Ever since I've been on my anti-inflammatory diet, my husband kids me that he gets attacked by leafy green vegetables every time he opens the refrigerator door. I can see what he means. Our refrigerator is packed to the gills with produce. It has far overflowed the capacity of our two large 12"x12"x8" produce drawers. We currently have a 33" wide by 66" tall Whirlpool Gold standard refrigerator with the freezer on top. Not sure how old it is; it came with the house we bought 2 years ago. As regular refrigerators go, it's not bad but it's white and I was hoping for something a little more stylish for the major kitchen remodel we are about to begin.
Two years ago, I saw a counter depth Kitchen Aid 36" x 72"in stainless which seemed to fit the bill fine and filed that away for future reference. As we start to nail down the kitchen design, I thought I might have room for a 42" refrigerator, so today, I struck out for the appliances stores to check things out.
What I saw was a complete shock. The new Kitchen Aid 36" counter depth refrigerator has produce bins that are nearly 20% smaller than last year's model! And they only have a 4.5" opening (I'm told so you can't hit the door seal with them.) The salesman told me that people just don't need big produce drawers anymore. Evidently, because no one eats fresh produce anymore! He suggested that I keep a second frig in the garage. (Which isn't even on the same floor as the kitchen in my house.)
At another store they told me that government regulations were causing the dysfunctional designs of this year's refrigerators. I don't really care what's causing it, I just want some options that work and don't cost an arm and leg for someone like me who mostly stores fresh produce in the frig.
I discovered that 42" refrigerators only come in "built-in" models with $7000+ price tags! Definitely not in our budget, especially since I'm lobbying for a bump-out to the area our kitchen is in to get a more functional arrangement. And even in the 42" refrigerators, the produce drawers aren't especially large. Has anyone in design department of the appliance makers measured a grapefruit or cauliflower lately? Even a head of broccoli would have to slim down in order to fit.
I thought about maybe adding those under counter refrigerator drawers. But they cost more than a full size refrigerator and I really can't afford to give up the cabinet space! So frustrating. Times like this, it feels like the entire world
conspires against healthy eating. I don't really have a good answer.
One store has last year's 36" Kitchen Aid side by side in a display on the floor. I don't really want a side by side but the produce drawers were the most functional size of any I've seen. Do I opt for that and hope it works once we finish the design? Or do I wait until we're ready and run the risk that there will be no good options without spending a ton of money?
How do folks with families to feed deal with produce storage? (There's only two of us in our family and I'm the only heavy produce eater.) Fellow fresh produce eaters, what would you do?
Anyone thinking of buying new refrigerator, brace yourself. The pickings are slim if you want one with decent sized produce storage.
Here's how the frig looked yesterday. Pretty crammed in and hard to see what I have. So once I came to grips with what's available today and the price trade offs, I got to work cleaning it out. I purged open bottles of wine from last holiday season, many leftovers of cheese far past its prime, a moldy jicama, an open half gallon bottle of apple juice (we don't even drink apple juice--I must have used a 1/2 cup or so for cooking at some point), a open jar of roasted red peppers well past their expiration date, a bag of now frozen cilantro at the back of the frig., many open sauces and marinades, a large egg carton with one egg in it (the single egg sits nicely in the container holding my two smaller egg cartons, several ancient partial bags of bread and english muffins). You get the picture. I am the only person in the world who allows my refrigerator to get to such a state of disarray? I haven't even be eating a lot of this stuff for the last month so you have a feel for its minimum age.
