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Living without a Fridge, Month 5
Posted on May 26, 2010 by Dona in Eco-SustainabilityLong gone are the days of perfectly chilled food. As you know, we unplugged our refrigerator in January in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and for the challenge of doing something slightly radical. It’s been 5 months now and while its been rough going at times (think frozen milk in February and stinky leftovers in May), we’ve managed to waste less food, reduce our grocery bill, and actually enjoy the task of shopping more frequently.
Spring temperatures have finally arrived in PEI and with day time highs in the 60′s and 70′s, we had to do a bit of reorganizating in the mudroom to make room for our summertime toys (hooray for bikes!) and therefore downsize the space dedicated for food.
The mudroom stays slightly cooler than the inside of our house during the warm afternoons, but for things like coffee cream and milk, its not quite cool enough to keep them from going sour.
Growing up in Northern India where summertime temperatures regularly hover around 115 degrees F (45 degrees C), Vibhu’s family used a clay pot that was kept moist with water to keep foods cool. The basic premise is that as the water evaporates, it cools the air inside the pot and thus, cools the food.
He devised a contraption based on the same concept from a hanging tomato planter. We keep the planter moist by spraying the fabric with water twice a day, and it keeps our milk and cream fresh.
Our hanging refrigerator extends the unrefrigerated shelf-life highly perishable milk and cream from about 6 hours to 48 hours. We used to buy milk in larger quantities and would go through a gallon, if not 2 in a week. Organic milk is $12 a gallon, so milk was a pretty expensive habit of ours. But now, we consume less (more like 1 litre a week), drink more soy milk, and put all of the money we save on milk into our trip to India fund.
Living without a fridge has proven to us that we need a lot less than we think. We have challenged ourselves to add new eco-friendly practices into our lives, some of which include no store-bought cleaning materials, shampoo and conditioner have been swapped for baking soda paste and apple cider vinegar, and no more TP (I’ll write more about these later!).
And the best part?!? We’ve even inspired some friends to give living fridgeless a try (at least during the winter!).
What do you think? Could you live without refrigeration?
forget the fridge life without a bottle of siracha would be really hard….
Yea no joke. Luckily the Siracha has been fine so far, we use it like its going out of style!
Love the tomato plant hanger idea!
We’re now in the process of de-chemicalizing the house. Getting rid of all the lotions, shampoos, cleaners etc that aren’t natural (which is like ALL of them) and swapping to natural. I never realized how much junk was in my face wash. It’s alarming.
Changing our food-shopping habits is another summer project. In Pakistan it was actually easier to get things “natural” since prepared foods weren’t really available.
Your blog has been an inspiration for me! Keep it up. : )
If you’re looking for a good face wash, try a chickpea flour. Mix a tablespoon of the flour with a few drops of water to make a paste and rub it onto your face. It’s just grainy enough that it works well as an exfoliater and leaves your skin glowing! I’ve got a recipe for glass cleaner, but I need to test it out first before I put it up here. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have something for you!
Chickpea flour! I’ll have to try that. I used to have lots of that stuff around in Pakistan, but now I don’t keep any in the house. I’ve been just washing my face with regular, natural oatmeal soap and it’s been fine, although I do miss feeling like I’m getting in to the pores. Excited to see the glass cleaner experiments….
you guys are so cool….maybe he needs to patent his contraption so that others could do the same??? We have unplugged our dryer…….we hang everything. I love the smell and the “crunchy” towels.
Good job you too…proud to know ya.