Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E159
===

[00:00:00] Francine: I'm eating this dressing and I'm thinking, tastes a little tiny. It probably isn't good. I should check the date on this. Did I get a white, you know, you eating

[00:00:12] Matt: a blue?

[00:00:13] Francine: Wait a

[00:00:13] Matt: minute. You were eating minute gold. How old was this? Blue cheese dressing.

[00:00:17] Francine: Oh my god. I know better. It's so, yesterday we're cleaning out the refrigerator.

My husband pulls up. I said, check that blue cheese. Trust me. He pulls it out and looks at the date. It expired in November. He takes the lid off to dump it out. Let's just say it wasn't good. My response was, thank God I'm healthy.

[00:00:49] Intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes, toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the [00:01:00] point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't eat poop.

Don't eat poop.

[00:01:15] Matt: Hello? Hello, Francine.

[00:01:17] Francine: Hey Matt. How are you today? It's a fancy mug.

[00:01:21] Matt: It's from the original Pikes Place, Starbucks. It's like one of the things I do in Seattle, every single time I go to Seattle I have to go to the Pikes Place Market and the original hikes place Starbucks. It's like Mecca.

[00:01:39] Francine: I was in Seattle and did not have time to go.

I was so disappointed.

[00:01:44] Matt: Oh, it's fun.

[00:01:45] Francine: Did not have time to go.

[00:01:47] Matt: It's fun.

[00:01:48] Francine: We should go visit Bill.

[00:01:50] Matt: Yes.

[00:01:51] Francine: Stop in.

[00:01:52] Matt: Yeah,

[00:01:53] Francine: we'll just invite ourselves to bill's and

[00:01:55] Matt: stop. Uh, just knock on the door. Are you home? [00:02:00] We go See you at your island.

[00:02:02] Francine: So when I went out for the poisoned premier. Oh yeah, the poisoned premier.

It's a very cute, nice little island.

[00:02:12] Matt: Oh, you went out to the Yeah.

[00:02:14] Francine: The premier.

[00:02:14] Matt: Yeah. There were some people that that came out while I was at New Era Partners and I, food ds. Yeah. And there were some people from there that went, yeah,

[00:02:22] Francine: you have to take the ferry.

[00:02:24] Matt: I was like, no, thank you. I have other things I have to do, but work.

I love you Dar and Bill. I, no, I thank you for the invite though.

[00:02:36] Francine: Yeah, I went, I took my daughter.

[00:02:38] Matt: Nice. Alright. Well. You have a specific topic you wanna talk about today?

[00:02:44] Francine: Speaking of daughter, she, as soon as I say daughter, my phone rings, she is now calling me. I do, I think that we should talk about cleaning out our refrigerators.

[00:02:59] Matt: I think [00:03:00] we've, we have danced around this topic multiple times, but we never actually talked about this topic.

[00:03:05] Francine: Yeah. And I'm talking about our own personal refrigerators. I think we should discuss this topic.

[00:03:13] Matt: Okay. So right off the bat when you said, how often are you supposed to do this? No,

[00:03:19] Francine: I didn't say, are you supposed to?

I said, how often do you

[00:03:22] Matt: Yes. Okay, so asking me this question. Okay, so we would clean out the, my wife would clean out the refrigerator. My wife or mother-in-law, and I, it would be like a project probably once a month, every six weeks is what we used to do. But we have a person that comes and cleans the house.

She's been doing it for, I don't know, seven years. She's like part of the family now once every other week. And we added that to her tasks. So she like cleans out. Both my family's and my mother-in-law and father-in-law's, [00:04:00] families, refrigerator, 'cause we use them both together every other week. And like pulls everything out and does a deep dive clean into it, sanitizes it and stuff.

But before that, yeah, it was probably every month to two months we were find things in there. One time my wife, one time my wife pulled out the drawers to like really clean in there and I don't know, maybe she does that every six months. I'm there like helping her, like pulling things out and stuff. And then she pulls this drawer out that probably has not been pulled out in two years to like really clean underneath that drawer.

It's like the bottom drawer. And she found like a string cheese that had to have been there for like two years. Somehow it like fell out the back side of it. And it was under your teeth there and then yeah, it was probably there for like two years.

