NYT Article on famlies with multiple fridges and freezers

[Hula Hoop]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/dining/two-refrigerators.html?smid=url-share

I'm American but had no idea that having multiple large fridges and freezers in your house was a 'thing'.  Maybe because I grew up in a small apartment in NYC.  Here in Italy, we have one European sized refrigerator (ie smaller than a standard US fridge) for our family of 4 and it's just fine.  We occasionally run out of room in the freezer so we defrost and eat something to make more room.  But I imagine that if I had more room I'd let stuff just sit in there for ages until it had to be thrown out.  I can't imagine where we'd find space for a second refrigerator, what we'd put in it and how much more we'd pay for our electric bill. 

We generally go to the markets once a week (we usually buy fruit and veg, deli meats, cheese and olives, bread, meat from the butchers and sometimes fish) and the supermarket 1-2 times a week.  We get milk, yoghurt, oil, vinegar, wine, crackers, canned foods, frozen foods, chocolate, coffee etc from the supermarket.  We try not to buy fruit and veg there as they are more expensive than the markets and lower quality.

Anyway, maybe if you live in the country and buy half a cow on occasion it might be good to have a chest freezer.  Or if the supermarket was a 40 minute drive away and you just went once a month?

One thing that made me laugh was a person quoted in the article who was apparently "Italian" (I'm assuming they meant Italian American) and that's why she needed multiple fridges.  I live in Italy and don't know a single person with room for more than one fridge.  Also the electric bills would be ridiculous.

Anyway how do people fill these huge fridges and not have everything go off before they have time to eat it?  Do they actually eat all that food or do they end up chucking it when it inevitably goes moldy?

[iris lily]

My husband is from Iowa farm people.

You. Have. No. Idea.

Nor did I before I married him, the number of refrigeration units one can cram into one’s home.

So here we are, two adults, and guess how many refrigerator
/appliances units we have? You cannot guess. So I will tell you.

In our city house we have:A big refrigerator in the kitchen as normal Americans. But we also have a large chest freezer and another refrigerator in the basement.

In our country house we have a refrigerator in the kitchen as normal. In that basement we have one giant ass refrigerator that is so big I can’t believe it. We have an upright freezer in that basement.Both of these basement units were cast off’s from people we know who moved so we didn’t spend money to buy them. The giant ass refrigerator is not plugged in because we have no use for it.

In my city condo I have a brand new apartment size refrigerator. It also is not plugged in yet because I haven’t moved anything there.

Our plan is to move from the city house to the country house and maintain a tiny condo in the city.

Oh also we are in the process of renovating the country house which means an entirely new kitchen and an entirely new refrigerator for that kitchen. I imagine TH will insist on keeping the existing kitchen refrigerator and put it in the basement.

The above is very boring because it’s simply a list of refrigerator and freezer units. You are no doubt asking in fascinated horror what we use all these things for. And I will tell you that right now, we no longer buy sides of beef or pork the way once did. However, DH grows Truck farm levels of vegetables and fruits so we must preserve them all. Every one of them. Our city refrigerator in the basement holds apples and onions all year.At least half of those apples go bad each year. But I will say that we pretty much use of the onions because I consume onions as though they are vegetables I love onions.

[NotJen]

I'm American but had no idea that having multiple large fridges and freezers in your house was a 'thing'.

While I'm aware it's a 'thing', I don't actually know any people who have multiple fridges (here in suburbia), and maybe 1 or 2 that have a chest freezer.

Anyway, maybe if you live in the country and buy half a cow on occasion it might be good to have a chest freezer.  Or if the supermarket was a 40 minute drive away and you just went once a month?

Yes.  I considered buying a chest freezer when I wanted to start eating local meat (you don't have to live in the country to buy half a cow).  For a while, the only way to buy was part of a cow (or a bunch of chickens) at a time, but then the farmer's market became popular, and I just paid more money to buy smaller portions of meat at a time.

And there *are* a lot of rural people who do live far from major grocery stores (used to know a few), who carry ice chests in their trunks when they grocery shop so their food doesn't melt on the way home - it is probably more efficient to have extra cold space than it is to go to the store more frequently, or shop closer where prices are higher and choices more limited.

And there are people who hunt who need the storage space for their processed game.

Anyway how do people fill these huge fridges and not have everything go off before they have time to eat it?  Do they actually eat all that food or do they end up chucking it when it inevitably goes moldy?

They don't.  Some people waste a ton of food.

[Hula Hoop]

@iris lily  -Here in Italy, onions are considered vegetables so you're not that weird.  They're preserved under oil and quite delicious that way.

