A new challenge: going refrigerator-free

[nd293]

What about compromising on a bar fridge type? I know a family of 5 that only have a bar fridge / mini fridge, and the mother says they manage well with that.

[Sputterduck]

I might add - I read once about how in WWI a large number of men got very ill after eating leftover rice that had been cooked and left unrefrigerated overnight.

 

Some folks may get by with small or no 'fridge - but then they go out and buy food fresh each day from places that have refrigeration. Or eat out.

 

Or - heavily salt all your food to keep it (salt pork, dry salt cod, etc.) and cook up fresh dry beans daily. Like the Ingalls.

 

We leave rice out overnight sometimes. It is never the same once it's been refrigerated, so I don't put it in there. We've not gotten sick. But then again, we eat the street food here and while we were sick for the first 10 months here, now we can eat anything and not get sick at all. We now have our proper 3rd world iron stomachs. :tongue_smilie:

[nd293]

When I lived with a host family in Austria they had a dorm-sized refrigerator, and this was for a family of four (and me).

 

I saw a video clip of Oprah visiting a house in Denmark, and she was quite stunned that the family managed with a small refridgerator.

[Rosie_0801]

Some folks may get by with small or no 'fridge - but then they go out and buy food fresh each day from places that have refrigeration. Or eat out.

 

 

And some folks with small or no fridge don't.

 

Rosie

[plain jane]

Thanks, everyone for your thoughtful replies!

 

It's all about saving money at this point. I recently lost my job, and we've had many unexpected health expenses and household expenses. We drained our savings.

 

I just wanted to add that if you don't have health ins. one bout of food poisoning for an entire family can very well quickly add up to cost more than the price of a fridge. And that's just financially, not to add in all the potential long-term issues that can result from a bad strain of bacteria. :(

 

There are many other appliances I would do without before giving up my fridge (I know you don't have a choice, because it's your fridge that died). I really don't think the risk food poisoning (especially since it's the summer months) is worth the cost but YMMV.

 

It's a neat idea, and I'm sure it can but done, but I wouldn't. :)

[Audrey]

I would vote for a mini fridge. They can be had for very cheap, especially during back-to-school sales. Most Europeans have fridges that size and do just fine. You could say you are doing it for the European caché. :D Of course, they also shop more frequently, but that's not a bad thing. You'll have very fresh food being used instead of sitting in the back of a big fridge and being forgotten and wasted.

[Love_to_Read]

We leave rice out overnight sometimes. It is never the same once it's been refrigerated, so I don't put it in there. We've not gotten sick. But then again, we eat the street food here and while we were sick for the first 10 months here, now we can eat anything and not get sick at all. We now have our proper 3rd world iron stomachs. :tongue_smilie:

I remember it getting left out when I lived 3rd World. But I think it was usually made at lunch, and thoroughly reheated at dinner. Definitely not eaten at room temp after sitting out, and probably not overnight. I'm still skiddish about doing that here, though, with kids.

[Sputterduck]

I remember it getting left out when I lived 3rd World. But I think it was usually made at lunch, and thoroughly reheated at dinner. Definitely not eaten at room temp after sitting out, and probably not overnight. I'm still skiddish about doing that here, though, with kids.

 

Even in America I knew some families that would just leave it on warm in the rice cooker until it was finished, which could be a couple days. They were all immigrants, though, so they didn't grow up with American ideas of food storage. We'll eat rice that's 2 days old and pizza at 4 or 5 days.

 

I do wonder now if Americans are overly paranoid. (Although just 2 days ago one of the missionaries here was admitted to a hospital for food poisoning. Poor thing. Scared us all. But it wasn't home food left out, it was one of the street food vendors here.)

 

With all that said, I think a week for beans as the original poster mentioned is far too long! They should be growing mold by then.

[Amira]

I know I'm coming in late here, but I think you can make it without a fridge for a while, especially since you have a freezer. Most of my neighbors don't have any type of refrigeration and it's normal here. I do have a fridge/freezer, although I can't completely rely on the fridge part because it doesn't always work and the power goes out fairly often. Our fridge is usually mostly empty (except right now because our kitchen is always at least 90 degrees so I'm storing more things in the fridge).

