Do any British people have a full size refrigerator?

Your a dumb one ain't cha'OP?

The real shocker is the washing machines in their kitchens. THE HORROR.

Of course they do, a full size is the norm.

Don't feed the troll.

Many of them certainly have full-sized cocks.

No they don't. They have what I think of as a mini fridge, or a fridge that is inside of a hotel room. My in laws have 2 mini fridges.

And though the Miele they own is fab and has been running without a service call for 25 years, it's not on a pedestal, it's got a tiny drum.

When I visited...my Brit friend had this super huge Electrolux double door stainless. This fridge almost took over the entire kitchen. Thing that I couldn't get used to was the strange (Read: not U.S.) wall outlets...they are round.

Umm, plug sockets in the UK aren't round, though they are in some European countries.

Depends what you mean by full sized. Standard is about this size. Often the freezer part is on top and is smaller. Some people do have the giant American-style fridges, but four shelves is probably average.

R9 posted a picture of a fridge I have of similar size in my bedroom closet that chills numerous bottles of Evian. I consider that tiny and do not understand how a family of 3 or 4 could survive with groceries stored in such a small compartment for a week.

This is what I consider normal.

And that's a perfectly good size for a family, R9. I can't see what you'd need anything bigger for.

What on earth do you put in your fridge that needs so much space R10.

And why buy overpriced mineral water when tap or jug filtered is fine?

But it's hjust half full of junk food R11. You could store all that food, if you had to buy it, in a much smaller space with a far lower electricity bill.

British folks with dinky fridges must either (1) live in bedsitters, (2) live alone, or (3) surely must be forced to go the market every other day or so.

What on earth do you keep that you need such giant fridges? Unless you have a massive family four shelves is plenty. I can't imagine a fridge like r11'2 outside of industrial usage. Are you on an army base?

Why, R15? I can store everything for a family of four that needs to be refridgerated in my 'dinky fridge'. for an entire week. Perhaps, culturally, we refridgerate different things or buy very different products to you.

My parents have two huge, American-style fridges, but they do loads of catering. It's certainly not the norm! I have what you consider to be a 'tiny' fridge and consider that enough for two people. Separate freezer, too.

I just want to know if they have tooth brushes over there.

Negatory, R19

I am glad OP posted this because I've wondered the same thing-strictly based on what I've seen on Britcoms and the like.

Americans learn about European refrigerators from watching TV (and movies) and Europeans learn about American refrigerators from watching TV (and movies). Isn't that cute?

I remember being surprised at the "huge" (by European standards) fridge that featured in "E.T.", and that was back in the early 1980s.

On average, fridges are definitely smaller in Europe. The larger refrigerators are not the standard, and so you pay quite a bit more.

I grew up in the Netherlands, and over there they still refer to a big fridge as an "American fidge."

"Ik wil zo'n grote Amerikaanse koelkast!"

I have a big fridge, OP. It's too big actually but it belongs to the landlady so I can't throw it out. It has two doors with the bottom bit being a freezer, which I never use. When I buy my own flat I'll get a proper small fridge without the freezer. The picture of the fridge upthread is massive - you must have a huge house.

I live in Europe and the op is RIGHT. Many, many homes come with these awful mini-fridges, and some do not even have a freezer! My neighbor has to come to me to borrow ice! I

R23, how can you live without a freezer? What about ice cubes or ice cream?

Is there no frozen food in the UK? What about frozen pizza? Do you bring it home and let it thaw?

How can anyone live without a freezer? Where do you put your ice cubes? Where do you put your ice cream? Where do you put your frozen peas?

You put in in the freezer R26, not in the fridge. We often have separate freezers, the same size as our fridges, also built under the work surfaces into a cupboard. Or we have a freezer in a garage or outbuilding.

But, why buy frozen pizza with all those additives when you can make it yourself?

My (landlady's) fridge just crashed. She couldn't afford a new one so I bought a mini. (There is a mid-sized one I almost got.)Anyway, I always had wasted space in the large one and thought I could use a mini like on the UK shows...if it's good enough for Mrs. Bucket...It's fine. I don't leave things in there and am more likely to use things up before they go bad. The best part is my electric bill went down by $30 ! Yes, it was old.

Homes in the UK do have freezers. It might be a small (two shelf) freezer compartment that's part of the fridge but we do have them. I usually only have ice cubes, ice cream and frozen peas in mine.

I think Britain and the US are very different in how they shop, cook and eat, though. I've been reading a few books on the subject (of cultural food) because I'm writing a paper on it. I was interested to learn about the concept of 'food deserts' in the US. I think frozen and packaged food is far more popular in the US, because the country is so vast and there are places that are fairly remote and isolated, so some people have to rely more on stocking up on food that will keep because they have less access to fresh food or aren't able to food shop as frequently, compared to the UK and other countries in Europe.

