A big thanks to One Hundred Dollar a Month reader, Marsha, who sent me this fantastic article from the L.A. Times about smaller European refrigerators leading to less food waste.
In case you don’t have time to pop over and read it, let me quick you the abridged version: Basically, the author recounts her experience in Italy several years ago. She was immediately struck by the simplicity of the kitchen–a couple of burners, a table that served as a counter and a place to eat, and a fridge that was about the size of a dorm fridge. She said that while it blew her American brain, she looks back now at the type of lifestyle it created. It meant that you bought enough food for a day or two at a time. You stopped off at a market after work and purchased fresh food to prepare that evening. What struck me personally, was that she said people would stop off to buy bread and bit of cake, but didn’t have to buy the ENTIRE CAKE, only a slice or two of what they would actually eat. Talk about built-in portion control and waaay less waste.
I honestly wish I could have a refrigerator that was about half the size as the one I use now. I still really like my freezer for preserving garden veggies and fruits, but the fridge is just a holding spot for things we should be using up fairly quickly. I could totally downsize and have a little tiny guy under one of my counters. Maybe it’s the type of life it would force that is so appealing to me? Everything would have to slow down. Each day would be a little more present somehow {not to mention the savings in energy consumption}.
What do you think, could you live with a smaller fridge, or is your lifestyle too hectic to do a bit of daily or every other day shopping?
~Mavis
Kari says
Amen! So much of the European lifestyle is appealing to me! I would love to take my daily walk to the fresh market for fresh local produce. You know, the kind picked that day instead of flown in from Chile. Then I would walk home, prepare the yummy goodness, all while sipping a local wine. Oh, and back to the small fridge topic, yes! You would be much less apt to leave a science project in the back of the fridge, eh?
Dianna says
The idea appeals to me, but it just wouldn’t be practical where I live. I’m not within walking distance of any grocery stores. I make a big shopping trip every other week, with a smaller run once in between. I’ll tell you what, though: when I make a menu, shop for it, and stick to it, we have very little food waste.
Gwen in L.A. says
I’ve lived in Japan, used smaller fridge. It was fine for 1-2 people but the idea of making a larg ecasserole type dish ahead and chilling it, then reheating was mostly out of the question. Shopping was easy, because the depato (department store with grocery section) was right across the street. Also vegetable, meat and fish ‘farmer’s market’ type stalls just a small stroll down the street. This was in Ofuna,. BTW, a freezer for food storage there would be a luxury.
Back in the States, I cook a lot from scratch with bulk foods, FD and air dried foods. Still no storage freezer, but would love one for meat, fowl and fish on sale! Just have the top of the fridge type freezer…which does not hold much and is not cold enough either.
Ideally, I’d like to have 2 smaller dorm size fridges, one for dairy/veg/fruits, one for fish, fowl, meats and condiments. Plus a compact deep storage freezer, bin type.
Glad we have choices! Different pantries, different cold food storage systems.
Kayla says
I would love the idea of a smaller fridge, but couldn’t manage it right now. We go through 5-6 gallons of milk a week between my little kiddos. My whole tiny fridge would hold milk. I like this idea though. Maybe that can be my goal to downsize once the kids are grown up and gone…
Mavis says
Ha. Yep. I agree. A tiny fridge just would not due for you!!
Crystal says
I actually have been living somewhere for the past seven years where I don’t have a full sized refridgerator. I have a mini fridge. And yes, I waste way less food. I do have a small chest freezer, which is absolutely required for me because mini fridge freezers totally suck.
Mavis says
Was that transition from large to small fridge hard for you?
Jenna says
Every time if read your posts I think, “Wow! We are on the same page!”. I tried for awhile to convince my husband to let us move our full size fridge to the basement and put one of those dorm fridges (that has a small separate freezer door) in our kitchen in its place. I don’t think that’s a battle I’ll ever win. Thanks for the post!
Mavis says
Let us know if you do win. I’m so curious what your experience would be!
Lisa Millar says
Sadly big or small (done both) I am not fridge trained!!
🙂
Like Dianna above, we aren’t close enough to town to be practical about shopping every day. I also had Gwen’s experience in Japan which was great – close to shops and all very easy – but a decent sized freezer was out of the question so hard to store frozen goods
I am trying quite hard to be better with leftovers etc and I am improving. Happily we have the chickens for any forgotten items that lurk at the back of the fridge and/or compost.
