The Best Products You Can Use to Clean Your Fridge
We still have a bit of an obsession with spring cleaning. It’s good to do your really deep cleans at this time of the year so that your home is sparkling clean after the winter has ended. Today, we’re going to focus on the kitchen and how to clean your fridge. All you need are some natural products you probably already have, so there’s no excuse!
If you want to have a healthy home, one of your main cleaning habits should be to keep your fridge clean. Keeping the refrigerator itself working for as long as possible is just one of the reasons. It’s also important because keeping it clean has a positive impact on your health.
Like your pantry, the fridge is a place you store your food. This means it needs to be one of the main places you focus on, not just in terms of keeping it clean, but also orderly, disinfected, and spotless.
How to clean your fridge
Regardless of what type of fridge you have and the specific manufacturer recommendations for yours, there are some cleaning steps common for all fridges. Firstly, it’s best not to let more than three or four months go by between each deep clean. A good rule to follow is to clean your fridge at the beginning of each season.
But at the same time, you should also do a light clean once a week. The most important things to focus on for your weekly cleans are:
- Getting rid of and cleaning the ice if you have a self-defrosting freezer.
- Eliminating and preventing mold.
- Eradicating bad odors.
- Properly organizing the contents of your fridge.
To do that last step, you should unplug your fridge, and then proceed to empty it out. It’s even better if you can move it out of its normal spot. That way you can look over everything and clean the entire area.
Next, you need to take out all the shelves and drawers, and any other moving parts within it. You should clean all of these thoroughly, either in the dishwasher or by hand with hot water.
Clean the outside of the fridge
Clean the outside of the fridge, too, paying special attention to the back. You can use a big, soft brush to clean off any dust.
The hardest part of the outside of a fridge to clean is generally the rubber part that helps it close gently. The grime that builds up on this part can be very hard to get off with a rag. If it’s extremely dirty, you can dip a paintbrush in bleach and run it along the rubber parts.
Let the bleach stand for a few minutes and then wipe it down with a rag. Another trick for this part is to use toothpaste and a toothbrush. You start by thoroughly brushing it with the toothbrush, then using it to apply the toothpaste. After that, rinse it off and dry it well.
If you have a white fridge and it’s starting to yellow in some places, you can clean the outside with a combination of baking soda, water, and a few drops of hydrogen peroxide.
You can also clean it with a bit of water and a pH neutral soap to get rid of the grime, then use a whitener on it. Some people add some olive oil to the mix to make their fridge shine a bit more. Let the mixture stand for ten minutes and then wipe it down with a soft cloth.
Get the ice out
If you don’t have a self-defrosting freezer, you’ll have to get rid of the ice and clean out the freezer every once in a while. Once you’ve unplugged it and finished cleaning the fridge, a lot of the ice in the freezer may have already started to melt. Take the precaution of putting some towels around it so that the water doesn’t drip onto the floor.
There are some specific products you can use to melt larger amounts of ice, but if you just wait a bit you can get rid of it yourself without much effort. Never use spatulas or any other tools to force it off the sides. Once you’ve gotten all the ice out, you need to dry the freezer really well. This will prevent mold from growing in any damp areas.
Be careful about mold
One thing you need to avoid like the plague is mold in your fridge. Always be on the lookout for it, because it can cause health problems. Luckily, there are some highly effective home remedies to get rid of this unwelcome guest if it shows up.
Our favorite of these remedies is lemon. Mix one quart of water with the juice of two lemons and two big spoonfuls of baking soda. From there, you can dip either a sponge or soft cloth in the mixture and wipe down affected areas. You can dip a small, soft brush in the same mixtures if there are any pesky areas that don’t disappear immediately.
The disinfecting powers of lemon will kill any mold spores, and will also prevent more of it from growing. There are some people, though, who prefer to use vinegar. We like lemon because of the nice aroma, which makes the chore a bit more pleasant.
Odors
Once you’ve done a deep clean on your fridge, there are some tricks you can use to keep away any bad odors caused by the foods you’ve had in it. To start with, you should organize your fridge by rows of coldness. For example, the lowest shelf will be the coldest, so that’s where you should store meat, fish, or anything else that needs to stay cold.
The least cold parts of the fridge are generally the fruit and vegetable drawers and the higher shelves. So, the middle shelves are best for any deli meats or cheeses you might have, and anything else that needs a medium-level of cold. Make sure you’re properly storing all your food.
You can even make yourself a special air freshener for your fridge with a clean lemon. All you have to do is cut out a tiny part of it. Then put some basil leaves inside it and put back the part you cut out. From there, put it in a small bowl and replace it every so often with a new lemon.
So, this all sounds simple enough, right? As with every other part of the home, if you clean your fridge frequently and thoroughly, you’ll be keeping it from turning it into a nightmare chore that no one wants to do. Create a routine for yourself and keep your house healthy!