The UK is so tiny and unless you live on like a mountain in the highlands, nowhere is really remote. I mean there is practically nowhere in the country that doesn't have online supermarket delivery, for example. And when you compare again to say France, where I grew up, most people shop several times a week if not daily for their fruit&veg and bread. Having a big fridge and freezer stuffed full of longlife food would just be thought weird.

Phew! Glad to know mum can go to Iceland after all.

Incidentally the only place in the US I've ever spent time in was New York (did a study year abroad there). I doubt there are many people in NYC with those massive fridges.

OP, of course they do.

I just bought a 25 cu. ft. side-by-side, water-'n'-ice through-the-door, glass shelved, frost-free refrigerator that's rated as "EnergyStar."

I am now using 43% less electricity than the old one (just like it but over 10 years old) and it cost me (with the Federal rebate) $215 LESS than the one I replaced.

I live alone and I could never get by with a dorm-sized refrigerator and dorm freezer.

How else to stock up on sales or freeze the homegrown goodness from my garden?

Brits: you need to get with the program and stop going to the store everyday. You're either making frequent trips to the store, or you must eat a lot of food out, and that is certainly more wasteful than electricity.

I've spent a lot of time in the UK, and their fridges and freezers were always about the same size as ours in the US.

R2 is right about the washer/dryers, though. Almost everyone had a combination washer and dryer in their kitchen (meaning, one compact unit that functions as both a washer and a dryer), and even in London far more people line dry their laundry.

Half of the huge American fridges seem to be filled with a large variety of soda cans, beer bottles and bottles of mineral water. I live in Scandinavia and we really don't drink soda very often (more for "special occations") and our tap water tastes like Evian so I rarely have any beverages at all in my fridge, apart from my soy milk and orange juice and an occactional bottle of white wine.

British homes do have fridges and freezers, and they are not mini-bar size.

The ill-travelled are often not aware that British homes (and European homes) are generally much smaller than US counterparts (though cost twice the price!), so many kitchens do not have the room to have a double refrigerator (ie. an "American size" two-door).

See the link for a standard British fridge-freezer (with the fridge located on the top half, and the freezer located on the bottom half, or alternatively there will be a fridge and freezer located next to each other at kitchen counter level). Many people put an addition chest freezer in their garage or utility room (should they have one).

The only people I know who have mini-bar fridges are students, or people living in small studios in London.

I moved here in 1996, from the States.

My partner and I had a small refrigerator for about 4 years; as an American, it was small to me. We we (read: I) redid the kitchen (and baths) in 2000, I purchased a large refrigerator/freezer unit. I think one of the reasons not everyone has a huge refrigerator here is that a lot of the produce is flown in from around the world and it spoils quickly. Usually whatever we buy, we consume in a day or two.

That might be different from suburban Americans who do one big shop a week for the entire family and freeze everything. Though I'm sure there are plenty of British families that do this as well (if Saturdays at the grocery store are any indication).

Washing machine in the kitchen doesn't bother me. The majority of people do not have dryers either which I've grown used to and actually prefer. We have "airing cupboards" for things that need to dry quickly and the rest you just hang up on a laundry horse.

On the whole, Americans are the ones with the huge sense of entitlement and think the world offers limitless resources; the British actually have limited resources.

What's wrong with shopping frequently? Yes many Americans don't have access to the kind of fresh food Europeans take for granted, but I'd certainly prefer to buy fresh food every couple of days to cook from scratch with, than do a big supermarket shop every week or two and live off frozen boxed crap. It's healthier and it isn't necessarily more wasteful, if anything the opposite when you consider the resources needed to produce and transport the food in the first place.

well they're just as fat as Americans so I imagine their fridges are the same size too!

Our supermarkets and shops are also more likely to sell local food. Even big chains like Sainsbury's will sell locally produced eggs, butter, cheese, milk, meat, veg and many other products.

English people all have gardens and eat only seasonal ingredients. So there's no need for a full size refrigerator when all one has to do for a meal is go in the yard and snip some delicious homegrown bounty for dinner and perhaps slay a chicken or two.

Milk is delivered by horse and carriage each day.

I have an 18 cubic foot fridge and sometimes, it is too small.

And they buy their strawberries from girls who stroll the streets with baskets full.

British people tend to buy groceries (or pop to the shops as they'd say) on a daily basis to buy milk, bread, veg etc... So they don't tend to buy a week of food and freeze it. Almost every housing estate there has a grocery shop a few yards away. It's the same in Ireland. Little grocery shops everywhere and people buy little and often. Also of course the houses are smaller (especially working class homes which were built by the government and are cookie cutter semi-detached homes with 2/3 bedrooms and a small kitchen and living area. A full size refrigerator would even fir in the door of a lot of those homes.

Actually R42 milk IS delivered every day, along with lots of other things. We have swapped the hourses for electric milk floats though.

You don't need much fridge space when you eat breakfast food for almost every meal. Tinned beans or tinned spaghetti on toast don't spoil.

This I know from watching Britcoms and studying the British section of my local grocery store.

