Is your fridge a well-stocked, carefully arranged source of smug satisfaction? Or is it a chaotic mess, something you keep meaning to tackle but never get around to? If it’s the former, well done you. And the latter? Well, there’s comfort in knowing you’re not alone.
Fridge restocking is one of the hot topics on the TikTok social-media platform, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch videos made by contributors such as @kaelimalee and @kellie_atkins as they pack their shopping away.
There’s a certain hypnotic quality to their endeavours, as they arrange the fruit and veg with military precision, repack everything into sealed containers (and line up the Lunchables snacks and CapriSuns). Their organisational skills are beyond reproach, but their food choices aren’t entirely beyond reproach.
Maybe that’s the hook, the same curiosity that makes us peer into other people’s shopping baskets. Or maybe it’s just tempting to think that if we watch enough of these videos, our own fridges will magically transform themselves.
Ireland's king of the fridge restock is the private trainer and Operation Transformation fitness expert Karl Henry, whose Instagram account has a loyal following who tune in to watch him unpack his shopping and decant it into very specific locations in his big American fridge. His fridge videos are hugely popular: one has been watched almost 80,000 times.
To many people, putting the food away is almost as much of a chore as doing the shopping in the first place, so what could possibly be the attraction? “It’s one of my favourite parts of the week, and part of what I do in terms of health and wellness. It’s trying to show people, here’s another little thing you can do that you mightn’t have thought about, that’s going to make you healthier. Instagram gives me the platform to do that,” Henry says.
And is he surprised by the interest shown by the public? “You should see some of the messages that we get; people look at it with a magnifying glass. And we get about 20 question each time we post, asking about the make of the fridge. There is no affiliation to any brand; we paid for it,” he says of the Samsung American-style two-door-over-freezer larder fridge. “On a Sunday, when it’s packed in, we get a huge reaction and people start sending me photos of their own fridges.”
But does having a tidy fridge actually mean that you eat better? “I genuinely think it does, because when you open it, it entices you to choose better than if it’s all messy and you can’t see what you’ve got. It looks positive, it looks empowering, it looks healthy. We’ve also found we’re saving money because we are throwing less food out.”
Henry does the weekly big shop locally in north Co Dublin on Sundays, getting the food in for himself and his wife Jean and their two young children. “We find that we shop better, as we go to the shop knowing what’s there and what we haven’t got.”
Once the food is in their kitchen, it all comes out of its packaging, if any (they try to buy loose as much as possible) and goes into airtight containers stacked, Jenga-like, in the fridge. “We find that food lasts better in the containers. For us it’s about storing the food more efficiently as much as anything. We’ve a big double fridge, but we find this way we can get more into it.”
The couple’s freezer is also full of good things. “We would double cook and portion a lot of meals and put them in the freezer. Before you know it, you’ve got a freezer full of home cooked meals, which with a busy house, is really healthy.
With their two children aged just three years and 18 months, the family fridge isn’t yet subject to raids by “starving” children, and stays organised throughout the week, thanks to Henry’s vigilence. “This sounds really sad, but after a busy day I’ll generally come in at some stage, before I got to bed, and just tidy it up again. I’m well aware how terrible that sounds, But in all fairness, it calms me down when things are busy. It’s just something I can have control over. When it’s all tidy, I feel less stressed. I use it as a mindful experience as much as anything else.”