[00:04:58] Francine: Yeah. So, uh, [00:05:00] years ago I had somebody come clean my house and all that.

I don't anymore wish I did sometimes, but I don't anymore. I used to be obsessive about cleaning out my refrigerator, not so much anymore. So yesterday my son and my daughter-in-law were at my house and we were cleaning my husband, not we, my husband decided. He was gonna clean out the refrigerator while they were there.

So he starts this process while they're there and oh my God.

[00:05:36] Matt: Okay, so now I'm understanding why you wanted to do this topic today was because you have a story from yesterday.

[00:05:44] Francine: We're human. You know what I mean? We live real lives. We are very busy people, and sometimes cleaning out my refrigerator is just not at the top of my to-do list.

A couple weeks ago, let me preface this. My fa we're [00:06:00] very fortunate. My father-in-law cooks us dinner every Saturday.

[00:06:03] Matt: Oh, that's cool.

[00:06:04] Francine: And brings it to our house, not just cooks, he brings it to our house. But we end up with this leftover 'cause there's just too much for too people. It does give my husband some things to take to work during the week for lunch, but it's just too much for two people.

And then that ends up getting pushed to the back of the fridge. And not being consumed. My husband doesn't eat like lettuce, tomato, onion. About a week ago, I made a salad out of the lettuce, tomato, and onion and put blue cheese dressing on it. Folks, it's time to clean out your refrigerator and get rid of those condiments from last summer.

Get rid of them. Now, Cass season is coming and you probably have leftover dressing.

[00:06:48] Matt: Oh, 100%. 100%.

[00:06:51] Francine: It's just what people, you don't think about throwing it away?

[00:06:53] Matt: No. Like I probably have an Italian dressing that is six months old in there that needs to be thrown out.

[00:06:59] Francine: Blue [00:07:00] cheese is one of my favorites. So I'm eating this dressing and I'm thinking, tastes a little tiny.

It probably isn't good. I should check the date on this. Did I

[00:07:13] Matt: get up? Wait, you were eating a blue.

[00:07:15] Francine: Wait a minute.

[00:07:15] Matt: You were eating mold Minute. How old was this? Blue Cheese dressing.

[00:07:19] Francine: Oh my god. I know better. And so yesterday we're cleaning out the refrigerator. My husband pulls out, I said, check that blue cheese dressing.

He pulls it out and looks at the date. It expired in November. He takes the lid off to dump it out. Let's just say it wasn't good. My response was, thank God I'm healthy. Yeah.

[00:07:47] Matt: Okay. First off, blue cheese dressing is basically like cheese mold, like it's like already moldy. Yeah.

[00:07:51] Francine: It's a different kind of mo mold.

Yeah. Not ever that,

[00:07:54] Matt: yes. My son, yes. I love blue cheese.

[00:07:56] Francine: My son who, honest to God, sometimes I swear, will eat anything, [00:08:00] was repulsed. All I could think is, my God, I really need to do better. People that are listening to us now will probably never listen to us again because epic fail. Yeah, throw away your dressings from last summer.

I need to go home and look at the rest of the dressing that's in there. 'cause he specifically checked, I think he checked the ranch. The ranch. We use that for wings, probably more than we use the blue cheese. I'm the only one that'll touch blue cheese dressing clearly. Not enough.

[00:08:34] Matt: That's funny.

[00:08:35] Francine: Probably not enough fresh Parmesan cheese.

I bought it to make lasagna a couple months ago at Christmas. Yeah, no longer any good.

[00:08:46] Matt: The fresh Parmesan cheese that are you talking about like a wedge?

[00:08:50] Francine: No, I'm talking about it was already grated.

[00:08:53] Matt: Yeah. 'cause we'll get like the wedge of Parmesan cheese and if it stays in there too long, maybe there'll be [00:09:00] like a little spot on it and I'll just cut that off 'cause it's hard cheese.

So I'll just cut that off.

[00:09:05] Francine: No, this was already greeted.

[00:09:07] Matt: Yeah. And was it like the, the blue cheese, was it like milk curdled? Was just like green,

[00:09:15] Francine: red.