>>Do any British people have a full size refrigerator?

Yes, Mostly rich people have them. And these rich people are celebs and mostly starve themselves to keep thin

>>English people all have gardens and eat only seasonal ingredients

No they don't

>>I think one of the reasons not everyone has a huge refrigerator here is that a lot of the produce is flown in from around the world

America gets lots of produce from other countries.

America has huge fridges, which in turn keep the people huge, as all they have to do is go to the fridge to 'fill up', whereas people in other countries have to nip out to the shops.

See, this whole dinky fridge thing is just part and parcel of why the Brits lost their empire.

Small minds, small fridges, small (vanishing) empires .. there **is** a connection.

I will know for sure the USA is on the way out when our people start buying dinky fridges.

I betcha them Chinese folks are going to go straight for the huge Samsungs when they get the rest of the world's money .... they will entirely skip the "British-style dinky fridge stage."

I think this future phenomenon was remarked upon in one of the revisions to The Communist Manifesto in the "Rise of the Proletariat" by Engels, "Keine Kleine Eisboxern."

European style daily shopping.

[quote]I will know for sure the USA is on the way out when our people start buying dinky fridges.

And when they start buying dinky fuel efficient cars we really will know it's the end of the world

For those of you worried about where I keep my peas, ice and icecream, the only thing I currently have in my freezer is set of spare plates (I have a stupid small kitchen and lack cupboard space) and a few of those blue gel icepacks. When I do eventually get my own flat and fridge I will need one with a freezer compartment for my icepacks.

The shopping thing is kind of true. I do a big shop once a fortnight at my local Sainsbury's but will buy vegetables, tofu, etc every few days. Some people will regularly go to markets for fruit and vegetables but they tend to close at 4pm so are not much use if you have to work. We also have a lot of small supermarkets such as Sainsbury's Local or Tesco Metro which sell the basics. I'll probably go to one of them every couple of days.

One thing I've never seen on my trips to the US is shopping trolleys. They're very convenient if you don't have a car and need to do a medium sized shop. Do you guys use them?

I have many friends in the UK and every one of them have a full sized refrigerator. Frankly, I've never been in a home in the UK where they had one of those under the counter jobs.

The only thing I find unusual about the UK is the absence of doorknobs on many older homes. all they have many times is something like a dead bolt lock and a little cheap hinge on the outside with which to open or close the door.

I have vodka in my freezer

I've only seen them in New York, R54. And you should know that the carts (not the "trolleys") are not supposed to leave the premises.

The buggies provided for in-store use in the US are strictly for use on the store property. In fact in many cities most stores try to combat buggy theft by requiring a .25 deposit to even get a buggy out of the corral (you get your .25 back when you return the buggy).

In the states the only people you'll see using a "trolley" as you call them are people who live in very congested cities and don't have cars, and live very near the market. You can see people using these things in the inner city of most larger cities, but NYC is probably the only city where they are pretty much ubiquitous. You'll never see anyone using them out in the suburbs.

Americans have to get into a car to go anywhere. That's why they shop once or twice a week for food. Also, supermarkets are the size of football stadiums. It's a pain in the ass to shop in them, especially when they decide to move sections around. I spent 20 minutes trying to find barbeque skewers last week. Couldn't find a worker to tell me where they were, since the supermarket cut its workforce.

Americans also work longer hours that Europeans. The death of most unions over here meant that people now work unpaid hours of overtime. The boss says, "If you can't get your work done within 8 hours, then you aren't good enough at your job. We can't pay someone like you overtime. We'll have to fire you." So people work unpaid hours until the job gets done. Also, we have a ton of undocumented workers here who don't understand the meaning of overtime and can do a lot of jobs for a lot less money, so people stay overtime in order to avoid being replaced by someone with a phony ID.

More hours working = less time to shop. More hours work = less time to prepare food. So yes, more people use prepared foods here. Go into an Amnerican supermarket and 90% of what's being sold is premade, prepared foods. If you don't believe me, try going on the South Beach diet and you will wander around inside a supermarket marveling at how much food there is that you cannot eat.

I like frozen vegetables. So sue me. But I prefer Trader Joe's prepared vegetables to the half-wilted looking stuff in my local supermarket. I do not have access to a farmer's market and neither do the vast majority of Americans who live outside of cities. The vegetable stands and farm fields were plowed over long ago for superhighways, housing developments and strip malls. Up until my teen years we still had a few farmstands around, but guess what now stands on the site of the stand where my family used to buy their vegetables and seasonal fruit? A "regional mall" with cineplex, indoor entertainment establishment, chain restaurants and megastores. Did I want this in my area? No, but my wishes were not taken into consideration when money changed hands between the farmer and the developer (and the backroom deal at the zoning board).

You can just pop round to my veg stall.

R57, R58, I don't mean the big metal trolleys you get at the supermarket (and you only need 25c for them? Ours cost £1!) I mean a nana trolley, as I call them. It's a bit embarrassing but I use one to carry my shopping from the supermarket. They're not as common as they are in the rest of Europe but you can get some nice ones now.

