Store food properly in the refrigerator
Even the best refrigerator will not keep your food perfectly fresh if you store your food incorrectly in the refrigerator. This practical tip explains how you can properly store vegetables, meat and cheese in the refrigerator and thereby keep them fresh for longer.
Store food: it depends on the right refrigerator compartment
It is not without reason that a refrigerator has several compartments for food: each compartment has a different temperature, between 2 ° C and 9 ° C. The coldest is in the lowest compartments. The higher the compartments are, the warmer they are; because warm air rises. To avoid unnecessary power consumption, you should position the refrigerator correctly. In the following sections we explain which compartment is best suited for storing individual foods.
These foods belong in the top compartment
The temperature in the top compartment is around 9 ° C and is the "warmest" place in the fridge. You should therefore store the following foods here:
- Food that cannot spoil quickly, such as B. jam, mustard, pickles, olives or hot peppers.
- Leftovers from lunch are also ideally stored here for the next day.
- Tip: Read how to defrost your fridge in our CHIP guide.
- CHIP electricity price comparison: Compare for free and save
Food for the middle compartment
The temperature here is around 5 ° C.
- You should therefore store all milk products here.
- Be it cheese, yogurt, sour cream or cream. Milk and curd should also be here.
The lower compartment with the glass plate
At around 2 ° C, this place is the coldest in the fridge. The glass plate stores the cold.
- Here you should store perishable food as well as food from the fresh food counter.
- You should definitely keep fresh meat, fish or sausage here! Also make sure that you pack the food well or cover it appropriately so that germs cannot spread too quickly throughout the refrigerator.
- If you want to keep the rest of lunch for several days (!), You should store it here - covered or packed accordingly.
At the bottom of the vegetable compartment
The temperature here is around 8 ° C. As the name suggests, you should store the vegetables here.
- Salad, zucchini and peppers can be stored here.
- However, you should not store cold-sensitive tropical fruits here!
- Potatoes don't belong in the fridge either. More on storing potatoes in our home tip.
The fridge door
The temperature in this compartment is also around 9 ° C.
- You can store drinks and UHT milk here.
- Otherwise there is also space for food that belongs in the top compartment.
Store food in the freezer
The temperature here is between -18 ° and -20 ° C. Therefore, this compartment is particularly suitable for storing food for a very long time.
- Frozen foods such as ice cream, pizza, fish or bread rolls belong here.
- Otherwise, you can also freeze fresh meat here, so that it lasts particularly long. As a rule, you can easily store freshly frozen food for around three months.
We'll show you how to make yogurt yourself here. Not only food can be kept fresh longer in the fridge. In the next article we will tell you why you should also store unused batteries in the refrigerator.