The people I know who grow and preserve fruit and veg generally can and bottle it when it's in season so there is no need for refrigeration.  It's a whole big thing here in Italy making tomato sauce (passata) when tomatoes are in season, making canned eggplants, zucchinis, green beans, onions, peppers etc. under oil in jars.  Tomatoes are also sun dried which preserves them.  People also make jam and other kinds of preserves.  Lemons and oranges become limonata (lemon or orange liqueur).

If you put a huge amount of apples and onions in the refigerator they'll taste mealy/go off pretty quickly.  For the potatoes and onions, a root cellar works better and apples are great for apple sauce, apple butter etc.  My grandmother used to make jars of "stewed fruit" that we ate for dessert all year or she made into pies.

[Tigerpine]

My experience has been that for a lot of people, the second refrigerator is primarily used to keep beverages cold.

[Hula Hoop]

My experience has been that for a lot of people, the second refrigerator is primarily used to keep beverages cold.

I could see that being really great for a party - a "beer fridge".  I guess these people entertain a lot?  Or drink rivers of soda?

[RetiredAt63]

But I will say that we pretty much use of the onions because I consume onions as though they are vegetables I love onions.

Onions are vegetables.  Onions are wonderful.  Followed closely by garlic.  I recently saw a video that looked at American consumption of various vegetables as a guide of how much to plant for a vegetable garden - the onion and garlic numbers were laughably low.  In fact I got the impression Americans don't eat a lot of vegetables.  I imagine Canadians are similar.

I have a good size apartment fridge/freezer plus an upright 8.5 f³ freezer.  Since I am the only person here, the fridge is about half full, except right after grocery shopping.  But the freezers - meat from Costco or bulk meat from the grocery store, put up into individual serving sizes.  All the frozen beans/tomatoes/dried tomatoes/sliced sweet peppers/zucchini/baked winter squash from  the garden.  Before I started curb-side pickup I was only grocery shopping every third week, so frozen vegetables (not the kinds I had grown) for when the fresh ran out.  What else?  Frozen yogurt starter.  Chopped garlic to preserve garlic that wants to sprout.  Frozen bone broth.  Frozen individual meal servings so I don't have to eat the same thing for a few days in a row.  Frozen muffins (my banana muffins made with almond flour freeze really well).  Plus a bag of frozen corn kernels to use as an ice pack. 



I guess it shows that I grew up with gardening parents (who were teens in the Depression) and had a vegetable garden all my adult life.  ;-) 

[NotJen]

The people I know who grow and preserve fruit and veg generally can and bottle it when it's in season so there is no need for refrigeration.  It's a whole big thing here in Italy making tomato sauce (passata) when tomatoes are in season, making canned eggplants, zucchinis, green beans, onions, peppers etc. under oil in jars.  Tomatoes are also sun dried which preserves them.  People also make jam and other kinds of preserves.  Lemons and oranges become limonata (lemon or orange liqueur).

I don't can, so all my preserved fruits and vegetables go in the freezer.

ETA: Yes, I do all the same things as Retired (but no actual gardening - I used to get all my excess veggies from the CSA).

[Tigerpine]

My experience has been that for a lot of people, the second refrigerator is primarily used to keep beverages cold.

I could see that being really great for a party - a "beer fridge".  I guess these people entertain a lot?  Or drink rivers of soda?

I suspect it's more the latter.  The thing about beverages is that they stay "good" for a long time as long as you don't open them.  Don't forget fruit juice and Vitamin Water, Gatorade, etc.  Boxed wine, beer, wine coolers, water....there are so many different drinks one can chill.

[Raenia]

Growing up, we had a big chest freezer in the garage, that we used to stock up on deals, especially meat.  For instance, we usually bought 12 turkeys around Thanksgiving, when they're at their lowest price, and froze all the extras to have roast turkey and turkey soup all year round.  When I raised my own meat rabbits with a roommate, a small chest freezer was essential for storing the meat.

Now I don't raise meat anymore, or even eat much of it, but I'm still looking forward to getting a chest freezer for this house, for storing batch cooking, especially soups and freezer jam.  Some fruits aren't safe to can (e.g. bananas) so they have to be frozen or dried, and I'd rather have frozen than dehydrated.  It's also nice for making 2-3x batches of soups, and freezing quarts to pull out later.  I still do this with my regular fridge/freezer, but I only have room for 2-3 different soups or stews so there's not a lot of variety.  At my peak, when we had the extra freezer, I'd have 4-5 different kinds of soups, plus chili, lentil stew, and a curry or two like chana masala or rajma.  Definitely makes evenings easier after a long day, when I can just go pull something out and toss is in a pot to thaw.  It's like a savings account for "spoons"/life energy.