We have lots of prepared 'ready-made' food as well R58. They're what I thought you called TV dinners - blobs of lasagne, curries, general goo in little plastic containers that go in the microwave. They always taste like hot baby food.

I'm not British, but our full-sized fridge died several months ago. We can't afford the kind of fridge we want at the moment (a stainless steel, counter-depth, KitchenAid with French doors and a bottom mount freezer) so we got a bar fridge for $200 to tide us over.

And you know what? It's fine. We have to buy food more often and in smaller amounts, but we eat fresher foods. The only downside is that we can't freeze anything.

Our electricity bills have certainly gone down.

As an american who lived in the UK, I have to say I hate the tiny fridges more than anything. The big bottles of diet coke don;'t fit there and my inlaws leave them on the floor -what is the point of that?! Warm coke anyone? Except for the fucking washer in teh kitchen. and sometimes no dryer or dishwasher.

Considering moving back to UK and I already told my husband, I need a decent sized fridge, not american gigantic style but decent sized and a washer/dryer. No one has a dishwasher so I guess I won't get one, the kichens are too tiny.

Don't even get me started on the lack of icemakers.

R61, not many Americans have those because most Americans live in places that more or less require a car for transportation to the shops. You do see them in larger cities, but frankly we just don't have many pedestrian neighborhoods. I've got one; it's handy for hauling books to and from the campus library (I'm an academic).

Also, outside of some urban locations, shopping carts are free to use while on store premises. It would be nice if people were charged to use them, if only because so many losers abandon them in random places in the parking lot, taking up spaces or letting them roll around to damage cars.

I like the way Brits and other Europeans live. Their priorities yield a happier life over all, in my opinion. Small refrigerators, large refrigerators, I've seen all sizes available in Britain. So many government supported benefits are provided through their governments, even the high prices for their manufactured goods is tolerable.

Americans live an existence of plenty when they are employed and well paid, but those who are not so fortunate live very meager challenging lives. That's the real difference between Britain and the US.

Britain is not a good example in that sense, R65, as differences in class and income are much higher there than in other European countries. Also, they have a high rate of child poverty higher rates of teen pregnancy, etc. In fact, Britain is more like the U.S. than any other European country.

R55: You've lit upon one of my greatest disappointments: the almost wholesale removal of doorknobs and proper door hardware in favor of those council estate pull-tab/lock things that seem fitting only for, well, a council estate or a commercial establishment on the wrong end of town.

They even show up on proper Georgian houses with proper doors. It really is an example of the chav tail wagging the dog.

Here's an example, the brass thingy at the center right stile of the door. (At least this one is brass; most are hideous brushed aluminium.

>>See, this whole dinky fridge thing is just part and parcel of why the Brits lost their empire

That isn't true. The small refrigerators were all they needed. During and after WW2 there wasn't very much food. There were rations on what they could buy. I read somewhere that they were only aloud one terrible piece of meat every few weeks. The things they to to eat was gross. They could only get a small bit of boiled down fat once a week. Then after the war they were trying to fix everything that got bombed and try to rebuild the country that had been neglected during the war

Here's the Wiki about the rations. Because of the rations the country keep eating small portions for a few decades. that's what they were used to

R68, Uhm, I live in a country that was occupied by the German nazies under WW2. We till have big refrigerators today, with a cool part and a freeze part. Certainly not as big as the huge ones they have in USA, but certainly bigger than the ones they have in the UK.

R63, I'm kind of perplexed that you don't think people in the UK have dishwashers. Not everybody does but they are hardly unusual. So I can't see you would have any problem getting a place with one if that was a priority for you. Unless you want to live in a tiny city centre flat. I bet tiny NY apartments don't all have dishwashers either.

The big fridge thing is just down to space and how much smaller kitchens are. Plus our kitchens are designed to fit certain appliances - you have so many slots which are the standard sizes and they fit into there. Unless you were having a new kitchen fitted, the big freezers wouldn't fit the standard slots.

Having said that, I have room for one easily and I haven't bothered. It would mostly be empty and would be a waste of money to buy and to run. It is very inefficient to have a half-empty freezer. I do use my freezer but the two and half drawers I have are more than enough. I can't think what I would I put in a larger one. I'm not buying a lot of processed food though and I tend to pick up fresh item shopping every couple of days on the way back from work.

American fridges are DECADENT! They are killing the Earth!

^^ Fuck ya, bitch!

Go suck a tube of tofu.

People who say American fridges are "decadent" say that either because they can't afford one or don't have the space for one. If they could, they would.

