People still drink milk?
How are you going through milk fast enough to warrant a system
Milk comes in 1.5 litre bottles, there’s two of us, we have it in coffee, tea, omelets , and occasionally in porridge, we shop once a fortnight, you do the maths.
Huh, so your stores don’t have larger bottles of milk? There’s bottles 2.5x that in most of the stores near me, with noticably lower cost per liter compared to the smaller bottles.
Sorry, I sometimes forget not everyone goes by a grocery every single day.
The door suffers from temp fluctuations and is often the warmest part of the fridge. Milk is sensitive to this so it should be at the back of the fridge not the door. The door is just to keep things chilled, or for keeping things from going bad.
This “door is too warm for milk” thing is crazy. I keep milk on a door shelf because it’s the only place with enough height. Also it never goes off there, even past the use-by date.
To be honest I did the same until a few years ago. I don’t know if milk is just more prone to going bad these days or our fridge gets open more often, but I noticed our milk wasn’t lasting. No science behind it, just that we were pouring more milk away. My missus started putting the milk at the back after she did a bit of research and since then it has been fine. I didn’t believe it either at first but I also did some digging and turns out the door is recommended for chilling items not preserving them.
I wonder if supermarkets aren’t careful about keeping it chilled. I always take milk from the back of the cabinet.
It depends on the user(s). Which position do you naturally reach for first? That’s where the oldest stock goes, with newer stock “behind” that in descending order of age. You always want to rotate stock, such that the oldest stock gets used up first.
Hinge of no relevance - in left to right reading countries, oldest should be on the left, it is what we intuit as “first”.
Front to back > *, but you didn’t allow for that option, so I’m imagining a fridge so full of milk that the rows are already front to back sorted, and we’re just deciding what order to put the rows in.
Neither. The “current” milk is standing, the rest is laid down on the shelves towards the back. This keeps it at a stable temperature, there is no ambiguity about which to grab, and keeps valuable door space free from clutter.
I would put them on the shelf, but they don’t fit standing up and on more than one occasion they have leaked when lying down, so the door is the least worst option.
Sealed in back oldest in the front to newest in back but open vs closed overrides that sorting system
I feel like most comments here are missing the point. I think you understand the concept of “first in, first out” and are just wondering if the “first” here should be closer to the door hinge or further. You want to establish a standard for your family, like “Always keep the oldest milk to the left and use that up first”, but are not sure what logic to use to determine if you should keep the old milk to the left or right .
In short, I say that the oldest milk should be placed further from the hinge.
My logic comes from my experience in the restaurant industry and actually arranging coolers. Optimally, you want to make it so that without thinking, in a rush, the first item a user sees is the oldest one. This is usually the item that is closest to the door/opening/user/whatever. In the case of storing items in the door itself, I would say that the further an item is from the hinge, the closer it is to the user.
Whatever you choose to set as your household standard, the most important part is to make sure all users in the household understand the logic and follow the same pattern. Realistically, it is pretty arbitrary where the “first” milk is kept. Everyone just needs to agree on a single standard.
In response to "just use up your milk before buying a second one"
There are times when you want to always keep a staple ingredient on hand and never run out. If you wait until you have none before you buy more, you may unintentionally end up in a situation in which you are unable to restock that staple in a timely fashion for some reason because some life situation arose. In cases of these staples, you will often end up with two units on hand: one that is partially empty that you are focusing on using up, and a second one that is full and waiting for the first one to get emptied before you start using it. Furthermore, depending on how critical the staple is and how much you expect to use before you have the ability to restock, you may actually want to have three or more units on hand. Maybe you are going to host a large family event and want to stock up so you have enough on hand for everyone. Maybe your grocery store is going to be closed on your normal shopping day next week, so you want to stock up so you do not have to go shopping that week. Maybe the store was having a sale on the smaller size, so you calculated that it was actually a better unit price for you to buy several of those than to buy just one of the larger size. Regardless of why you have more than one on hand, it is smart to set a standard for which one (left, right, etc.) should be the one you always use up first.
Yay … a solid argument!
Thank you.
one milk at a time. Replace after the old one is used up
If today is shopping day and you have a days worth of milk left you’re not going to buy a new milk?
Why would it matter, then? Buy new milk, put it in the fridge wherever you want, finish the previous container, move new container to its proper spot.
This isn’t that difficult to solve.
Unless you’re adamant that you’ll never have two milks in the house which is what I was asking.
Then use the already open one? If I see multiple milk in my fridge, I find the one someone else opened already
Me too.
I usually forget, but if I remember I just chug the remaining milk.
I keep the new, unopened milk in the back of the main part of the fridge until it’s called to action for door duty
I’d put them oldest further from the hinge. My logic is that they’d be closer to me when I open the door that way (same logic applies whether you store them in the door or fridge). However, of you have a weirdly designed fridge like mine, it makes more sense to keep them on the right side of the body of the fridge because we have double French style doors and it can be sort of cumbersome to try and open the right door and grab the milk if it’s sitting toward the middle away from the hinge due to the left door not being open and my arm bumping it / it being partially in the way. The left side is ruled out completely because there are shelves that are too low and don’t allow enough headroom for the milk.
Well look at this fat cat here that can afford multiple milks…
Nah, for real, put the newest milk in the back, use up the oldest milk first.
Yep. FIFO. First in first out.
Aligned oldest to newest in the back farthest from the door.
anything else invites ruin
Civilization depends on order and shared values.
Milk goes at the back of the fridge
It’s yo’ fridge
Do what you wanna do.
I ain’t gonna tell you
How to stock it, too.
You gotta live your life,
Cereal if you want it too