[00:09:16] Matt: Oh man.

[00:09:17] Francine: So this is the thing. Whenever I throw stuff like that away, I just throw the bottle away. I don't take the lid off and look like, why don't you do that?

[00:09:27] Matt: Yeah, but like red mold is gross.

[00:09:30] Francine: People disgusting. Throw away. You're dressing now. No wonder it was tangy.

[00:09:35] Matt: Yeah.

[00:09:36] Francine: Disgusting. So disgusting. Think about what I would've done to a restaurant if I was in spec. This is my freaking refrigerator now. It wasn't that long ago that I pulled everything out of my refrigerator, everything, the drawers and everything, and cleaned it out clearly.

I did not look at the dates on the salad dressing. [00:10:00] 'cause I swear it wasn't that long ago that I bought that dressing.

[00:10:05] Matt: Yeah. So

[00:10:07] Francine: apparently not

[00:10:09] Matt: every week I dump the trash. Every Sunday I dump the trash and we have two refrigerators upstairs that are used by the family. One is on my in-laws house and one is on our house.

But our house is our connected. There's like a, a mud room in between my kitchen. And their kitchen. My father-in-law, mother-in-law's kitchen. So the kiddos will put that refrigerator where my in-law's refrigerator is where like all the leftovers go, where all their food goes, but they don't really eat much.

So they eat mainly with the family and then they have their own stuff, and then it's like leftovers. So once a week I go through the leftovers and see, okay, what needs to be thrown out because it's trash day. Every Sunday is my throwing out [00:11:00] of leftovers, but it is not our throwing out of all the junk.

And when every other week when the house cleaners like sanitize, they don't throw anything out. They're just pulling everything out, sanitizing the shelves, putting everything back in. Right? So we have this like top shelf in our refrigerator that is like all the condiments and it's huge. So it's like pickles, peppers, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, all the different salad dressings.

I need to go through those salad dressings. Francine, I need to go through those.

[00:11:37] Francine: So we're good about throwing the leftovers?

[00:11:40] Matt: Yeah.

Oh,

[00:11:41] Francine: that. That happens weekly. The leftovers get thrown away weekly. That isn't, that's. A non-issue. The condiments are the issue, and both my dogs have recently had surgery. Well, they had to go on a diet as well.

They weigh [00:12:00] 150 pounds. They're too, they were too heavy, even though they're giant breed dogs, they were, they needed to lose like 10, 15 pounds. So they were allowed to eat carrots, but they weren't allowed to have any treats. The carrots became the treats well, after having treats. They don't want carrots.

They didn't like the carrots. So there was also a bag of carrots in there that I had bought that were no longer any good either because we didn't eat the carrots.

[00:12:31] Matt: Uh, you don't, okay, so those baby carrots, is it like baby carrots or were they like a baby? They were bare

[00:12:36] Francine: baby carrots. Yeah.

[00:12:37] Matt: Yeah, those baby carrots.

Yeah. You have to look at those because if they don't get eaten fast enough, they end up like the, with this nasty film on 'em.

[00:12:48] Francine: Yeah, they were in the bag.

[00:12:50] Matt: In the bag, yeah. And they, they

[00:12:51] Francine: they got pushed to the back. Yeah. They were in a bag. They wasn't on the shelf or they got pushed to the back. Yeah,

[00:12:58] Matt: yeah, yeah.

[00:12:59] Francine: So I used to, [00:13:00] when I was teaching classes and doing all the traveling and doing, speaking at a lot of different events and things like that regularly, because I did so much traveling, things would end up putting the refrigerator with a lid on 'em, and you had no idea what it was. In those containers and they'd get pushed to the back and the next thing you know, you have time to clean out your refrigerator and you start to pull things outta the refrigerator and lift up the lid and it's like, what the hell was that?

I don't even know what that was because it's not recognizable anymore. That hasn't happened for a long time. But I used to talk about that in my class. 'cause we talk about, so how long is something good in the refrigerator? I'd be like, so it's not to the point where you lift it up and it's got so much mold on it.

You dunno.

[00:13:45] Matt: Your question isn't, what is this? But what was this? What

[00:13:49] Francine: was this?