Lord and blimey. Gor. The fake Britishers here are just snake-tongued Americans ticking off John Bull's balls, and the real Britishers are liars and apologists. The truth is we British people (I still say it because I have Scottish relations and I'll be damned if I'm going to let them pretend they're not in the country still, even though I'm as English as a sheep pie) don't keep much food in because we'd rather eat out and we're not interested in all the silliness you Americans go for. Plus if we had bigger Norges we'd have more room on top of them for our bottles, and since we drink everything in the house whether we go out or not we're keeping the drunkard rate lower by using a smaller box.

Now you nams can go on posing and hissing like cats about who has a bigger box. From what I gather, some of those big boxes are pretty empty most of the time.

[quote] well they're just as fat as Americans so I imagine their fridges are the same size too!

Not true.

You do see carts a lot in the cities, R61, but usually they are utilitarian metal things, not those nifty colorful models.

I can appreciate the shop every day European-style approach on an intellectual basis, but I'm a planner, and I like to be well-stocked. So my big fridge holds a week's worth of produce (it stays fresh if it's well-chosen and properly stored). And I like to make up a casserole or a big pot of something and eat from it for a few days, so I need fridge space for that. And I like to have frozen meat and vegetables on hand, and maybe frozen leftovers, so my freezer is always filled.

And the beer. Soft drinks I just store on the counter and pour over ice.

[quote]Some people will regularly go to markets for fruit and vegetables but they tend to close at 4pm

The early closing time would drive me insane. It's already bad enough here in the US Midwest where things close down at 8 PM every night, weekends open until 11 PM, woohoo.

[quote]Your a dumb one ain't cha'OP?

Heavens to Betsy!

[quote]The early closing time would drive me insane

When, we in England, refer to markets we mean street markets, literally.

Our 'supermarkets' stay open very late or all night.

Surely families with children don't have the mini-fridges, normally? I can see how a single person or a couple could easily make do with an under-counter fridge, but it must be pretty hard for larger families.

I'm home from college for the summer, and with my parents and my 2 younger sisters we have 5 people's food in our fridge. Just beverages alone take up a whole shelf: 1/2 gallon of skim milk, 1/2 gallon of OJ, 1/2 gallon of some other kind of juice, Brita pitcher full of water, and assorted canned drinks (mostly Diet Coke). We buy a week's worth of lunch meat & cheese from the deli, and then there's the fruit & vegetables; right now we've got a head of lettuce, a bag of carrots, 3-4 cucumbers, a half dozen apples and pears, and a couple other things. Then we have the "staples" like eggs, butter, various condiments & sauces, etc., and containers of leftovers.

We don't have too many frozen convenience foods, but we often buy meat on sale and freeze it. We buy & freeze butter in bulk from Costco since my sisters like to bake; we also keep some of their other baking supplies in the freezer because sometimes they attract moths. We freeze a lot of peaches since our trees produce more than we can eat before they spoil. We have ice cream, fruit bars, and ice, and we do have a few frozen processed foods: waffles and those breakfast sausages made out of soybeans. Those sausages are expensive, so when they go on sale, we stock up!

I would say our fridge/freezer is at least 90% full most of the time. We go to the grocery store 1-2 times per week. We could handle having a smaller fridge if we shopped more frequently and didn't "stock up", but it would be less cost effective. My mom used to live in London and she tells me that food packages at the supermarket were smaller since most people didn't have cars and had to carry their purchases on the tube/bus; for example she would buy sugar in a 1-pound bag. I've only ever seen 5-pound bags of sugar in U.S. grocery stores. I suppose the reasoning is that, as long as you'll use it all before it spoils, it makes more sense to buy in bulk and save money. I mean, we could buy a pint of milk every day or two instead of a half gallon once a week, but it would end up costing twice as much and I don't really think we would notice it being fresher. Still though I guess if British grocery items tend to come in smaller containers you could fit more in a smaller fridge.

Wow, that's the most I've ever typed about fridges!

My refrigerator looks like this:

Small fridges are the norm in the UK, yes, OP, although it may gradually change with the influence of North American culture.

My family had a refrigerator that size that they bought right after WWII and said they were damn glad to be able to buy it, as consumer goods were scarce till the factories could retool.

It cooled using ammonia as the refrigerant. It was a Hotpoint. It lasted 25 years till they gave it away.

A bigger chillbox is a luxury that enables one to better plan meals and take advantage of grocery sales and/or fruits and vegetables in season.

What about Australians -- surely they do not go for the small pommie fridges, no?

Britain is consistently ranked as one of the most mentally depressed countries in the world. The street and bar room violence that takes place nightly has reached epidemic levels. The standard Brit diet consists of horribly bland, deep fried garbage and disgustingly fatty meat and pastry products like kidney pie and the like.

Let's not romanticize other countries, shall we? Everyone has their faults and blemishes.

R81. That seems like a huge ammount of food. Remember that in the UK we can have milk delivered daily to the door. We don't have the huge half gallon containers of any liquids and most Brits wouldn't need that much fruit juice or soft drinks in a week. Our tap water is fine so we don't need bottled water. Cooked meat and sandwich stuff for four wouldn't take up more than ahlf a shelf neither would a pack of butter, 12 eggs and a couple of blocks of cheese. Only soft fruit and veg would be kept in the fridge and again a small fridge could hold two of three kilos of that. Fruit would be in a fruit bowl on the work surface and root vegetables in the larder. Most sauces and pickles don't need to be in the fridge at all.