[Hula Hoop]

The chest freezer sounds great.  I'd love to do a lot of batch cooking.

[DragonSlayer]

We have the normal kitchen fridge, but also a smallish chest freezer in the laundry room. We use it to stock up on deals, to store batch cooking, etc. And during covid, it has kept us from having to go to the store as often, as we have room to store plenty of bread, frozen foods, meats, cheese, frozen produce, etc. It's not an obnoxious size and it's really been a lifesaver.

Most people around here have a spare fridge in the garage, and it's the beer fridge. Maybe they keep pizza or something in the freezer side, but it's mostly beer.

[ixtap]

Even with a family of 5 (although we did often have a foster child or two, as well) in the city we had a chest freezer. It was mostly for getting a half a cattle from the butcher or deer meat from family who hunted, maybe a really good deal on meet. I don't remember there ever being anything besides meet in the chest freezer. Baked goods went into the regular freezer. I just in the past few years learned that the reason the cookies never seemed to last was because Mom was eating them frozen straight from the freezer when we weren't around :o

We currently have a roommate, so the two of us get half a freezer and half a refrigerator and we can make that last about two weeks. However, I would love to have the whole American sized fridge and freezer to ourselves so that you don't have to rearrange everything to get one thing out for the entire first week. And the tetris on shopping day - which is today, ugh.

Thinking about the roommate's side of the fridge, American's tend to have a lot more condiments and you need the pop to be kept super cold and you need to store lots of ice. Oh, and we keep our eggs in the fridge, not on the counter. And I will be buying 4 dozen eggs today if there aren't restrictions. And none of the eggs will go to waste, I am just trying to have a few left over when the fridge is almost empty again to get me some nice old eggs to hard boil! Don't worry, DH will eat most of them and his cholesterol is too low to register when measured at a screening clinic (If anyone knows anything about this as a health issue, especially as relates to chronic pain, we are all ears).

We have several large families in our family, and I know that some of them load up on things that the kids can grab on their own to heat and serve, especially as the kids get involved in activities that might mean they aren't home for family meals. I think these days with formal meal prep into special meal prep containers being a popular thing, a single person could easily fill up a fridge on their own. We can keep three or four meals of curry in the same sized container that the roommate uses for one prepped meal.

Regarding the onions are vegetables, I was in a supposed nutrition discussion and the leader made a comment that noone eats veggies for breakfast, and the whole group was "What about the onions, peppers and tomatoes?!" She insisted that noone uses enough to be a serving. The guy sitting next to me and I were unconvinced.

[therethere]

Even as a household of only 2, a standalone freezer is absolutely essential to staying in budget for us. We use it mainly buying meat on sale and having the ability to freeze leftovers in single servings for lunches. The freezer on a fridge is so tiny!

I may take trophy for the most refrigeration units. At one point we had 2 chest freezers, an upright fridge, a kegerator/beer fridge, a reg fridge, and a mini fridge. But (4) of the units were for homebrewing.

[tygertygertyger]

Yes, my partner and I live in an urban apartment with our standard refrigerator/freezer, but he has always had a chest freezer as well. I didn't understand it before, but now I LOVE it. We don't stock large amounts of farm meat, but my partner is a picky eater, and most of his foods are frozen. (On the other hand, just about everything in our fridge is mine.)

I am vegetarian, but now that I have freezer space, I keep muffins, bread, homegrown veg, fruit, and as I batch cook, I always have jars of soup, chili, pesto, jam, or just stocked up stuff that was on sale that I know I'll eat. Yum.

But... I should add that his parents have two fridge/freezers, one huge chest freezer, and they also took over my partner's former chest freezer. Since they are only two people, I am not sure what is stored in all those! (Though partly I think she stores spices and various flours for baking, and she definitely does buy farm meat like lamb and bacon sometimes...) 

 

[GuitarStv]

Seems pretty normal to have a chest freezer to me.

Where I grew up in Northern Ontario, not many families had a lot of money.  One way that they cut bills was to hunt for moose in the fall, and then eat that moose over the rest of the year . . . which required a good sized amount of freezer space.

[iris lily]

But I will say that we pretty much use of the onions because I consume onions as though they are vegetables I love onions.

Onions are vegetables.  Onions are wonderful.  Followed closely by garlic.  I recently saw a video that looked at American consumption of various vegetables as a guide of how much to plant for a vegetable garden - the onion and garlic numbers were laughably low.  In fact I got the impression Americans don't eat a lot of vegetables.  I imagine Canadians are similar.

