Living Without a Fridge

Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atoms infinity. -  E. Knight Two years ago, before leavi...

Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atoms infinity. - E. Knight


 Two years ago, before leaving for a month of travelling, I cleaned out and turned off my fridge. When I returned, I kept it switched off as a challenge to see how long I could last. My fridge has since stayed switched off, living a new life as an overqualified pin board. When friends come over, most (if not all) are amazed by my fridge-less apartment. 


Most people don't realise that living fridge-less is possible; and for many households, it isn't (e.g, if you have children). My living situation makes being fridge-less relatively easy: I live by myself, and have two supermarkets and a fresh food market within walking distance. 

An easy, although expensive and perhaps unhealthy, way of living fridge-less is to eat out or get takeaway more often. I love to cook, and rarely get takeaway (I count once in the last year). However, I will share a few meals a week with family and friends. Before going fridge-less, I used to cook more food than I could eat in one meal. If I ate out a few times a week, these leftovers just sat in the fridge, growing stale, and eventually ending up in the bin. Now that I am fridge-less, I have learned that I need far less groceries than I think, which means less leftovers. And when I do eat out, I know that I won't be faced with throwing away food I didn't get around to eating. Going fridge-less hasn't increased the times that I eat out; but it has changed the way that I approach buying and preparing food.

 Benefits of going fridge-less:
  • Electricity bills and energy consumption: my bills have gone riiight done. According to the electricity company, I consume 10% of the average one-person household of my size.
  • Less food waste: without the insurance of throwing leftovers in the fridge (a lot of which ends up getting thrown into the bin), I have learned to plan my shopping better. I no longer buy food I don't need just because it's cheaper in bulk (bulk buying is rarely a good idea for single living). 
  • Eating freshly prepared meals all the time: I know that being short of time and long work hours can be a major barrier to cooking every day. I work 9-6, and I know how it feels to be drained after a busy day. On these days, I put together one of my go-to meals - something easy, nourishing, satisfying, with ingredients that are reliably easy to find. Some go-to meals are oats with fruits and nuts (no milk), a salad, vegetable stir-fry, steamed frozen peas with coconut oil and spices (I pick up the peas on my way home from work). 

  • More accidental exercise: from my regular walks to buy groceries. 


Much of the food we refrigerate doesn't actually need it. If you live in a dry climate like Melbourne, you will be surprised at how well food keeps without refrigeration. Breads, certain cheeses, fruits, vegetables, even leftover casseroles and curries will keep for two or more days in a dark, cool place such as the pantry. 


Eggs will keep for at least a week (in fact, normal practice in the UK is not to refrigerate eggs. A UK study suggests eggs can last up to two weeks at room temperature). I am vegetarian, so I have little experience with keeping meat non-refrigerated. However, it's definitely possible to experiment being fridge-less and still eat meat - just buy small servings each time you go to the butcher, enough for one meal. 



Going fridge-less is easier than you think! Growing up with my grandparents in northern China, we didn't use a fridge (when we eventually got one, it was tiny and only used to store cold drinks and my grandpa's favourite food - stinky tofu). A household with a fridge was not considered the norm. We used traditional, perhaps healthier, ways to preserve food - pickling and fermenting vegetables (an excellent source of probiotics) and eggs (delicious salted duck eggs...)

Solo living is on the rise (a global increase of 80% in the last 15 years, according to Euromonitor International). If we continue to live and consume as we do currently, energy consumption will inevitably rise alongside the rise in solo living. With climate change a pressing issue, we need to rethink the ways in which we consume. I am not advocating a return to a pre-industrial-era lifestyle - I love technology, and convenience can definitely be a good thing! I do believe, however, that we need to question our assumptions of "normal" ways of living and consuming, and recognise the things we genuinely need and those we can easily live without. For me, this means living without a fridge. 

After two years, fridge-less living has become my normal. I save enormously on energy bills. I have reduced food consumption and food waste. I have learned different ways of preserving food, eat fresh meals that are alive with flavour, and I exercise more without realising. I'm also happy knowing that I am living more efficiently and leaving a smaller footprint. 




Can you live fridge-less? 


See Part 2: How to Live Without a Fridge - An Un-user's Guide


Want to dig deeper? 

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