2019-09-25 - Without refrigerator
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A couple of years ago i noticed that my refrigerator was mostly
empty a majority of the time. It would contain the occasional pack
of butter, or an egg or two, but not much more could be found
there. As i lived alone, did not drink soda drinks or beer, the
device was not of much use to me.
To cut on my electricity bill, i sold off my refrigerator to some
student who wanted to keep his beers cool, and i started my great
experiment to live without. In my lucky lottery live, i had never
lived without a refrigerator, so i was well acustomed to always
having one. And i expected shaking this habit would certainly take
some time. But in history many people lived without, and in the
present still many people (even in ridicously hot climates) live
without, so why wouldn't i be able to do that as well?
And despite being a bit nervous for making this 'odd-ball' decision
for no clear apparent reason, living without this device went
surprisingly well after that. I did not become miserable or had
some kind of shitty live after that. To the contrary, it felt kind
of good in some weird way, to be independent of such a device that
i had grown familiar to over my whole live. Woah... Everybody told
me i needed a refridgerator, and it turns out, really i don't. How
awesome is that!
The first couple of months were a bit odd and took some getting
used to, because i had to do my groceries differently to accomodate
for not having this refrigerator. Over time i found that the
simplest types of foods were almost always the most suitable ones.
All the unprocessed whole foods would not need any type of cooling
really.
So i ended up buying more fresh fruits and vegetables, dried beans,
oats and nuts. Neither of these things need refrigeration. As i had
already quit eating meat some years before, meat was no issue
either. Soda's were no issue either as i had moved to drinking tap
water (very clean in my country) or tea earlier.
Additionally my cooking habits changed a bit as well, cooking daily
portions, instead of cooking for two days at once and keeping
leftovers in the fridge. These things got some getting used to, but
after some years, i don't even really think about it any more.
Living in a temperate climate makes things quite easy especially
one half of the year during autumn, winter and early spring. In
those months, if i really need to keep something cool during, i
just put it in my shed. I learned i should keep food closed off in
the shed, as one morning i once found a spider who had drowned in
my yogurt i had kept in the shed overnight. Poor thing. :)
Now over time, i found that i only found some limitations for a few
minor thiings. During the hot summer months, especially in august
and early september i would not try to store yoghurt, milk or
portions of semi-prepared food overnight. During these months
things would spoil very quickly. But really, only the diary
products go bad quickly.
Fruits and vegetables hardly spoil and also don't need any covering
or packaging, even after portioning. For example, i often eat half
apples. Leaving the other half just in a cupboard. The cut cross
section would dry out a little bit, but when i want to eat it, i'd
only need to cut a one or two mm thin sliver off, and the apple
would be fine even after a day or two. Same with aubergine's and
cucumbers, they are more or less self-sealing. How cool is that!
All in all, this experiment is going surprisingly well, and my
food-shopping and cooking habits have changed fairly easily and
also in a positive manner. Eating unprocessed whole foods becomes
more obvious without a fridge, and that's pretty healthy i think.
