5 Refreshing Ways to Keep Bad Odour Away from Your Fridge

Waking up in the middle of the night for munchies and facing the whiff of a stinky fridge is the last thing you want. You might be famished at the moment, but the offensive scent can kill your appetite instantly.

Grabbing the first food item in your line of sight and closing the door quickly won’t do away with the problem. So, if you want your upright fridge freezer to smell fresh and be free of bacteria (that’s a likely possibility), then a few hacks can save your day.

What Causes Your Fridge to Give Off an Odour?

The simple answer is – bacterial growth.

You might think of it as impossible in a space as cold as your freezer, but the annoying microorganisms find a way to flourish. In fact, according to the Australian Institute of Food Safety, an average salad drawer in a household fridge contains 7850 bacteria units per square centimetre.

The leading causes of such pesky presence are:

• Moisture from food,
• Condensation in the refrigerator,
• Humidity from outside

As soon as the moisture finds a way in, the microbes start replicating. However, you won’t notice the annoying smell from the beginning. Only after these bacteria have reached a specific population, the fridge will start giving off a foul scent.

How to Ensure Freshness in Your Refrigerator?

All of this seems tricky, doesn’t it?

After all, how can you even detect the contaminated portion of your fridge?

There’s a solution!

Clean out your fridge.

Here’re the hacks to kickstart your sanitizing spree and keep your fridge clean:

Check the Temperature

The optimum temperature to avoid any contamination in a moist area must be 37-41 Fahrenheit. So, in order to keep the moisture outside the fridge, ensure that your appliance is set at a temperature lesser than the range.

Keep a Tab on Doors

Since the food kept on the doors gets exposed the earliest, they’re more likely to go bad. Also, you might even forget to take a look at the expiration date of these items.

So, ensure that you keep a tab on the last date of consumption for all these foodstuffs. Besides, it’d be great if you could note down the expiration period of the item and arrange them accordingly.

Label the Leftovers

The first step to keeping bacterial growth in check is preventing any oxygen supply to the cooked food. On that note, it’d be best if you put your edibles in an air-tight container.

Besides, the forgotten leftovers can also create a messy situation in your fridge. That’s why you must label your containers based on the probable consumable date.

Evaluate for the Spillage

Do you keep your milk cartons without the lid?

Putting your edibles in the fridge without any lid can cause spillage. That’s why you must keep a check on the cartons and containers in the refrigerator, which are likely to kickoff microbial growth.

Baking Soda Hack

An open box of baking soda can do wonders in your fridge. Essentially, the chemical will absorb all the odour to leave your refrigerator with a fresh feel.

You can also use fresh coffee grounds, active charcoal or newspaper if baking soda isn’t available at home.

Final Thoughts

Whether it’s the buildup or unnoticed spoilage, your upright fridge freezer will have to face the smelly situation if you’re not cautious. After all, your refrigerator is the most hardworking appliance in your kitchen.

Maintaining your fridge clean with the above-mentioned hacks will not only help with keeping the odour away but also elongate the life of the appliance.

Don’t wait up to clean your fridge. The spillage won’t clean itself, right? Go on now.