I have a good size apartment fridge/freezer plus an upright 8.5 f³ freezer.  Since I am the only person here, the fridge is about half full, except right after grocery shopping.  But the freezers - meat from Costco or bulk meat from the grocery store, put up into individual serving sizes.  All the frozen beans/tomatoes/dried tomatoes/sliced sweet peppers/zucchini/baked winter squash from  the garden.  Before I started curb-side pickup I was only grocery shopping every third week, so frozen vegetables (not the kinds I had grown) for when the fresh ran out.  What else?  Frozen yogurt starter.  Chopped garlic to preserve garlic that wants to sprout.  Frozen bone broth.  Frozen individual meal servings so I don't have to eat the same thing for a few days in a row.  Frozen muffins (my banana muffins made with almond flour freeze really well).  Plus a bag of frozen corn kernels to use as an ice pack. 



I guess it shows that I grew up with gardening parents (who were teens in the Depression) and had a vegetable garden all my adult life.  ;-)

Well, onions ARE vegetables botanically,  ut in the American culinary scene they are flavorings.

God,  I so love the allium family!  I love leaks. I consume garlic in anything that vaguely accepts garlic. I grow Ornamental alliums of all sizes and shapes in my flower garden.

It is my favorite botanical genus I think.

[iris lily]

Even as a household of only 2, a standalone freezer is absolutely essential to staying in budget for us. We use it mainly buying meat on sale and having the ability to freeze leftovers in single servings for lunches. The freezer on a fridge is so tiny!

I may take trophy for the most refrigeration units. At one point we had 2 chest freezers, an upright fridge, a kegerator/beer fridge, a reg fridge, and a mini fridge. But (4) of the units were for homebrewing.

This reminds me that for my condo I would like to find a tiny freezer for the “beverage station “I’m installing. I want it to hold ice cubes. I did not install an ice cube maker in my refrigerator because 1) it takes up space and 2) parenthesis it is a disaster waiting to happen.

I read all the time about icemakers where the water line breaks and untold thousands of dollars of damage is done. I live in a condo building and IDo not want that responsibility.

[StarBright]

We have the normal kitchen fridge, but also a smallish chest freezer in the laundry room. We use it to stock up on deals, to store batch cooking, etc. And during covid, it has kept us from having to go to the store as often, as we have room to store plenty of bread, frozen foods, meats, cheese, frozen produce, etc. It's not an obnoxious size and it's really been a lifesaver.

Most people around here have a spare fridge in the garage, and it's the beer fridge. Maybe they keep pizza or something in the freezer side, but it's mostly beer.

Our detached garage was broken into from our alley a couple of years ago and the first thing the cops asked was if they got our beer fridge. They said 80% percent of thefts in our town were kids looking for beer in garages.

It made me laugh.

We have a small (7 cub foot) chest freezer in our basement that we've had for about a year. It is perfect for keeping a dozen batched meals, seasonal sale items and BOGO meat deals that we always passed on before. I find it fairly easy to get through the freezer because one week a month is "freezer week" and I only use meat or freezer meals in my meal planning that week.

[Just Joe]

We have three fridges. But two are unplugged and one has never been turned on (new for a remodel later this year). ;)

We've discussed buying a small deep freeze but have trouble justifying it with our shopping habits. I'd like to buy beef from a farmer I know and only that justifies it b/c the quality would be better and the price lower than the supermarket. Otherwise if we need things we just go back to the grocery store which is convenient along our commute route.

My grandmother had two deep freezes and a fridge years ago. Also cupboards full of canned goods that were years old. Not sure why - they were well off and grocery stores were easy to access. She was a sale chaser and in some ways very Mustashian. My grandparents did have trouble enjoying their money.

I moved away for a few years (job). When i returned I went to visit my grandmother (I was in my mid-20s) and she served me birthday cake. When I questioned who's birthday, she remarked that it was birthday cake from my FIRST birthday - so 24 year old cake!!! Once she left the room, I tossed it out the door and told her thanks it was good when she returned. More? No thanks. I always questioned anything she tried to serve me after that.

Recently heard a story of a family that lost the contents of multiple deep freezers due to an electricity blackout. $$$

[tygertygertyger]

I moved away for a few years (job). When i returned I went to visit my grandmother (I was in my mid-20s) and she served me birthday cake. When I questioned who's birthday, she remarked that it was birthday cake from my FIRST birthday - so 24 year old cake!!! Once she left the room, I tossed it out the door and told her thanks it was good when she returned. More? No thanks. I always questioned anything she tried to serve me after that.

Oh. My.

I am spluttering just thinking about this woman saving cake for 24 years... no words.