Of course peoople have freezers in the UK, and many people with allotments fill them in the summer ready for the winter. They are either a separate unit under the worksurface or are large chest freezers in a shed or garage.

Equally, let's travel to the country in question before making stereotypical judgements, r85.

R85, Where did you get your information? A friend of a friend of your grandma's, who met someone who came here in 1949?

No, R88 I think he must have got it from all the Daily Fail links someone posts here.

Really, that seems like a huge amount of food to you, R86? I mean, a half gallon of milk is 8 cups; for a family of 5, that's less than half a cup per person every other day. Everyone in my family eats cereal with milk a few times a week, and we use a little bit of milk for coffee and cooking - it really doesn't seem extreme to me. On the days that I don't eat cereal I usually have a bagel, waffle, or oatmeal with coffee and orange juice for breakfast (just a small half-cup "juice glass" full). The OJ sometimes lasts a little longer than a week, so I would say I drink about 2 cups a week of OJ. Then I have a couple of glasses of other juice (cranberry, grape, etc) per week either with lunch or as a snack. I drink 3-4 diet sodas a week and have water for the rest of my meals (our tap water's fine, I just like having it chilled). Like I said, one person living alone could easily keep a week's worth of food in a mini-fridge, but I don't think our fridge has an unreasonably huge amount for 5 people.

There's all kinds of miscellaneous things in our fridge, too - a few herbs, some containers of yogurt, cream cheese for bagels, sometimes fresh thing from the deli like store-bought salads, etc. Sauces, condiments, jams, etc. usually have to be refrigerated once they're opened. Plus, I would say we have about one whole shelf full of leftovers at any given time.

Actually, I think it's kind of an American thing to keep drinks and food cold as much as possible. My family keeps pretty much all fruits except for bananas in the fridge, as well as all vegetables except potatoes and onions. Maybe it's because we live in the south where it's usually hot and humid, but cold fruit seems so much more refreshing than room-temperature. I also prefer raw vegetables to be cold rather than room temperature; they seem more fresh and crisp that way. We all like our beverages to be ice-cold too; not only do we refrigerate our drinks, but we serve them over ice, too. I even put ice in my morning OJ or milk (although even other fellow southerners tell me I'm weird for that).

But R90 if you only drink a few glasses of orange juice a week why do you buy such bid containers of it. Surely fresh juice goes off, even in the fridge in a week if opened. that's why we tend to buy it fresh. Remember we can get milk, juice etc delivered to the door every morning and no one lives far from a supermarket or local shop. Most supermarkets open very long hours, sometimes 24 hours, 7 days a week and they all deliver. Given that why wouldn't you buy fresh when you need it.

[quote]Sauces, condiments, jams, etc. usually have to be refrigerated once they're opened.

No they don't. Jams, preserves, pickled items such as chutneys are made to be kept for long periods - sugar and vinegar are preservatives. If they weren't our ancestors, per-refridgeration, wouldn't have been able to manage.

Wasn't "smeg" a word used by the cast of "Red Dwarf?"

Haven't seen that show in years, but remember the black guy saying something was "smeggie," or saying, "that's smeg!"

Was this a reference to an appliance?

I always thought it was British shorthand slang for "smegma."

Has the "open concept" caught on in Britain yet? You know, where you gut the whole floor out and you can see someone anywhere on the main floor? Here in the states I have never seen here a door with a knob in a kitchen.

Three things I love that Britain has that's not here, the washer in the kitchen, I'd prefer that over a musty basement. Radiators, they are white and flat against the wall instead of our big metal ugly monstrosities. And in BBCA the shows I see, they have a wooden fence in the back yard. But the fence called a Lap Panel has wooden slats that that look handmade. Never seen anything like it here.

R85 is an idiot and has either never been to Britain or not for decades. He has certainly never eaten there. Yes, steak and kidney pie is still eaten, but they did not create the deep fried twinkie or the cheese stuffed pizza crust or a sandwich where fried chicken replaces the bread. There are very many vegetarians there (and food labels state whether a food is vegetarian or not, so unlike the US you don't accidentally eat vegetable soup made with chicken broth), and being an island nation there is an abundance of fresh fish and seafood.

r92, SMEG stands for Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla, it's an Italian manufacturer.

Obviously, Red Dwarf is shown in Italy.

*isn't.

We love it here in America. It's great.

Ooooh! Show 'em the milk!

R93: Open plan concepts, with kitchens bare-assed to what were once separate reception rooms have their fans in the U.K., though the appeal is not so widespread. They show up especially in flat conversions and new construction or gut renovation designed for a "loft" effect. Often it's an attempt to make the most of a small space [link], but it shows up in larger places, too.