[00:13:51] Matt: Yeah. Not good.

[00:13:53] Francine: Yeah,

[00:13:54] Matt: not good. Okay. So I asked Google and I'm, so, I'm in the ei, [00:14:00] the AI, Google ai. How often are you supposed to clean out your refrigerator? So experts generally recommend a three tiered approach to refrigerator cleaning to maintain food safety and appliance efficiency.

I think the appliance efficiency because you just, that way you don't have so much,

[00:14:19] Francine: it's too much in there.

[00:14:20] Matt: You're

[00:14:20] Francine: blocking the vans, they're not gonna work as efficiently. That.

[00:14:24] Matt: Yeah.

[00:14:24] Francine: Yeah.

[00:14:25] Matt: So immediate spot cleaning, weekly maintenance and deep cleaning every three to four months. So we're better, at least on the deep cleaning in my house.

Okay. Cleaning frequency schedule immediately wipe down any spills, leaks as they happen to prevent bacteria growth and cross contamination. Wait, I have a question for you. When you are. Defrosting chicken or hamburger or whatever like that. Where do you put that in your refrigerator? How do you defrost it in your refrigerator?

[00:14:56] Francine: I put it in like a bowl or something.

[00:14:59] Matt: [00:15:00] Yeah, yeah, me too. I put it in a foil

[00:15:03] Francine: pan or like a cake, like a, I wanna say like a cake pan or something with sides on it. Or a bowl.

[00:15:08] Matt: Yeah. We get at Costco, those aluminum pans, we get the small ones and the large ones. 'cause like

[00:15:14] Francine: I buy those as well.

[00:15:15] Matt: Yeah, I'll just throw the meat that I'm defrosting in an aluminum pan, small aluminum pan, and then after I've defrosted it, I'll use that aluminum pan to then also season it up and then use that same pan for now that I've gotten a season to like sit overnight in the seasoning or whatever like that.

I'll use that same pan and then I'll throw the pan out the second it gets on the grill or in the stove or whatever.

[00:15:39] Francine: You don't cook meat back in that?

[00:15:41] Matt: No.

[00:15:42] Francine: Okay. Just checking.

[00:15:44] Matt: Well, no.

[00:15:45] Francine: Some people do put cooked meat back in the, it was a joke,

[00:15:48] Matt: or some people will put the meat that they have already cooked in that pan.

Not good either, so No, I throw, that's why I just use the aluminum pan. 'cause then I just throw it out.

[00:15:59] Francine: What [00:16:00] you could do though is cook it in that pan. That would be okay.

[00:16:02] Matt: Yes. If I am like smoking or cooking something in that needs a pan, I'll use that same pan. But if not, if I'm just throwing it on the grill or throwing it on the stove or the oven, then I'll throw that pan away.

Yeah,

[00:16:16] Francine: I would say I pull everything out, including the drawers and everything at probably every six months.

[00:16:21] Matt: Yeah,

[00:16:22] Francine: and clean it out. Miss that blue cheese though.

[00:16:25] Matt: Oh, I love blue cheese too. I'm the only person in my family that likes blue cheese. I have not had that experience that you have had.

[00:16:33] Intro: Yeah.

[00:16:35] Francine: I usually go through every spring and make sure that, and that's one thing I always tell people do is go through every spring and make sure that you throw all that away.

We aren't quite into spring. I'm glad I can laugh about this, but Oh my god,

[00:16:46] Matt: close. Well, and the reason why I put it in the foil pan too is I'm lazy. Because I don't want to deep dive, clean my refrigerator because like I've had meat leak in the refrigerator [00:17:00] and that's disgusting.

[00:17:01] Francine: That's absolutely disgusting.

Have those gels that you have to lift up, which all refrigerators do, you have to lift them up and it gets underneath that glass into the drawer part.

[00:17:11] Matt: Yes.

[00:17:11] Francine: That is awful To have to clean and you do, you have to pull all that out, clean it, clean in the drawers. Throw away whatever is in the drawer. Yeah.

[00:17:23] Matt: Yeah. My wife is like, so anal about that too. So if meat leaks or like one of the kids pulls something out to defrost and then it leaks, then she's like, I'll clean it, and then she'll come back and then sanitize it again. Like she just doesn't trust that I'm gonna sanitize it. So she'll go in there and do it again.