[Sanitary Stache]

We have a fridge with a bottom freezer.  It is a large appliance.  We frequently consider buying a chest freezer to allow us to buy half a cow, but have always found a reason to not do it (mostly because we don't want to increase our meat consumption).
We also don't freeze fruits or veggies because it seems like a fun challenge to preserve the harvests without the miracle of refrigeration (and the reliance on electricity).

At one point I had three broken full size refrigerators in the yard and I put a piece of plywood over it to make a real ugly garbage shed.

[iris lily]

The people I know who grow and preserve fruit and veg generally can and bottle it when it's in season so there is no need for refrigeration.  It's a whole big thing here in Italy making tomato sauce (passata) when tomatoes are in season, making canned eggplants, zucchinis, green beans, onions, peppers etc. under oil in jars.  Tomatoes are also sun dried which preserves them.  People also make jam and other kinds of preserves.  Lemons and oranges become limonata (lemon or orange liqueur).

I don't can, so all my preserved fruits and vegetables go in the freezer.

ETA: Yes, I do all the same things as Retired (but no actual gardening - I used to get all my excess veggies from the CSA).

Oh me too, not gonna can stuff. Nope, not happening.

 I will occasionally cook large batches of tomatoes in the slow cooker down into a tomato sauce. But mainly I like to throw bags of them into the freezer because I love tomatoes. Having a supply by the end of the summer of 25 bags of tomatoes just about gets us for the year and tell tomato start coming on the vine again.

[Caoineag]

Only one standard fridge here but I plan on getting a small chest freezer. The big issue is that I don't can, only freeze. Which is an issue when you make big batches of stock like I do. I don't eat a lot of meat but if I do a 2nd turkey at Thanksgiving day sales for later, that will wipe out freezer space. I also like to stock up on butter and coffee when they have good sales, both freeze extremely well. In my last house, I had a small chest freezer and at certain times of the year, it would be completely filled. But right before sales time, I would have it completely empty.

I grew up in a house with 2 refrigerators and an upright freezer. The second refrigerator held beverages (my father was a soda fanatic), the freezer held more frozen vegetables and the upright freezer was stocked with frozen meat from sales. Family of 3 but my dad needed meat at every meal so keeping that cost down was important.

[PoutineLover]

I only have one fridge but I would love to have a chest freezer - I just don't have room. I don't need another fridge though. When I replaced my old fridge I chose the one with the biggest possible ratio of freezer to fridge space because I like to buy lots of meat when it's on sale, and I make lots of meals in large batches and freeze the extras for later. We're a household of two, so the fridge doesn't get too full usually, but the freezer is always well stocked. I pay attention to everything I have so that hardly anything goes to waste.

[Hula Hoop]

We don't eat a lot of meat so a chest freezer probably wouldn't be worth it for us.  Usually it's since a week treat.

[windytrail]

A lot of people here justifying their excessive fridge space. What often shocks me upon opening Americans' refrigerators is the huge amount of space dedicated to storing condiments and other preservative-laden liquids and sauces (dressings, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles and relish, spicy pastes, half-opened jars of olives and pepperoncini peppers). Our fridge never seems to get more than 50% full because we keep mostly fresh fruits, vegetables, and leftovers inside.

Oh me too, not gonna can stuff. Nope, not happening.

The big issue is that I don't can, only freeze.

Canning is an amazing, easy food preservation technique. The difference is that you're putting in the work up front to be rewarded later. We made 12 mason jars of sauce from the backyard cherry tomatoes last year which lasted us several months. It's an incredible feeling to open up a jar of such deliciousness. You all are really missing out.

[JLee]

Chest freezers are awesome.  We buy from a local restaurant supply place, portion/vacuum seal, and then store in the freezer. Salmon fillets for less than $4/lb? Yes please.

[RetiredAt63]

I want to put in a good word here for upright freezers.  They don't take up as much floor space as a chest freezer and are easy to organize.  This means you open the door, grab what you want because it is easy to find, and close the door.  I am not losing masses of cold air every time I open the door, my freezer is quite full and there really isn't a lot of air in it.  As it empties I may start adding bottles of water to freeze to keep it full and running efficiently.

It is really great for single mustachians who otherwise would not be able to take advantage of bulk grocery deals.

[habanero]

My in-laws have 4 chest freezers. I have seen what that leads to so I have a hard limit on one and one only. At their place you can probably do a vertical tasting of all the vintages of various wild berries going back a couple of decades.

[ontheheel]

We're on the chest freezer train, as well. It's mostly full of meat, mostly deer that I've hunted. $0.30 for a single 7mm-08 or 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge nets a good 50lbs of venison that will feed my family for months. It doesn't get more organic (or cheap) than that.

