Dear Umbra,
Two of our favorite Brit-coms are Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By. It is hard for an American not to remark that in both households, which seem quite affluent, the refrigerator is short, and fits beneath the kitchen counter: nothing so grand as what passes for normal in American kitchens.
Do most Brits and Europeans in fact have in their kitchens only counter-height refrigerators? And if so, are they therefore quite satisfied with that arrangement? And if so, are they therefore using much less electricity than we are? And if so, is there any chance that we might learn to imitate them in this regard? Just because standard cabinetry design in American kitchens regularly includes a huge hollow space where the huge refrigerator is supposed to go, does that mean it must be that way?
Marcus Stephanus
New York, N.Y.
Dearest Marcus,
Obviously you need to have tea in various Brit kitchens during a U.K. research junket. On my last U.K. junket I was in at least one home with a counter-height fridge, and someone spoke about this very topic -- the largeness of the U.S. fridge and the frugality of the U.K. fridge -- and I felt humbled. Later I found there was a second small fridge in the basement, and felt humbugged.
Perish the thought.
Photo: iStockphoto
The average size of the U.K. fridge has grown over the past several years (I hope Brits will write in to confirm), but for us non-U.K.ers, the only germane question is: Should we downsize when changing our own icebox? Since most of us have full-sized fridges full of food, it's a little inconceivable to downsize, but if you're ready to consider so doing, read on.
During a kitchen remodel, if you have the cash to replace your refrigerator and you are shopping for a new one, by all means consider using a smaller fridge. Refrigerators can be cabinet-height, and/or cabinet-depth, and/or cabinet-width. Short caveat: a smaller fridge is not inherently a more efficient one. A large fridge with the same kilowatt-hour per year rating as a small fridge is actually more energy-efficient, because it cools a larger space using the same amount of energy. Energy Star offers some shopping tips, and the ACEEE lists the highest efficiency fridges by size, for your shopping pleasure.
One reason to have a smaller fridge is of course the added kitchen space you'll gain -- for cooking what's in the fridge, for opening doors, for standing room at a party. Another is the extra cash you'll have for buying tasty food or saving for low-e windows. A third, shocking reason is that much of what's in your fridge could probably be stored in a cabinet or pantry. Zounds. When buying a fridge, then, we should behave as when we buy a furnace: reduce the need for a fridge as much as we can by cabineting appropriate goods, and then calculate the size fridge we truly need.
There are two types of bacteria related to cold storage. One is pathogenic, meaning it will hurt you if the food gets warm enough for it to grow; those generally have no smell or sign. The other is spoilage bacteria, which will have a smell or discolor food but, according to the USDA, probably won't make you ill. Apparently lots of products are labeled "refrigerate after opening" simply because of the spoilage bacteria -- ketchup, for example.
All uncanned animals and their products need to be refrigerated. (Hard cheese, if consumed soon after buying, is an exception.) Any food assembled into a dish -- takeout food, leftovers, future picnic -- needs to be refrigerated. Fresh produce needs to be refrigerated if it has been cut or processed in any way, or if it will rapidly degrade at room temperature (lettuce), but not if it tastes better and ripens further at room temperature (avocadoes, tomatoes). Unopened soft drinks go in the cabinets. Bread stales in the refrigerator and cookies and crackers don't need to live there. Dried fruit and beans are fine in cabinets. Plain old mustard is fine in the cabinet, and apparently so are jams and jellies. Get this: mayonnaise, in the jar, is too acidic to spoil. Only when it is mixed with foods does mayonnaise transform into the Slime of Death. How I handle the daily shock I encounter researching your questions, I'll never know.
Hellmannsly,
Umbra
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Comments
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anduin Posted 3:26 am
23 Jul 2007
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greentrain Posted 4:44 am
23 Jul 2007
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kaivalya Posted 6:02 am
23 Jul 2007
There are many reasons:
Energy costs a lot more. For example, one gallon of gasoline will cost at least 7 dollars. Of course cars are smaller. The same is the case with fridges. I just had a look at the local store. Energy efficiency is classified in A, B and C. American fridges always come in class C.
8 fridges had the height of 88 cm, 2 came with 122 cm and only one with 178 cm.
Then the basic difference is our eating habits.
It depends on where you live in Europe, but generally we eat more fresh food and less industrial products- it's normal to go to the local market to buy food for just one meal and cook it at home. But definitely times are changing. Many people try to adopt the "American way of live". This means more instant or frozen food which needs cooling. Greentrain you're right, I'm also worried.