So then I have Mad Mama. 'cause now I've added to her workload, even though I'm trying to help. She's like, no, I don't trust that you're sanitizing this well enough. And then so she's in there with her like nuclear war [00:18:00] sanitization spray and all over the place. So yeah,

[00:18:04] Francine: I know that my son truly questions what I do for a living.

[00:18:08] Matt: I love that your husband cleaned out the refrigerator while your son was there. It's like you needed witnesses or something.

[00:18:15] Francine: They think my son does everything anyway. They or my husband does everything anyway that my son does. He thinks he does. He does everything anyway. It's like an ongoing joke he did when I traveled all the time and 'cause I was never home, but,

[00:18:30] Matt: well, it's interesting too, like when you've been together for a while, there are just certain tasks that each person just takes on and it's like you don't even think about it, you just do it.

Like I dump the trash in my house. I do most of the cooking in my house. My wife and I split up dishes, so my wife, my, my mother-in-law or I, or one of the kids will do dishes that kind of just as needed. People just do it, but like the refrigerator stuff. That tends to be my wife, my [00:19:00] mother-in-law, and the cleaner the food stuff, because that's trash, that's mine.

And so it's like all these different tasks get done by somebody and nobody even thinks about it. It just gets done. So I could see that with your husband and you. You guys have been married for a long time and there are just certain things he does, and there are certain things you do and nobody thinks about it, just do it right.

It's a team.

[00:19:22] Francine: So Well, yeah, and it's sometimes, it just depends. For example, I was late getting home one night last week, and by the time I got home he had started supper and he had laundry in the washer. He just got home before I did. So it's just, you just don't even think about it. It's, he was just there, so he did it.

I'm very fortunate because I realized that not a lot of husbands do that.

[00:19:44] Matt: I don't do laundry. I don't even know how to work the laundry machine. My wife was out for a week. And I was like I said to my daughter, my daughter was in her apartment at the time, she's since moved back in. And I said to my [00:20:00] daughter, I was like, can you please come home and do laundry for me?

[00:20:05] Francine: So we just got a new washer and dryer and it's like a touched since it Like a touch thing. Yeah. And like I can't figure this thing out.

[00:20:18] Matt: I know. They're so complicated.

[00:20:21] Francine: What am I doing wrong? Because it's taken me 15 minutes to get this washing start. Apparently I did get the manual out. Apparently you only have to touch it very lightly to get the thing to start.

What is wrong with me, but yes.

[00:20:41] Matt: Yeah, I help my wife once. She trains me on each individual kiddo's medical stuff. I help my wife do that. My mother-in-law is really good at helping watch the kiddos, but she's afraid she's gonna get something wrong with the meds and stuff like that. But the only chore I do not do is laundry.

And it's one of those [00:21:00] things where nobody wants me to do laundry. 'cause I mess it up every single time. And then every single time I try to do it, I literally mess it up like. My wife is like, oh, well you just shrunk this, or Now everything is red, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay.

[00:21:16] Francine: There are certain things I don't want him to wash.

Like I, I give him full credit for washing, doing everything, but it's, if I don't want me to wash it, I just put it someplace else because I'm afraid he'll drop.

[00:21:26] Matt: So I paid my daughter to come home and do laundry.

[00:21:30] Francine: Well, good for you. At least. You didn't leave at all for your wife when she came home, so,

[00:21:34] Matt: no, there was plenty for my wife to do when she got home, but there were things like, I think the kids soiled too much and now all of a sudden I have no clothes for the babies.

And I was like, yeah, I need you to come home and clean the babies stuff so we can actually put them into clothes and take 'em to visitation. But yeah.

[00:21:55] Francine: I want the people that are listening that think that I can't wash my own washing use, [00:22:00] don't know how to use my washing machine, which I did figure out and dryer to know that I did replace the pump on the old washing machine while my husband was away.

[00:22:09] Matt: Yeah, that's for you. And yeah, I have a son that's a mechanical. That's mechanical. Everybody else is not, you know what's hilarious is I am not good at. I'm like home improvement or whatever, like you would make everything all big and like mess everything up or whatever. I just don't have the tools to do things right.