We also purchase meat in bulk from the store and keep it out there - it served us VERY well in March-May last year when stores ran out of everything, as well as two weeks ago here in Texas when everything was shut down. It keeps food costs low in the good times and is a hedge against hunger in the bad times.

Growing up, we always had a garage fridge/freezer, which was mostly for drinks. I can't fathom doing that now - if we've got a surplus, it just goes in the pantry, and only gets chilled a few hours before we need it. For that - total waste. For a cheaper, more reliable, and healthier supply of food, I'll sing the praises of the garage chest freezer every day.

[Telecaster]

I moved away for a few years (job). When i returned I went to visit my grandmother (I was in my mid-20s) and she served me birthday cake. When I questioned who's birthday, she remarked that it was birthday cake from my FIRST birthday - so 24 year old cake!!! Once she left the room, I tossed it out the door and told her thanks it was good when she returned. More? No thanks. I always questioned anything she tried to serve me after that.

It is traditional to freeze a piece of wedding cake and eat it on your anniversary.  The woman who catered our wedding was like "don't be stupid.  Year old cake sucks.  I'll make you a new small cake in a year."

[mm1970]

My experience has been that for a lot of people, the second refrigerator is primarily used to keep beverages cold.

I could see that being really great for a party - a "beer fridge".  I guess these people entertain a lot?  Or drink rivers of soda?

You have no idea.  When I visit my MIL, they have a second fridge in the basement.  The last time we visited, I thought it would be useful because the regular fridge is just packed.  There is no room for me to add "my food".  (Not that I am a picky eater, but I eat a lot of vegetables, I cannot eat gluten, and I cannot eat pre-bagged salad greens.)  So really I just need a tiny bit of space for food.  Like, a quart.  Or a gallon.

But the downstairs fridge is nothing but drinks.  Beer, gatorade, and soda.  That's it.  During times that we visit, you'll find more pre-made salads because she hosts more people.  So, she'll make huge bowls of fruit salads, potato salads, vegetable salads for parties, and they get stored there too.

We have a mini-freezer in our laundry room.  Sometimes it's packed, sometimes it's not.  I'm feeding a family of 4, including two boys, one a teenager.  The mini freezer is used for salmon, chicken, butter, frozen gluten free pizza, tortillas, and bread, all purchased at costco.  The main freezer has ice cube trays, frozen fruit and veg as backups for when we run out, leftovers, homemade pesto, nuts and seeds, and leftovers.

[mm1970]

I moved away for a few years (job). When i returned I went to visit my grandmother (I was in my mid-20s) and she served me birthday cake. When I questioned who's birthday, she remarked that it was birthday cake from my FIRST birthday - so 24 year old cake!!! Once she left the room, I tossed it out the door and told her thanks it was good when she returned. More? No thanks. I always questioned anything she tried to serve me after that.

Oh. My.

I am spluttering just thinking about this woman saving cake for 24 years... no words.

I snorted.

[mm1970]

A lot of people here justifying their excessive fridge space. What often shocks me upon opening Americans' refrigerators is the huge amount of space dedicated to storing condiments and other preservative-laden liquids and sauces (dressings, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles and relish, spicy pastes, half-opened jars of olives and pepperoncini peppers). Our fridge never seems to get more than 50% full because we keep mostly fresh fruits, vegetables, and leftovers inside.

I'm feeding a family of 4 with a standard American 30" fridge.

On Saturdays, my fridge is PACKED.  I get 2 CSA boxes delivered (Thurs and Sat) and I batch cook on Sat and Sunday.  So my fridge drawers (2) are full of produce, and half of the lower shelf is also produce.  This week: apples, oranges, kiwi, beets, carrots (3 bunches), lettuce (4 heads), kale (2 heads), cabbage (2 heads), red pepper (1), cucumber (3), cauliflower (1). 

We go through 2.5 doz eggs a week and a gallon of milk.  We also have a gallon of filtered water in there too.

Then there's the batch of chili from the cooking.  Yogurt and sour cream.  We do have some condiments.  I use a lot of thai red curry paste, so there's a big tub.  Ketchup, mustard, tahini, mayo.  (Used multiple times per week).  Olives, used almost daily.  Homemade vinaigrette (made every 2 weeks).  Pecans and walnuts for salads.  Peanut butter.

And, of course, cheese.

By Thursday morning though, all of that produce is gone, and usually we've had to eat some of the frozen stuff too.

[FINate]

We have a large chest freezer in the garage.

I hunt and need to freeze large amounts of meat from large game. When you actually stop to think about, modern refrigeration is kinda amazing. No need to salt and/or dry food to preserve it.

