The Culture of Big: Are big fridges just cool things to have?

[“Really, if we didn’t have company over for Thanksgiving and Christmas we could probably get by with a fridge half the size 99 per cent of the time. A grocery store is less than two blocks away and I’ve heard that they’ll store food for us - even freeze it at their own expense - until we actually need it.” G. Harrison, June 28, 2011]

I said a lot of rash things in an earlier post.

I asked, “Can I live without (a) gallon size bottle of chipotle BBQ sauce?” And I answered, yes.

The answer should have been, “I can do without a gallon of the stuff, but I do like it on my burgers every once in awhile. What I need is a smaller bottle.”

Me bad.

I said, if “we shifted to a smaller fridge... we would have to live life to the fullest without the enjoyment of 42 condiments (at last count).”

Really, I was exaggerating. We only have 36 bottles of condiments. Me bad x 2.


[“I’ve heard our local grocery store will freeze this stuff for us until we actually need it.”]

However, I’m not the only person to see that smaller fridges make sense.

I read three interesting things about fridges in ‘Little House on a Small Planet’:

One - “Large and small appliances account for as much as 10 per cent of the increase in house size since 1948... (and) serious small-home dwellers take a hard look at the largest home-energy hog: the beloved fridge.” (pg. 27)

Our houses grew to accommodate larger appliances? I knew cars, trucks, Levis and hospital beds have grown to fit larger North Americans... but the fridge?

Two - “Most North American homes contain refrigerators almost twice the size of their European counterparts.”

There are actual people who get along without as much fridge space as me? I didn’t know that.


[“There’s a lot of empty space in here!”: photo by GH]

Three - “Look inside your fridge. If it is like most refrigerators in our area (e.g., North America), over half of its 18 cubic feet are empty or filled with old “C and C” (condiments and compost).”

Wow. So I’m not the only one buried in mustard jars and limp celery stalks? I feel better.

It makes me wonder. Can we shift to a culture of small that includes a smaller fridge and not go hungry? Can we live without limp lettuce?

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