So whenever I go to go to fix something, I end up breaking it more. So a like $100 fix from a maintenance guy now becomes like a thousand dollars fix. So my wife actually is like really handy and she does 5,000 piece puzzles in a day. She's a puzzle person. She could put things together. She wants to do like puzzle competitions and stuff 'cause she could do puzzles super fast.

So her brain thinks like that, putting things together and all that. So [00:23:00] she'll be like, what you think dads do like. Putting things together like a box of something for some big toy or furniture or whatever. I'll watch the babies and cook dinner and my wife will be over there putting these things together.

So I always laugh. I'm like, yeah, I guess the rules are reversed and this halfway for a bunch of stuff. But no, I'll put, my wife will laugh 'cause I'll put together a table. Like years ago when I thought that was what I was supposed to do, we would get a table. And I would put it together, but I would put like a leg on the wrong spot, like on the wrong leg.

And then, so the whole table is like cata wampus. And so then my wife would just redo it and so she was like, I'll handle this. I like this. I'm like, cool. Alright. So we go back to what you're supposed to do with the refrigerator. Okay. So weekly. So immediately wipe down any spills of food. Weekly purge old food.

So check for [00:24:00] expiration dates, Francine and discard, spoiled items or leftovers. Typically safe for like three to four days, so your leftovers are generally good for like three to four days, assuming your refrigerator is at the right temperature. It's good for like three to four days on a weekly basis.

Quickly wipe down and clean, high touch areas, candles, any visible crumbs on the shelves, et cetera. And then inventory. Many find it easy to do this right before our grocery restock. So like inventorying. Do you do first in and first out for things? Yeah,

[00:24:31] Francine: me

[00:24:32] Matt: too.

[00:24:32] Francine: Can't see me shaking my head can. Yes.

[00:24:35] Matt: We do this more for the baby stuff than we do for a refrigerator, but I handle that.

So I handle the stocking of all the baby stuff, like baby formula and baby food and all that different type of stuff. We have like a storage place for this in our house, and I actually write on a Sharpie, the expiration date for all the formula. 'cause we have. Two babies that are fed [00:25:00] via feeding tube. So there's like specific types of formula and we get it like huge stock of it on a monthly basis.

And the expiration dates on them vary, right? So it's not like I get a stock of it and it's the same expiration date for every single box of this stuff. So I put on there and then I put. On the shelf, the stuff that needs to be done first, closest to the door and the stuff that can be done later over on because yeah, first in, first out,

[00:25:31] Francine: okay, now I'm not using a Sharpie or anything, but if I put the groceries away, and I think that just comes from working in the industry.

[00:25:40] Matt: Yeah. For

[00:25:41] Francine: so long. Yeah.

[00:25:42] Matt: Yeah. That does. I don't think normal people don't. I maybe not think about that. First in first, they're not

[00:25:48] Francine: rotating sugar or their, their milk.

[00:25:50] Matt: Well, sugar will last forever. I don't worry about it,

[00:25:53] Francine: but I still put the stock behind stock. I still put

[00:25:58] Matt: the stock behind the stock. [00:26:00]

[00:26:00] Francine: I would still pull what I had up front and put the new one behind it.

[00:26:04] Matt: Yeah, so we buy in bulk like rice, oats, sugar, all that stuff. We buy that. 50 pound bags and we have big old buckets that go in our pantry. And so we store those in the airtight buckets. And then we have, my wife has everything labeled in the pantry. So then we have like little containers that we restock that it's constantly being restocked that way.

Alright, but that's not the refrigerator.

[00:26:34] Francine: So how often do you empty and clean and sanitize those?

[00:26:38] Matt: Every single time we get a new 50 pound bag.

[00:26:40] Francine: Oh, good, good.

[00:26:41] Matt: Yeah, we'll clean. It depends on what it is, whether it's like a 20 pound bag or a 50 pound bag, but like we buy it.

[00:26:48] Francine: I'm sure Tracy just, I'm sure that it happens.