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mearph Posted 6:22 am
23 Jul 2007
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sarahbei Posted 9:24 am
23 Jul 2007
Now, I would absolutely LOVE to have a house with all those things. But I would love it more to have those things be accessible to me and everyone else via a short walk or public transit ride! I might just get some exercise and make an unexpected acquaintance in the process of meeting my daily [cappucino] "needs". Malthus would be proud.
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Sage Posted 9:32 am
23 Jul 2007
Now that I'm in the vast expanse of exurbia I have two full-size fridges that are filled up.
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wayneluke Posted 10:47 am
23 Jul 2007
My "local" quality food venues are Trader Joe's (10 miles away), some small selections at Albertson's (3 miles away) and a small market (3 miles away). The market is closest but it is two miles away. With 100° temperatures in the summer and an hour or more wait between urine-scented buses, there isn't much choice here. I'd have to take 2 buses to get to the store and 2 more back for a cost of about $3. It is impractical to get to these places more than once a week. Often its twice a month that we do our shopping for a family of 5. I could walk the hour or so each way but wouldn't be able to get anything that needed to be kept refrigerated. I am physically unable to ride a bicycle and while I do walk when I can it is often excruciatingly painful. The nearest store is a Walmart Supercenter, and yes if absolutely necessary then I will walk and shop there but prefer not to.
Not everyone lives in a large city with every amenity around the corner to make a smaller fridge worthwhile. Instead I go for the most efficient models that I can, reduce my usage in other ways like leaving the AC off all day, working from home, changing lightbulbs, driving a small but efficient car as little as possible and so forth.
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kduble Posted 1:35 pm
23 Jul 2007
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kaivalya Posted 1:50 pm
23 Jul 2007
Still, for a family of five we just need a 88 cm fridge.
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pelagicrabbit Posted 3:17 pm
23 Jul 2007
The market we actually shop at is about 7 miles away, so a 14 mile round trip would use about a gallon of gas every day and a half in my car (about 24 MPG for my car)
I can't imagine my comparatively massive new fridge being worse than all that gas.
My old fridge bit the dust last year & could not be resurrected. When we started looking for a new one, the paperwork said that it used X amount of energy (expressed in kWh a year). I worked it out to cost under $50.00 a year in electricity - iirc, around $48.00 or so. My car using an extra gallon every day-and-a-half works out to 20 gallons of fuel a month extra. At $3.00 a gallon (conservative figure, because gas is actually closer to $3.20), that is $60.00 a month and $720.00 a year.
Public transport isn't possible where I live, so I can't consider that (even though I live in the center of town, the bus system is unreliable, expensive & slow).
So, $720.00 dollars (plus tires, wear, tear, pollution, time, my energy, etc) in order to not own a big fridge that costs less than $50.00 a year to own doesn't make economic sense to me.
Unless people in the US are willing to radically change urban planning to include better buses & other public transport methods, more centralized amenities, my new fridge will probably remain a better choice. It isn't as simple as "smaller fridge = better", at least not for our family.
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evamalkki Posted 3:39 pm
23 Jul 2007
Mind you, they are starting to sell "American fridges" here in Finland, too, and they're about 1.5-2 times the size of an ordinary fridge (not many people here, either, use the squat ones).
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Mike Wendling Posted 11:06 pm
23 Jul 2007
Having lived in the UK (albeit in the big city) for the last seven years I've managed to get by with single-serving fridges of various sizes. and while I can confirm, Umbra, that fridges over here are getting bigger, but they're also getting more effecient. The A-G grading system is on everything, it's easy to understand, and in a few years it will even apply to houses:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&Pr ...
Oh, and we don't keep our eggs in the fridge either. Those nice free-range ones you buy from the market will keep just fine until Sunday. Douse it in that unrefridgerated ketchup (apparently according to my British wife, cold ketchup is disgusting and unnatural) and you have the start of a classic British breakfast.
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greentrain Posted 11:14 pm
23 Jul 2007
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Mike Wendling Posted 12:07 am
24 Jul 2007
http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/irradiation_legislation.htm
In fact most dairy products over here will be fresher simply because of the much smaller distances. This place is tiny. My inner London eggs won't have come from much further than 50-100 miles away, I'm not sure how many Manhattan eggs can say the same.
I think this egg thing is worth yolking onto though. Is the fridge necessary because of salmonella? I found this treatise:
http://www.baking911.com/asksarahbb/index.php?automodule= ...