We also buy bulk pasture raised meat (mostly on BLM land) from a local rancher. For health and ethical reasons we want to avoid factory farming as much as possible. I like the fact that we eat a whole side of beef (or pork) from a single animal over months instead of tiny parts of hundreds of animals. And you know what, it tastes SO much better, even compared to grass feed beef from the store.

[iris lily]

My in-laws have 4 chest freezers. I have seen what that leads to so I have a hard limit on one and one only. At their place you can probably do a vertical tasting of all the vintages of various wild berries going back a couple of decades.

yes, at my house too.

[Caoineag]

...
Canning is an amazing, easy food preservation technique. The difference is that you're putting in the work up front to be rewarded later. We made 12 mason jars of sauce from the backyard cherry tomatoes last year which lasted us several months. It's an incredible feeling to open up a jar of such deliciousness. You all are really missing out.

I make about 20 "jars" of stock per batch of stock plus I will be freezing my garden harvest as well. If I don't go to a chest freezer, I am going to have to buy pantry shelves to contain the jars and I can't stock up on butter or coffee sales. For me, a chest freezer is more versatile and space efficient than putting in a full pantry for the canned items. That said, I  refuse to have a giant chest freezer. That's only useful for people who eat a lot of meat or feed more than 2 people from their garden.

Don't worry. Every time I open one of my containers of stock or pull out veggies I grew myself, I am very pleased. No missing out on that. Plus freezing doesn't even require upfront work. You simply fill your preferred container and put it away.

Heck some of my fresh goods go straight to the freezer. Curly parsley goes straight to the freezer from the grocery store (unlike Italian parsley, curly leaf doesn't have any issue with being frozen) or garden depending on the time of year whereas bell peppers and mushrooms are 50/50 on whether they are used fresh or chopped and placed in the freezer.

I have a texture preference for frozen vegetables over canned but I do enjoy fermenting some foods.

As to frig space, nothing and I mean NOTHING hogs frig space like raw veggies. Once you get 2 heads of cabbage, a bag of carrots, a couple of artichokes, some beets, a head of broccoli, a cauliflower, a bag of lemons and a few other items in there, both drawers and the bottom shelf are packed. The big issue is that most Americans grocery shop more infrequently than Europeans. Americans grocery shop weekly or biweekly (some farmers are more like monthly), some Europeans buy some sort of grocery item daily or at least every couple of days. There is a big difference in storage needs between those frequencies.

[Just Joe]

Once upon a time we had a tall dorm fridge at home that we decided to put to work as a drink fridge. Yeah, our soda consumption went through the roof. A couple months later we quit that idea. Now a bottle of Coke or whatever is a weekend special treat. With teens in the house that can disappear in a flash.

[MayDay]

I have a large garden and at times have canned and frozen significant quantities of food that I grow.  I have NEVER filled more than a small deep freeze (the 2nd smallest chest freezer size at Home Depot, I don't remember the cubic footage).  With that we had to consciously plan to use it all up before the next summer.

If you are using a 2nd freezer to preserve food, that makes a lot of sense.  But you should be cycling through everything at least annually.  Otherwise you are storing too much.  There is really no reason for an extra fridge/freezer in my mind.  It is just wasteful.  I am sure there are edge cases if you have 10 kids and go through 15 gallons of milk a week, but for 99% of people, just no.  Stop buying so damn much food.  Its wasteful, both the electricity and the food waste that inevitably happens. 

[charis]

We don't eat a lot of meat so a chest freezer probably wouldn't be worth it for us.  Usually it's since a week treat.

We hardly eat meat anymore (some fish) because we have a vegetarian in the family. I absolutely love our chest freezer. It's invaluable for keeping our food budget low with bulk buying\storing. We first purchased for breastmilk and baby food storage due to a tiny old fridge with a tiny freezer.  Now we freeze bulk vegetables (garden and purchased), fish, cheese, burrito shells, bread, bread dough, homemade stuff like stock, sauce, soups, extra meals, and kid favorites like fish sticks and chicken fingers and a couple of go-to frozen meals when we are totally tapped out, etc.  It's been great during the pandemic because we don't really need to shop often or for very long and we rarely order take  out.  It's really been a clutch item that I could recommend any day of the week in the 10 years we've owned it.

[AccidentialMustache]

My parents had fridge and upright freezer. The latter is where garden produce goes. Not to die, just goes, to be eaten as the year goes on. All sorts of beans, peas, etc. Well packed food in a deep freeze stays good a long time -- lots longer than it will in your fridge freezer.

