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Know A Food Allergy Family With a Crazy Messy Fridge?  Five Ideas For Them

Ahhhh, fridge organization, it may not be THE most interesting topic, but did you know this ONE thing can actually DO A LOT to make your food allergy mom life easier, less expensive and more productive?  If you haven’t discovered the benefits of a tidy, clean fridge and freezer, read on my friend, read on!

Let me tell you I struggle with this JUST as much as anybody else.  I’m not perfect for sure.  Which is why in this post I’m channelling my inner Marie Kondo and going to explore all the reasons to spend a little time “tidying” our fridge.  I know it will inspire us both to get our fridges clean because the benefits are huge!

Here are 5 reasons food allergy families need to clean out their fridge and freezers:

1. It keeps your food allergy little safe  

Do you know if ALL the condiments have been cleared for your child’s allergy?  Or did the condiments WAY at the back of the fridge get missed when your child was first diagnosed?  By cleaning out your fridge you can go through EVERY item to make sure it’s food allergy safe.  This will give you confidence that there won’t be a food error when you’re not home and someone else is watching your little.

2. It saves money 

How easy is it to tell if you have something in your fridge when it’s packed full?  NOT easy at all.  When your fridge is full of expired sauces, condiments, and overripe fruits and veggies, you can’t SEE what you already have.  This means you’ll likely buy MORE without realizing you already had some.  This in turn makes it even harder to see.  It’s a destructive cycle of waste of food and money, but it can be avoided!  

3. It takes away food overwhelm 

Have you ever opened your fridge and even though it’s FULL, it feels like you have NOTHING to eat?  Us food allergy moms have enough restrictions already.  We need to feel like our fridge has options.  The funny thing is that when your fridge is overly full or cluttered, it actually makes it HARDER to find foods that we can enjoy.  Having a tidy and organized fridge without too much clutter will help you feel more inspired to cook and eat what you have on hand.  I know this from experience!

4. It makes cooking & grocery day easier

Cooking is easier because of the same reasons in number 3.  

Grocery day is easier because we have ROOM to put things and they are all organized into sections.  We’ll easily be able to see what we need more of before we go, and we’ll easily be able to put things away when we get home.  I know one of my LEAST favorite things to do is put groceries away after shopping and fighting with expired produce is the last thing I want to do when I get home.  Need I say more?

5. It makes your kitchen and food more enjoyable.

Have you ever opened the fridge and outcomes that overwhelming smell of rotten foods?  How does that smell make you feel about food in general?  Not very appetizing, right?  And even though you clean up the smell offender, without realizing it, there was a small spot on the side of the crisper that you missed.  

It may not cause much of an odor because it’s small, but things add up after a few spills.  The smell of these small spills may not be powerful, but does anybody want to be in a kitchen with the occasional odd smells wafting around? 

Given that we spend SO much time in the kitchen, I think we want to make sure our workspace is enjoyable, am I right??  Because nobody wants to work in a place that’s unkempt, smelly, and just plain gross.

Conclusion

There are five great reasons for us food allergy mamas to clean out our fridge.  They are: keeping our food allergy child safe, saving money, take away food overwhelm, making cooking & grocery day easier AND it makes your kitchen and food more enjoyable.

As Marie Kondo would say “ Only keep what brings you joy”.

What benefits have you found because you’ve kept your fridge and freezer clean and tidy? I’d love to hear about it!