When I was a kid (which wasn't TOO long ago) I could lick the batter spoon with impunity, but I hear rumors that American kids no longer do that anymore.
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:01 am
24 Jul 2007
Possibly. But everyone knows after the first scoop of mayo is used, the jar gets smearing of tuna salad inside it.
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hankr Posted 1:30 am
24 Jul 2007
In addition to this, one must indeed admit that many Americans do not live a hop, skip, and a jump away from a farmers or supermarket. Using a large refrigerator wisely is indeed necessary for many.
Now that I live in SW Germany, I of course know many people with small refrigerators. I find the small fridge at my mother-in-law's house almost maddeningly small, and she rarely has anything around that is worth eating! (And, as in quite a few German households, she also has a huge "Kühltruhe" [freezer or icebox] in her basement, something I would not say is widespread -- though perhaps common -- in many American households.)
I actually do not believe that "many if not most" Europeans have different (meaning "better" or more eco-friendly) grocery shopping patterns/habits. Many do shop for food differently than millions in the U.S., but the discussion is much more complex than the typical "Europe-America" focus that many of us fall back on. It depends on the area and the person.
We live near and know many people -- many more than one would like to admit around here -- who drive to grocery stores, even if they are relatively close by. Indeed, these are also often the stores I am reluctant to enter: Penny, Lidl, Aldi, Plus... It is actually fairly sad what is happening to the German retail landscape in some regions, but I see many around here wasting lots of fuel on what I would call unnecessary shopping trips...something I witnessed in America all the time. Class and education are much more important to this discussion than "America" and "Europe"! That being said, what I really admire about how things work here in Germany is that information about where/how/why/when to purchase such environmentally-friendly devices is easy to come by. The state, at the local and national scale, is in many cases more of an active participant in the movement to help consumers reduce their carbon footprint. This is something that I missed growing up in the States, at least to the extent that I see it here.
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tonybogar Posted 1:50 am
24 Jul 2007
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pelagicrabbit Posted 1:52 am
24 Jul 2007
I would never leave eggs out - I have seen too many cases of food poisoning. I say this in spite of owning one of those old wire egg baskets -mine is now decorative. Just a generation or two ago in the US, people regularly left eggs out on the counter in these baskets.
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Solar John Posted 2:31 am
24 Jul 2007
SJ
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amc89 Posted 4:43 am
24 Jul 2007
Yet another reason to start eating more mealess meals!
The reason salmonella poisoning is increasing in the U.S. is because of intensification of egg producing facilities. Does is really shock people that the worse you treat animals, the more often their products will be contaminated? Eggs used to come from hens out in the barn yard. Now they mostly come from factory farms, where hens are kept beak to beak in tiny battery cages with not even enough space to spread their wings. Consider the many egg alternatives available when baking or scrambling. At the very least, switch to free-range, local eggs.
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amc89 Posted 4:43 am
24 Jul 2007
Yet another reason to start eating more meatless meals!
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kaivalya Posted 5:36 am
24 Jul 2007
Factory eggs are a different story. Just don't buy them.
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lama Posted 6:04 am
24 Jul 2007
as pointed out, kitchens are smaller and designed for small fridges.
people don't shop for costco size/quantities of food for same reason.
milk, which is still drunk on a regular basis,is delivered to the doorstep in the UK every morning, so no need for a gallon size jug.
generally there is an aversion to very cold food and drink. No one needs a huge area set aside for chilling six packs of beer because drinking an ice cold beer is seen as a peculiarly American taste (or lack thereof). ditto for ice and ice makers.
Needless to say, the moment a Brit gets an addition on the house or moves up to one with an extra utility room or cellar, the first thing to go in that room would be an extra fridge or freezer. I bet Hyacinth Bucket has a freezer tucked out of sight.
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N2O2Power Posted 11:28 am
24 Jul 2007
At present , no matter how efficient the refrig is, that exhausted heat is put into the living space and must then be dealt with again by the Air Conditioner. :)
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coleminer Posted 1:31 pm
24 Jul 2007
Then considering the fact that I would need to take more trips to the store, I decided against a smaller fridge.