Americans seem often to be put off by the idea of washer/dryers in kitchens. To watch HGTV's "House Hunters International," the reaction is akin to finding that a toilet had been placed in the middle of a reception room. Not sure why it evokes so strong a reaction.

As for fences, in the U.K. there's a greater sense of defined space and enclosure than in the U.S. where back gardens often sprawl uncertainly into one another and hedges are both less common and less likely to be used to divide spaces. Front gardens in the U.S. are usually wide open to the street, dotted with a few plants here and there; in the U.K., a front garden may have a gated high fence or brick wall, or hedging that creates more of a transition from public street to private home. The use of gates and high walls and hedges and enclosures not only gives a bit of privacy, but lends some visual interest.

Larger cast-iron radiators were once standard in the U.K., replaced extensively by the "Euro-style" flat panel radiators. Today the old cast-iron sort are often associated with Victorian and Edwardian era school buildings, though one they were commonplace.

We lived in an upstairs apartment that had a small kitchen and we did well with a small counter height fridge and seperate freezer. When we saw the place there was a dead full size fridge in there and it made the kitchen cramped looking.

Thanks, R95.

I found the link below.

How unfortunate for the Italian appliance manufacturer to have Red Dwarf "smeggin' up its corporate name!"

Funny ....

When I met my bf, the first thing he did (the day after, heh) was to go to the stores and stock my refrigerator. I was living alone, kept a bit of butter, milk and some condiments in the fridge. Bf, who is Jewish, was horrified at my "impoverished" refrigerator stock. He ran out and bought deli meats, cream cheese, processed American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes (which I don't eat), cucumbers, bagels (yes, he refrigerated them), jams and god knows what else. In his Brooklyn neighborhood, having a well-stocked refrigerator was a sign of respectability and affluence. Relatives owned and ran butcher shops, bakeries, etc, so free food was always on hand and put in the fridge for the marauding hordes of friends and relatives who walked right in the front door without knocking.

To this day, bf runs to the store if he feels the fridge doesn't look well-populated with various foodstuff. It makes him feel poor if his refrigerator isn't brimming with crap.

I find a bigger difference in fencing (and absence of pavement/sideways) when comparing Canada and Britain.

My cousin has a beautiful home in an affluent area in Ottawa, but uses chain link fencing akin to something seen on a British industrial estate.

My GF's Toronto home has no fencing and the neighbours have no sense of property lines. Cars will be parked across the neighbour's driveway -- this would be cause for litigation in Britain. She lives in an area where people don't lock their front doors at night... a by-gone practice in Britain.

r97, that never gets old.

The Brits used the word, smeg, as we in US use the word, freaking, as a substitute for fucking. I think they are both silly euphemisms.

No we don't, R104.

R104 is right. Don't believe Red Dwarf. They were using at as a euphemism for fuck on the show but it isn't something you would hear anywhere in the real world. Everybody would just say fuck.

[quote] Surely fresh juice goes off, even in the fridge in a week if opened

Why would fresh juice go bad in a week if it was refrigerated?

Aw, bless, r104.

Fresh juice only stays fresh in a fridge for about 4 or 5 days. Unless you do something nasty to it like irradiation or put in lots of preservatives. Which doesn't happen over here (the rules on irradiation are stricter, the labelling so blatant and consumers won't buy the products).

Squeeze fresh oranges or grapefruit yourself, R107. Put it in your fridge. After four or five days it sours, more and even refrigerated it can start to ferment. Fresh orange juice in the UK can't be irradiated and doesn't contain added sugars, or preservatives. So it only keeps a few days. It's one of those products where even the same brands taste very different in Europe to the US.

Many US products would be illegal in Europe because of the additives, hormones and labelling.

Here ya go, R110.

This is for you:

I am the only American on this thread who has a washer and dryer in the kitchen?

The first house my parents built in 1951 had the washer in the kitchen. No dryer, as we used a clothesline then, as did everyone else in the neighborhood.

Then I guess we got richer because we moved to a bigger house.

No more washer in the kitchen -- from then on out we had a separate laundry room.

Why do most Americans think it's so peculiar to have a washing machine in the kitchen? Isn't that the obvious place to have it since the plumbing is already there?

R 110, I pick and juice from trees in my yard. Fresh juice barely lasts 48 hrs.

No preservatives.

True, R155, but I was trying to be kind to R107 and not point out just how misinformed he was.

The only thing I can think of is that washers and dryers can be noisy, so annoying if you're socializing or watching television.

But you don't watch television in your kitchen.

UK front loading machines aren't noisy. Mine's almost silent even on the top spin cycle.

I get the impression that Americans think it unhygienic in some way. Personally I can't think of anything more unhygienic than using shared machines in apartment basements.

[quote]I can't think of anything more unhygienic than using shared machines in apartment basements.

I can think of many things less hygienic than shared machines.

Are you British? Perhaps when you gain more experience with the concepts of hygiene, you will do.

