares in the garage or something.
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
3 Jan 16
@boiboing those old things can be pretty heavy, I donated my old monster of a TV to a local EMS station it was bigger than their old tiny one, so far a year later its still going on, glad someone else got some use of it
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
Knowing that Germans love frozen foods (or so my boss swears), I'm surprised you don't have a good sized freezer.
@Missmwngi (12926)
• Nairobi, Kenya
2 Jan 16
I agree new products nowadays come with some improvements. You really had old stuff in the stock he hee
1 person likes this
@mrswhitfield (2044)
• Indonesia
3 Jan 16
I clean up my fridge every 2 weeks, the oldest things I have in there right now is my chocolate bar and spaghetti sauce 
@hostessman (11871)
• Tucson, Arizona
2 Jan 16
It sounds to me you would have been better off to just unplug the fridge and put the fridge in the bin and not even open the door..
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
There was also a lot of really good stuff in there too.
@Marilynda1225 (79974)
• United States
2 Jan 16
My fridge and freezer (I have a side by side) are usually pretty much under control. However, I have a chest freezer in my garage and only the Lord knows what's lurking all the way at the bottom
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
We had to clear out the chest freezer to store the food whilst we wait for the new one to arrive. Then I'll empty it and switch the spare chest freezer off. We found food I prepared 5 years ago when I had to do a very strange pre-treatment medical diet.
@poehere (15126)
• French Polynesia
3 Jan 16
Oh man that reminds me of going through the deep freezer in my mom's garage and the one in her home to clean it out. I was shocked to find all the crap in there and how old and awful looking some of the stuff was. I ended up tossing a lot of stuff out because I was afraid to get sick if I defrosted this and tried to cook it.
I only have the freezer inside the refrigerator so I keep this one cleaned out all the time. I never have to worry about this one at my home. Once a week I go through everything and throw it all out if I don't like the look of it or I know how long it has been in there. I totally hate to find a small container that has gotten lost. I really hate to open them up too and see the molded food in them. Yuck - good luck and glad you are doing this now.
@Poppylicious (11133)
•
2 Jan 16
Yikes ... eleven years!? My stock control of chilled and frozen goods is generally quite good ... it's my cupboards which hide the really old stuff!
@boiboing (13153)
• Northampton, England
2 Jan 16
I'd had them a few years before we moved so they were even older.
@Sheilamarie78 (2586)
• Canada
2 Jan 16
Our fridge is too small to harbour such treats. I laughed reading what you've found lurking.
@nanette64 (20364)
• Fairfield, Texas
2 Jan 16
Most of the time my frig and freezer are empty @boiboing , so for me a clean-out would probably just require soap & water.
@Darroch (245)
• United Kingdom
2 Jan 16
Sounds like the new fridge freezer has been a good reason for a tidy out for you. 
I'm not terribly disciplined either with my fridge and my freezer, though think I go through what's in the fridge a little more often than what's in the freezer and try to either use things up or throw them out if I notice they are close to or past their date. Never seem to find the time to do it as often as I'd like though. lol.
I'm not terribly disciplined either with my fridge and my freezer, though think I go through what's in the fridge a little more often than what's in the freezer and try to either use things up or throw them out if I notice they are close to or past their date. Never seem to find the time to do it as often as I'd like though. lol.