The freezers go a long way in storing extras.
Really wouldn’t want to be without a bigger fridge, as making the larger dishes/cakes etc need a good sized fridge to store them
Mavis says
I get the idea in theory, I just think it would be so hard for me to break old habits!!
Lisa Millar says
Same!
Susannah says
When I was a student living in Spain, my host family had a small fridge. Pretty much every day involved shopping at specialty shops for fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, etc. We rarely went to one of the few grocery stores that resembled what we have in the States.
Just the other day I was thinking about either moving my fridge into the garage to cut down on the EMFs (I’d like to put a desk on the other side of the wall where the fridge is now) or selling it and getting a little one instead. I just need to figure out what to put in the fridge’s place so the space doesn’t look weird. Great post!
Mavis says
Did they go as a family together? I was just wondering what that same trip in the US would look like trying to cram it around soccer practice and piano lessons. Ha! Does life just move at an overall slower pace there to allow that?
Veronica says
When we lived in Portugal that was one of the things that was so hard to get used to. Life is sooo much slower there. We watched 4 men shoe 2 police horses in a day! (Our apartment was across the street so we just sat next to our window and it kept my toddler occupied for hours.) That’s all they did, besides talk to each other and smoke a ton of cigarettes. It was a great place to be in the first trimester of a pregnancy; no one expected anything out of me so I could be sick and miserable without feeling guilty too. That being said, shopping everyday while pregnant, sick, and miserable with a toddler in tow was not the most enjoyable experience.
Julie says
I don’t really believe in that, for me it was a nightmare and was leading to a lot more of food waste! As most of the French students I had one of those tiny fridge in my apartment. I HATED it! So yeah you can’t buy much, but you also push everything in and you forget about things in the back. I think it’s just a culture thing.
I’m all the time amazed by American fridges and all you can keep in it! All those condiments and things that I honestly don’t think you can keep it that long. Products in Europe too are not processed the same, less conservative which means you can’t keep it as long as in the US, and containers are way smaller. So yeah we go to the grocery store more often, and we don’t fill in the fridge as much as Americans. I’m still doing the same since I live in the US, so my fridge is not full at all so I can avoid waste.
But those tiny fridge are the worst thing on earth, you have often surprises when you find some molded stuff that was hidding on the back…
Madam Chow says
I lived with a tiny fridge and two roommates,, and I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. We were all vegetarians who cooked from scratch, and were desperately looking for space to store produce, eggs, and tofu. If I was sick or the weather was bad, there was nothing – or very little – to eat, and I had to get up and hoof it to town with a fever, just to get food. Currently, I live 45 minutes from a grocery store, and we got snowed in half a dozen times this year. So, I love a big refrigerator and feel blessed to have a moderately large one!
Mavis says
I really wonder if lifestyle and eating habits would change people’s perspectives on this. I suspect people who live a more whole foods diet would utilize more fridge space, but then they also would go through the food faster. Who knows!
Patty says
Mavis
This is me. when I go to Costco or the grocery store, my basket is mostly filled with fresh foods. I eat a lot of salads, veggies, make soups from scratch etc. And I have hardly any food waste because I use it all. If fruit or veggies are getting a little old, they go in the freezer for either soup stock or smoothies. If something does get too old, I compost it. I have 2 full sized fridges and after a Costco run, both fridges are full of produce. Food waste? Not in my house!
Military wife says
We are a military family of 4…two in their early teens. We always had an American sized fridge plus one in the garage until an overseas move a few years ago. Because of the non- typical assignment, everything was on the economy. This meant quickly getting used to a single European sized fridge. At first, I was unsure how we would manage, but quickly grew to love the lifestyle.
Essentially, we went to the open market that was offered in city center twice a week. This is where we would get produce, cheese, and breads.
Then we would go to the larger grocery type store once every ten days. Here you would buy eggs that were kept on the shelf. Milk came in tetra type boxes much like chicken broth is sold in the U.S. This meant that while you bought several at a time, you only placed one in the icebox at a time requiring less of the precious space.
We didn’t have a whole door filled with condiments like we would back home. Mainly because the foods were fresh and had great taste on their own. Also, the condiments we did use came in smaller containers requiring less space or were able to be stored on the shelf.