[00:26:52] Matt: Oh, she's like a mass thrower away of things. She, if she's going through the pantry, which she goes through the pantry once a [00:27:00] month, probably sometimes sooner than that, depending upon. How messed up the pantry is 'cause we have, so have people going in and outta the pantry. The pantry gets disorganized pretty quick and it drives my wife absolutely insane.

So like once a month she reorganizes everything and if something needs to be relabeled, she like labels it and yeah, she's a clean freak when it comes to that type of stuff. Meds and food. My wife is like very anal on. Okay. So every three to four months a deep clean. So full empty, remove all the contents, take out the removable shelves and drawers.

So we take out those shelves and drawers more frequently. Now, like the house cleaner doesn't take out the drawers and clean underneath the drawers. She is pulling the drawers out, pulling everything out and sanitizing in there, but she's not pulling the drawers out. So when my wife did that a couple months ago and found about a 2-year-old cheese dick.

We do that. [00:28:00] She now does that more frequently, Paul, the drawers out to make sure that everything is good. Yeah. Oh God. That cheese stick was so nasty too. It was like hard and it was still in its package. It was like yellow and it's supposed to be white. Yeah. Not good. Gross. The look on my face right now.

Alright, so every theater through four months deep, clean, interior, scrub, wash, removable parts in the sink with warm soapy water, wiped down the interior walls with baking soda and a water solution to neutralize odors. Do you ever put baking soda in the fridge? Have you ever done that before?

[00:28:38] Francine: I do. My husband actually pulled it out yesterday and said, what is this?

I said, it's baking soda. Put it back in there. Please put it back in there.

[00:28:47] Matt: Yeah, we do too. We have baking soda in the fridge too, but we don't use, my wife doesn't use baking soda water solution. Maybe we should, but she uses the, like the sanitizer, [00:29:00] sprays everything down, but the sanitizer and cleans it.

[00:29:03] Francine: I use bleach water

[00:29:05] Matt: seal inspection, clean the rubber door gaskets with damp cloth to ensure a light seal and prevent air leaks.

Have you ever had those gaskets break?

[00:29:14] Francine: I do know what you mean. And I restaurants, they break in restaurants all the time from such heavy use and also from not being cleaned frequently enough because they get brittle if you don't clean them.

[00:29:26] Matt: Yeah.

[00:29:26] Francine: They'll get really brittle if you don't clean the gaskets.

Not at home. I have not. At home. I have not.

[00:29:33] Matt: Yeah, we have, and it's not because they got brittle, it's because. My kids are just hard on things. I don't know how they, they, they pull apart at the

[00:29:42] Francine: teams.

[00:29:42] Matt: Yeah, they broke the gasket, but it was like they, it was like it was perfect

[00:29:46] Francine: opening and closing them way more The average person.

[00:29:50] Matt: Yeah, but it's really easy. I just called the refrigerator guy and he came over and replaced the gasket and

[00:29:56] Francine: Well, yeah, you just pop it out of the thing and push 'em back [00:30:00] in. They're not hard to replace. You pop 'em out of the seam and you push 'em back in and you, they're not hard to replace.

[00:30:09] Matt: It's the difference between France and me.

You and your husband will actually do it. I just, I have like people on call. Well, here's the other thing too, is I don't think about it, right? So when I see it, I call somebody because if I go like, oh, this is gonna be a project, I'll do it on this weekend. Something always happens, so I always forget to do it.

So I just call somebody and they come out and we have like lists of people. My wife has like lists of people that do different things like a plumber, service

[00:30:38] Francine: people,

[00:30:38] Matt: like a maintenance guy, like a blah, blah, blah, blah. And we just call them and they come and just bite

[00:30:44] Francine: everything. I would name Tim.

[00:30:45] Matt: For those of you that don't know, that's her husband's name, but you guys also like flip houses and stuff, so like he, he's like a, it's

[00:30:54] Francine: nothing that that he can't do.

[00:30:56] Matt: No,

[00:30:56] Francine: honestly, I, him, my [00:31:00] son, they're pretty handy individuals. I'm actually quite impressed with the things my daughter has learned. She's not married, has learned to take care of herself. Right.

[00:31:11] Matt: She grew up with that.

[00:31:12] Francine: She did.

