Fridge Love: Organize Your Refrigerator for a Healthier, Happier Life—with 100 Recipes
by Kristen HongGenres: Cooking, Food, Nonfiction
Published on December 28, 2021
Pages: 352
Format: eARC Source: Netgalley
A one-of-a-kind guide to organizing your fridge—including practical tips for meal prep and storage, plus more than 100 recipes—that makes it easier to eat better, save money, and get the most out of your food
Practicing “fridge love†is a roadmap to eating healthier, saving money, and reducing food waste while enjoying a beautiful and harder-working fridge. This book—part organizational guide and part food-prep handbook—is your guide. Author Kristen Hong adopted a nutrient-dense, plant-based diet in an effort to lose weight and improve her health. But amidst the demands of day-to-day life and a busy family, she found it impossible to stick to. The solution? A smarter, better-organized fridge that served her real-life needs. In this invaluable resource, you will discover how a beautifully organized fridge can make your life—including healthy eating for the whole family—easier. It covers general fridge organization (for all models and configurations) as well as shopping tips, storage guidelines, the best meal-prep containers, and more than 100 easy plant-based recipes made for meal prepping.
This is a book that I had no idea I needed but that may be life changing.
I found it while I was browsing the cooking category on Netgalley. I’m having fridge problems. Right now we have three adults in the house each cooking their own meals. Our fridge is packed to the gills. Because it is full, stuff gets shoved to the back and forgotten about until it is no good. I was looking for some tips.
This book opens with a history of refrigeration technology as a primer on why we should appreciate any fridge that we are lucky enough to have. It deep dives into air flow and maximizing efficiency. Then she said something that made me gasp out loud.
The author only keeps one row of food on each shelf.
Look at the cover picture on the book above. Some people really live like that. How? What sorcery is this? I was reading in the car and the husband asked why I gasped. I said that I was reading a book about refrigerators. He was immediately intrigued and demanded that I start reading out loud. I went back to the beginning and read the history section for him. He was quite enjoying it too. We might be strange.
After all the history and science you get sections on what are the best kinds of containers to use to store food in refrigerators and then a useful list of how to store all kinds of foods. (This is a vegan book so don’t look for any tips on meat or dairy.) The author discusses different lifestyles how each type of person might want to make their fridge work best for them.
After this is a recipe section with information featured on how to make things ahead and store it best. The author follows the Eat to Live diet by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I’d read this book in the past. Fridge Love reminded me of how much that way of eating appeals to me. Basically, it is a high fresh fruit and vegetable diet with minimal grains and low/no oil. I’ve been eating horribly lately. I haven’t been meal prepping (see lack of space in fridge) and have been eating takeout because it was easier. This inspired me to get started on making gigantic salads to take to work again for lunch. As of this writing, it has been 4 days and I’m down 7 lbs.
Reading this didn’t fix my fridge problems entirely but I’m taking steps.
- I ordered a mini fridge for one person who lives here so she can keep a lot of her food in her room to free up some space.
- I bowed to the inevitability of space problems and will go shopping twice a week for fresh produce to try to have more room/better airflow.
- I’m loving the diet and seeing results. I’m looking forward to making several of the recipes.
This is a book that I think I will also buy in a paper version. The section on how to store different foods is a great reference guide that I can see myself referring to often.