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jrusch Posted 5:22 pm
24 Jul 2007
I don't think it's about country vs. city access to supermarkets. It's more about prepared/packaged vs. raw/non-packaged food. Frozen pizzas take up space. My wife and I are in the country, with a Trader Joe's half an hour away, and a small market/farm stand 15 minutes away, yet we get by just fine with an intermediate "apartment sized" fridge of about 10 cubic ft (by Absocold, that uses about 300 watts, about a third less than the best full size fridge). We rarely fill it up, except for the crisper, and we cook every meal at home. My parents, on the other hand, somehow have two full-sized fridges, the main one more crammed than ours. The difference is my mother, knowing she has the room, buys lots of frozen things in boxes, multiple large OJ containers (I prefer frozen OJ), and more variants (3 kinds of bread?). We eat lots of fresh fruit that we don't refrigerate, and have a hybrid of Asian and Mediterranean diets based around vegetables, rice, pasta, with basically no packaging. Beyond that, it's a mystery, but we certainly eat well, and wouldn't want a bigger fridge if you gave us one.
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jrusch Posted 5:35 pm
24 Jul 2007
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kaivalya Posted 6:27 pm
24 Jul 2007
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MikeB Posted 9:32 pm
24 Jul 2007
Its perfectly true that most European fridges/fridge freezers are smaller than their US counterparts, but the trend in the UK is certainly towards larger units. US sitcoms (apart from Friends - who have the classic Smeg look) always seem to have a massive fridge in their kitchen, etc - and having a US style machine is a bit like having a SUV - its a fashion statement as much as anything.
The one I've just taken delivery of seems huge. Its 2m tall (even the Bosch was only 185cm high), and resembles a white version of the monolith from 2001 sitting in your kitchen. The difference between US and European machines is partially one of layout - the US side by side machines are much wider, so they seem even bigger. But they are also bigger in terms of volume. The store which sells my new machine (John Lewis) also sells US makes such as Maytag and Admiral. The smallest machine for either of those makes has a fridge size 40% bigger than mine (although admittedly for twice the price), and the Magtag Zigzag's is pretty much double.
Part of the reaon for that, as lama pointed out, is the size of US packaging. My wife and I went to San Diego for our honeymoon, and went to the local supermarket to get a pint of milk. The smallest we could get was 6 pints. Thats the largest family sized pack you can get in the UK, and the rest of the cold section was similar. Very big bottles, etc means very big fridges. My cousin lives in SD, and as a single guy who travels on business a fair bit, he basically eats out, rather than buying a large amount of food which he will have to throw away - its simply cheaper and easier.
There are other reasons for smaller units in Europe as well, but certainly in the UK, the idea that we all go out to the market every day, have our milk delivered in pint bottles and ignore the supermarket is simply no longer true (hopefully the French and the Italians will hold on to this idea). UK consumers normally now go once a week to a supermarket, load up (especially if there is a BOGOF going) and throw everything into the fridge/freezer (my new machine even has a special setting to cool down food just bought from the supermarket, alas).
And we do buy increasing amounts of ready meals, which we then put in the fridge, and often throw away at the end of the week, as well as pizzas, etc.
But most people here still buy the classic Euro model, with the fridge on top, although they are certainly getting taller. We tend to go up because kitchens are generally smaller. That design is also seemigly more efficient than a side by side (although the Maytags, etc that JL seems to sell are all A rate). Euro models also never seem to have the ice cube makers which must really burn power.
I suspect that a lot of the difference is lifestyle - I certainly dont think that my cousin has a large fridge, although it would be rather cheaper for him to buy one in the US - he simply does not need one.
I also suspect that manufacturers produce what they think the market wants - if your used to a big unit, then thats what you'll tend to buy - most of us dont shop just on price or energy efficiency alone.
I am surprised though by the fact that all my North American relatives still use top loading washing machines - something which I havn't seen for years here. Front loaders are easier to load and more efficient with water, yet on Pricerunner, about 60% of the machines are still toploaders. Again, the size and design of machines probably has as much to do with culture and tradition as anything else.
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midenka Posted 11:26 pm
24 Jul 2007
If you do happen to have a larger fridge, do what you can to boost its efficiency. Keep it clean, clean the door gaskets so it closes tightly. If you have a second freezer, don't keep it in an unconditioned part of your house, like your garage. Recycle it when it really has to go (some utilities will take old fridges.) Avoid side-by-sides, they use more power. Neither a borrower nor a lender be....oops, I got a little carried away.
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msk Posted 2:22 am
25 Jul 2007
Contrast this with the typical climate in the UK, which is often cool and cloudy and pretty much ideal for leaving many things out that I must refrigerate, such as beer, or butter, or cheese.
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pamgreiner Posted 4:43 am
06 Aug 2007
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pixifish Posted 1:47 pm
14 Aug 2007
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spaceshaper Posted 12:06 am
15 Oct 2008
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