[00:31:13] Matt: Yeah. It's, yeah, it's interesting 'cause I grew up, my uncle was really handy when I lived with him, but he was the only one that was really handy.

And so when I grew up, like in my house, that was like condemned and everything was broken. Nobody knew how to fix anything. I didn't grow up with fixing things until I was 16 and moved in with my uncle, but then it was like two years and so I wasn't really able to like learn any of it. So yeah, just, I don't like everything being broken, so I.

Call people who know how to fix things and then they do it. Yeah. And it's less expensive than me breaking it and then

[00:31:50] Intro: Right.

[00:31:50] Matt: Paying to have them fix it again. Okay. And the last thing is twice a year I'm positive. I do not. We do not do this. Maybe you do [00:32:00] vacuum. The condenser coils usually found in the back or bottom to improve energy efficiency and extend the life of the appliance.

Do you vacuum the condenser coils?

[00:32:11] Francine: So underneath we have to, we have two Newfoundlands. We have to vacuum underneath it. Yes.

[00:32:19] Matt: Yes. All the hair and crap, huh?

[00:32:22] Francine: Because those, they pull air. So we have to,

[00:32:29] Matt: I don't know if I can, I have one of those, both of our refrigerators are inside. They're like in the wall, right?

So. The molding comes up to the refrigerator. I mean, we could pull it out, but those things weigh a ton. Like our refrigerators are those huge refrigerators. I know what

[00:32:47] Francine: you mean. You'd probably have to empty it. I don't know if they'd be on wheels, if they're that big or not. They might be

[00:32:52] Matt: on No, it's, it's not on wheels because I saw the guy install, the guys install the thing and two massive dudes were sweating [00:33:00] after putting that thing in there.

So I'm pretty positive that's not going anywhere. It's not, that is not, those refrigerators are gonna be there until they break and then I guess I'll just buy a new refrigerator. 'cause the denture coils are not getting cleaned in my house. Sorry. Denture coils. Sorry, refrigerator. That's not happening.

It's not a food safety issue. That's a maintenance issue.

[00:33:22] Francine: It's an efficiency,

[00:33:23] Matt: efficiency issue. Yeah. So there you go. That's the refrigerator cleaning guide on Google ai. Now I need to go check my salad dressings, 'cause I'm positive that there's a bunch of 'em that,

[00:33:35] Francine: yes, probably don't have

[00:33:36] Matt: red

[00:33:37] Intro: mold, but are definitely expired.

[00:33:38] Francine: I need to go home and do a further check of some of the other condiments that are in there. He grabbed the barbecue sauce and I'm like, do not throw that away. I am sure that we use a fair amount of barbecue sauce, I'm sure. Yeah,

[00:33:53] Matt: yeah.

[00:33:53] Francine: I'm sure that it's fine and I need to go home and

[00:33:58] Matt: Trancy is leaving work early to [00:34:00] go check her, her compliments

[00:34:01] Francine: to go home and check all my condiments.

I'm like, things that are vinegar based are heavy, sugar based, tend to last a little bit longer. So then they're like, well, what about pickled eggs? Okay, so that's a lot of protein in there. That's not the same thing as your pickles and your,

[00:34:19] Matt: oh my God, pickled eggs are so good.

[00:34:21] Francine: I love pickled eggs.

[00:34:23] Matt: There are like I'll eat things in my house and my family will look at me like I am fricking insane and pickled.

Eggs is one of them. Blue cheese is another one. No one in my house except for my mother-in-law likes blue cheese,

[00:34:34] Francine: liver and onions. I love liver and onions.

[00:34:36] Matt: Are you too? Actually, I made that one time. Well, when I was like trying to get my liver's back working. I was eating like liver and onions. My family were like gagging.

So one day I came home from a work trip and my wife had thrown out all of the liver that I had frozen. I had like grass fed [00:35:00] liver, like cow liver in individual cryop packs in the freezer. And she was like, now that you stop drinking, your liver should be fine. Let's not make the house sick with your concoctions.

So there went my liver. Yeah. Yeah. They were daggy. I was eating this liver and they were literally, they had to leave the room. Yeah. Alright. On that note, don't eat poop.