Lisa says
We’re a big family, live an hour away from town and I have a somewhat small fridge. It’s a tad bigger than the “apartment” size fridge. When I first got married, we spent the first couple months without a fridge at all, so having even a small one is great. But the way our kitchen is designed, there is no way we could fit a bigger one. The hard part is after a Costco run or when the chickens are laying like crazy. But I do think it forces me to use up leftovers quickly and not keep tons of things (3 types of mustard for example) in it. And it forces me to meet my neighbors, as I run out and stop anyone coming down our drive, insisting they take a dozen eggs off my hand. (I’m the crazy egg lady, I guess.)
We have a chest freezer, ironically, the biggest one I could find, and it’s packed. I often tell the kids, okay, I have bad news, I don’t have any room for this ice cream so we’re going to have to eat it now. They dutifully oblige. I don’t know how I can keep a small fridge organized and efficient but can’t seem to keep the largest freezer in the universe from overflowing. I blame the prolific zucchini harvest…
Lisa Millar says
That made me laugh! The first year I lived here and started a garden I had so much zucchini I was still taking it out of the freezer nearly 2 years later!!
I bought an extra freezer to cope…. and promptly filled it with a side of beef!
Regarding the eggs…. I don’t store mine in the fridge at all. I found the fresh eggs as long as they weren’t in the heat, last for a very very long time. I used to store my store bought ones in the fridge, but taking a leaf out of my cousins book (Who are older and lived on a farm most of their lives) who said she never put her eggs in the fridge.
So far I haven’t had a problem, but I do sell the excess to local family when we get a little over run.
And your kids are so helpful – lol – must be tough to have ice cream forced upon them! 🙂
Dana says
It just depends on how you eat and where you live.
When as a single person I lived in NYC, fresh food was everywhere. Right outside my front door was a produce market, and inexpensive delectable food is available every five feet. I had a small but full size fridge and it stayed mostly empty. Ice in the freezer, batteries and condiments in the door, milk and orange juice. That was pretty much it.
Now that I’m married and we’re in a small southern town where fried food is king for most people and we go out of our way to eat fresh produce as often as possible, we again have the smallest full size fridge available and the freezer is packed with frozen juices, kitchen scraps for vegetable stock, locally grown stone ground wheat, leftover soups, frozen lemons, strawberries, and blueberries. The fridge door is packed with condiments, supplements, homemade deodorant, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, wheat germ, etc. The crispers are stuffed with vegetables, but the shelves are mostly empty. Never any food waste as we have big dogs.
I would be happier with a bigger freezer and a smaller fridge.
Pamela says
When living in my very first apartment the geriatric fridge (which was at least fifty years old) bit the dust. Since it was usually 80% empty most of the time and since I walked past a grocery store every night on my way home from the bus, I decided to try life without a fridge. Well it was a hoot! I had a lot more variety in my meals and a lot more fresh veggies (as opposed to all the bulk processed foods that were filling up the freezer before). And my electricity bill shrunk down to one third of what it was previously!!!
Jen Y says
I think I could live with a smaller fridge but not that small. For city living, a small fridge is great but it’s much more wasteful to drive 20 miles more than once a week at the very least to buy food. I shop once a week & we eat a lot of fresh foods. I might go less often if it weren’t for that.
I do so wish we could buy smaller portions of things here. I think smaller portion choices have improved in my area but smaller portions often mean more packaging & more expense all around so it’s hard to find that in everything. I love my freezer for that reason. I buy a regular size container of some things then break it down into single-size portions at home so that I can freeze it before it goes bad.
Patricia says
Growing up in Germany, my family has always gotten along with a small fridge sitting under the counter. We were a family of 4 and went for grocery shopping once a week. And dad was always cooking fresh every night. However we had a deep freeze in the basement (cause really, that tiny one inside the fridge is a pain) and we used to store veggies and fruits in the cool/dark basement as well.
Each Friday you were able to clean the whole thing cause it was completely empty 😉 also there is no way you can store more than 2 condiments at a time so I’m always a little confused when I see whole shelves of relish, ketchup, BBQ sauces, mustards,…
Nathan says
I live with a tiny fridge in a dorm and bought smaller portion of food choices and yes I waste way less food compared to using a regular fridge at home. I only stock healthy alternatives to stock in my mini fridge like most of the list I found here: http://www.justfridge.com/guide/dorm-fridge-items/ Mostly a grab-to-go type of food but with some health benefits to help me with school stuff.