We picked up a chest freezer to be able to do similar. We also tend to cook "too large" meals intentionally in order to freeze a jar or two of leftovers. You can't can 32 oz of stir fry, but you can freeze it. (okay maybe you could can it, but I bet it'd be gross on the other side unless you did some undercooking while prepping, and then it isn't right to eat that night.) We've also done the portion of a cow thing.

We also have a basement fridge (both the old and new house came with 2 fridges). Mostly it sits unplugged, unless we have a sufficiently large party that we need it for drinks (used to be about 1-2/year), or for cakes/pies/leftovers (think thanksgiving/christmas with family in town). In either case, running the second is tactical and temporary. It does take up space, but we find it handy enough we haven't been willing to drag it out of the basement yet. Also handy if your main fridge dies for any reason, fire it up, move the food to it.

Ironically, when my folks and I were in a rental in England, it had a euro-fridge and then a pretty good sized chest freezer too.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I mean, I can see how you could live without a separate freezer, but I don't see why you would want to if you have space for it. Separate freezers allow you to buy meat on sale and store it to use, saving quite a bit of money. It allows you to batch cook and freeze for when you don't have enough time to cook, saving money on eating out. If you have two working spouses and kids, I can't even fathom how having a chest freezer, if used for batch cooking and freezing, could not save you money on eating out or at least help your health as opposed to cooking a frozen pizza or processed food bought at a grocery store. Maybe if you're super dedicated to cooking and that is your number one priority it could work where you cook enough all the time to keep from doing that, but dang, why go to all that trouble when you can cook gallons of soups, large batches of precooked meats that can easily make things like tacos, etc., etc., freeze them, and then bring them out to thaw when you don't have time to cook. Sure, getting meat from hunting or buying a half cow or something like that is a great reason to have a chest freezer, but it's far from the only reason.

[brooklynmoney]

No mention of this most important other refrigeration unit — the wine fridge!! Essential!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We have two upright fridge/freezer units. One is in the kitchen, the other is in the garage (leftover after our remodel). We use both. I typically make and freeze 6 dozen muffins at a time, and freeze quite a bit of (homemade) prepped meals. We don't keep many condiments (mustard, and my son's beloved ranch), and we don't drink soda. If we just had one fridge/freezer, we could get by, but we wouldn't stock up on meat when on sale.

We go shopping one time per week, and the main fridge is fully stuffed at the beginning of the week with produce. By the end of the week, it's mostly a few leftovers & stragglers.

We have two active teenage boys at our house, and we do have things like frozen pizza, prepped meatballs, etc on hand.

We keep a few bottles of wine & sparkling water in the outside fridge.

[stylesjl]

Probably have the craziest fridge/freezer arrangement at my parent's house where I live. You ready? Here is what we have:

3 Chest freezers, two of them for food, one for bags of ice.
2 Large Fridge/freezer units (in one of them the cooling motor broke down and we haven't bothered fixing it yet, but we store room temperature stuff in it)
2 Mini-Fridges

How did we get so many? I think we got most of them for free from others that gave them away, only its not free when electricity prices are factored in. I suppose attrition will be how we eventually get rid of most of them...

[Plina]

My non american parents have two chest freezers and two and a half standing freezers. My brother and father  hunt so that takes a big part of at least one freezer. They also probably have one with berries. And there is also a lot of other food in there. They have one and a half fridge and a half more that can be plugged in for example during christmas. I think they could limit the amount but that is not a battle I am going to sin.

[NorthernMonkey]

Why isn’t an onion considered a vegetable by Americans? If it isn’t a vegetable, what it is?

[Freedomin5]

This reminds me that for my condo I would like to find a tiny freezer for the “beverage station “I’m installing. I want it to hold ice cubes. I did not install an ice cube maker in my refrigerator because 1) it takes up space and 2) parenthesis it is a disaster waiting to happen.

Did I read this right? Are you seriously considering buying a freezer just to hold ice cubes?

You know what else makes and holds ice cubes? An ice cube tray.

[Paper Chaser]

I delivered appliances in an upscale area during college. On more than a couple of occasions I did the following:
1) deliver a new refrigerator to the kitchen of a home
2) then take the existing, working fridge from the kitchen to the basement bar
3) then remove the working fridge from the basement and put it in the garage (for the kids drinks/popsicles or bulk frozen food storage)
4) and then haul away the ancient fridge from the garage.

That being said, I'm a little guilty of this too. When we bought our house, the kitchen had a new fridge and the garage had the fridge that had previously been in the kitchen. The garage fridge is very convenient for accessing cold drinks while working in the yard or on dirty garage projects (keeping the house cleaner). And the freezer is usually full of meat from family farms that wouldn't otherwise fit in the main fridge in the kitchen.