 

It wouldn't be hard to use a cooler for fresh food if you can easily freeze water at home. I wish I had a cooler! Leftovers can be frozen overnight and then thawed again when you want to eat them. I wouldn't leave beans out, or anything else, but there's no reason why they can't go in the freezer. I use our freezer for any type of long-term food storage. If you want your milk cold, you can just stick it in the freezer for a couple of hours (I do this often).

 

I don't have a big problem with used fridges as long as they're efficient. But I think it's entirely possible to live with just a freezer.

[sbgrace]

Just joining in because I've experienced food poisoning with reheated rice. It's actually, in my understanding, a relatively common one. I can't find that article but rice has Bacillus Cereus and heating can't kill the bacteria in my understanding. You're ok unless rice sits at room temperature so the spores start reproducing. At that point even heating won't kill the yuck. It was yuck. So..letting rice cool outside the freezer and then freezing to reheat later for example would put a person at food poisoning risk.

 

OP, I personally would try to get hubby to reconsider the used fridge. A dorm type would work if new is the only option. If you are going to do the freezer thing I like the idea someone posted about freezing ice in jugs you can rotate in coolers. I think you need some way to store cool food unless all is going to be fresh, preserved, or eaten right away. Living with that level of restriction and hassle because a used fridge isn't ideal would bug me a great deal personally.

[kim.4dogs]

I've had food poisoning from rice, too. My brother, a public health microbiologist, says it's very common. Worst food poisoning ever, and I do not ever want to repeat it!

[WishboneDawn]

Honestly, if you can't get much of a savings by going new then I'd just bit the bullet and buy a cheaper new one.

 

If you buy the bar fridge you'll have put out money anyway that could have gone to a full-size fridge and in the end you'll have one more appliance that will likely stay plugged in and cost you money on your power bill.

[Shelly in IL]

A 15 year old Subzero! I am thrilled to get it, and I cleaned it up so it looks like new. We have a high income and live in a fairly expensive home, it looks good enough to be the kitchen with my new expensive appliances - just no way I'm spending the money on a new one! I just love saving money on purchases! Why on earth would your husband turn his nose up at a used fridge? Some of the older ones last way longer than some new ones, new is made of mostly plastic! I fully expect this subzero to last 10 more years!

[Momof3littles]

I've sold fridges on CL in the past and they were clean and working well. If my choice was no fridge or used, I would totally buy used!

 

I was at the Habitat ReStore in my area recently and saw a black armoire style fridge with the freezer below. It was like new. Someone snatched it right up and the people working there were all saying they had their eye on it but didn't need one.

 

There are also appliance outlets (Sears outlets).

 

Lots of people upgrade to "fancier" fridges (stainless, side by side, etc.) and will sell their totally functional old fridge very inexpensively.

[celticmom]

If you still have the nonfunctioning refrigerator you can use it as a large cooler if you put ice you freeze in your chest freezer in it. Sharon Astyk does that and had two blogs about low energy living.

http://sharonastyk.com/category/electric-use/ this entry on her first blog is about how her family lives without a refrigerator.

This is her other blog http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/

[OH_Homeschooler]

 

Since our fridge quit working, I've been looking for a used replacement on craigslist, freecycle and our local paper. The ones that are less than 20 years old are almost as expensive as an inexpensive new one. There's nothing on freecycle. (I live in a very rural area.) It's just a financial decision, since we would likely get more years out of a new one than a used one, after paying the same for either option.

 

 

In that case, maybe you could put a "wanted" ad on Craigslist. Given what some people have said here about people upgrading and having good refrigerators they don't really want, it's possible they haven't thought to list it on CL. We're currently purging a lot of stuff and if we had a fridge to spare, and I saw that someone needed one (I do check CL from time to time), I'd be willing to contact them just to get rid of it, even though I haven't gotten around to listing anything myself.