I Love You...Let's Clean Out the Refrigerator! Denver Post 2/11/2009

I love you ... Let's clean out the fridge!
By Kristen Browning-Blas The Denver Post
Posted: 02/11/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
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(Photo by Getty Images, Illustration by Maureen Scance, The Denver Post)
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What better way to show your loved ones you care, than to make sure your fridge is clean, cold and well- organized?
You might blame the restaurant where you had dinner the night before, but most food-poisoning cases start at home.
In fact, food-borne illnesses are three times more likely to occur in private homes than in commercial kitchens, says Denver dietitian Mary Lee Chin. Many cases are due to improper storage, unsafe food handling, lack of cleanliness and poor refrigerator maintenance.
Even the most orderly looking fridge can harbor foods that can make you sick.
After Chin e-mailed us confessing her own food-storage sins — she was shocked to learn that the refrigerator door is too warm for storing eggs; "Isn't that why they have those little egg holes?" — we wondered what icebox infractions ordinary people are committing.
We tagged along as Chin inspected the kitchen of Carmen Mix, who volunteered to be our guinea pig. The mother of two small children worries about limp celery and moldy cheese and hopes to persuade her mother not to keep leftovers so long.
First, Chin checks the seal on Mix's 3-year-old GE model.
"There should be a slight tug when it opens," says Chin. That tells you the seal is working properly, one of the first things to check on an older model. A cracked seal allows air in and can cause the temperature to rise. "That creates a perfect environment for bacteria to grow."
Plus, she says, the seals have ridges that collect moisture and dirt, so clean them once in a while.
"What do you do with your settings?" the inspector asks. "Have you checked them?"
"I ... no," says Mix, with a nervous laugh. "It's probably set to what it came at."
She's lucky, because her fridge has a thermometer and it reads a perfect 40 degrees. If you don't have a built-in thermometer, buy one and make sure your fridge is set to 40 or below, says Chin.
Americans throw away, on average, more than a quarter of the
Dietitian Mary Lee Chin, right, tells Carmen Mix that she doesn't have to keep soy sauce in the fridge. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
food we buy, especially produce. "Many of us wait till it turns to lettuce soup, then we don't feel guilty about throwing it away," says Chin.
"I'd love to have our celery last longer," says Mix.
"When celery goes limp, it's because it's lost moisture," Chin says. "It's still OK to eat, but who wants to eat mushy celery?"
Keep produce in plastic bags and tightly cover cut fruit and veggies to maintain quality. Produce becomes wrinkled or mushy because the plant cells have begun to collapse, allowing the loss of nutrients and increasing bacterial growth in the compromised cells, says Chin, ticking off a list of dos and don'ts:
• Don't purchase produce with mold, bruises or cuts. Bacteria can thrive in those blemishes, and vegetable bins are the most likely place to be contaminated. Produce used for salads — lettuce and spinach, for example — grows low to the ground, where the leaves are likely to come in contact with fertilizers.
• Do buy only the amount of produce that you will use within a week.
• Do place washed produce into clean storage containers, not back into the original ones.
• Do refrigerate fresh produce within two hours of peeling or cutting.
"What about mold on cheese?" Mix asks as her daughter Whitney, 2, pokes her head into the chilled interior.
"If it's hard cheese, cut off a good portion because it does have legs, so to speak," says Chin. "On bread, if it's
Mix's son, Mason, plays with cans of pop, a better choice than milk for storing in the door. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
white, green, brown or real fuzzy-looking, don't mess with it, throw it out."
Although Mix doesn't keep her eggs in the door, she does put them in the container that came with the fridge. Chin tells her to keep the eggs in the original dated carton so that they last longer, and she'll know how old they are. You can tell if an egg is fresh by cracking it open onto a plate. If it's old, the white will spread out. A fresh egg white will stand up firmly.
While Mix holds her year-old son, Mason, just up from a nap, Chin reaches into the fridge for a jar of baby food.
"Don't feed him out of the jar and put it back in," she says. Bacteria transfers from the baby's mouth to spoon to jar, so it's best to spoon out a serving from the jar, and refrigerate the rest for another meal.
"What about leftovers? Do you label them?" Chin asks, suggesting Mix keep some masking tape and a marker handy to date her leftovers.
"We do have a lot of leftovers, with the little ones," says Mix, shifting Mason on her hip.
"Just wait til he's an adolescent," laughs Chin, who raised two sons and knows a thing or two about growing appetites.
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com