Open floor plan, 118. I can hear my dishwasher and my coffeemaker from my living room, and neither one is as loud as a washer or, more so, a dryer.

You really wanted me to include the phrase 'in relation to washing machines' R119?

And I really don't think Americans have got anything to boast about when it comes to hygiene. Just get caught next to a shorts wearing, rucksack carrying, Yank on the Tube someday.

Why would you put the washer and dryer in the kitchen? If you don't put them in a separate laundry room, they go in the bathroom.

Most houses in the UK don't have separate laundry rooms and bathrooms aren't big enough to contain washing machines. Remember the average family home in the UK is around 1,000 square feet (and costs more than half a million dollars).

Anyway, if you put them in the bathroom you can't change the laundry when anyone is using the room, whereas you can if it's in the kitchen.

I've been wondering why apartments don't have mini-fridges rather than the larger ones. I could probably get by with half the fridge space I have. And save on the hydro bill that way too. My freezer compartment, however, is usually pretty full.

[quote]Anyway, if you put them in the bathroom you can't change the laundry when anyone is using the room

Wow, how long does one stay in the bathroom in Britain?

The stackable washer and dryer are in the bathroom in my apartment. It's cleaner to have them in the bathroom rather than the kitchen.

[quote]Wow, how long does one stay in the bathroom in Britain?

Well as long as it takes to have a bath - so about 150 pages of an average novel.

IMHO, laundry chores should be kept separate from both food preparation, and its culmination, defecation. If you've ever had a laundry room, then you would not want to be without one ever again.

[quote] R 110, I pick and juice from trees in my yard. Fresh juice barely lasts 48 hrs.

Why on earth would you make more juice than you can drink in a day if you are picking oranges off trees in your yard? Oranges last quite a long while, you can juice them daily. Certainly, a person in the UK is not talking about juice from a tree in their back yard. They're talking about juice in a carton which is not from concentrate.

R128, 1 plus 1 is 2.

This thread makes me hungry.

Orange juice isn't irradiated, it's pasteurized.

[quote]Well as long as it takes to have a bath - so about 150 pages of an average novel.

Silly brit! Americans don't read.

In the US a family living in 1,000 sq ft probably think it had no room for washer/dryer and would go to the laundromat.

I am one person living in 600 sq ft and could not figure out where they would fit. Kitchen and bathroom too small.

This thread is making me HORNY as HELL

[quote]Well as long as it takes to have a bath - so about 150 pages of an average novel.

Ewww. Just soaking and reading will not get you clean. You have to wash with soap.

Americans mostly take showers - they're hygenically preferable.

There are bigger bathrooms in the Holiday Inn than an average British house. All my relatives in the UK and Ireland have the washer/dryer in the kitchen,

However, my Irish relatives have their bathroom right beside the kitchen and the door to the bathroom is right beside the table (no dining room), THE SMELL!!THE SOUNDS!! I have no idea how they eat at all.

I always thought when Lister called Rimmer a smeghead he was referring to his being uncircumcised.

I don't know, R133. The last 2 places I lived were 1300 sq ft and there was more than enough room for a washer and dryer. The 850 sq ft place could have held a set just fine, but there were no hookups. Every place we've lived with washer-dryer hookups has had them either in the kitchen or just off the kitchen in an alcove. Even my parents' house when I was growing up had the washer-dryer there. I'm surprised so many other Americans find it odd.

As someone else noted, washing and drying dirty clothes in the food preparation area just seems weird to us.

[quote]Ewww. Just soaking and reading will not get you clean. You have to wash with soap. Americans mostly take showers - they're hygenically preferable.

Brits mostly take showers too and take baths for relaxation (when they are already clean) rather than washing. No one wants to relax in dirty water.

[quote]In the US a family living in 1,000 sq ft probably think it had no room for washer/dryer and would go to the laundromat.

Disgusting. Who knows what other people have had in those machines and the cost is horrendous.

R141, the same dirty clothes the Brits like to have in their kitchens where they prepare their food.

I still don't see the 'unhygienic' element. You take the clothes to the machine in a basket, put them straight in and when the cycle is finished take put them back in the basket and take them out to dry on the washing line. Food preparation and clothes never come into contact.

I have had, what we call a utility room, in one house. Total waste of space in a small house to have a room you only use once a week. I knocked it into the kitchen so I had a space for a table instead.

Ah bur, R42, you can disinfect and clean your own machine. Who knows if the person before you in the launderette has just washed dirty cloth nappies or sickroom sheets.

Using a launderette in the UK is a sign of extreme poverty.

No, probably not sheets. I remember that many US posters on here don't wash their sheets every week.

Americans are weird about hygiene. They think things are unhygienic, when they're not. Although I can see the advantages of having a separate room for laundry, there's no risk of disease spreading from unwashed clothes to food if your washing machine is in the kitchen.

[quote]In the US a family living in 1,000 sq ft probably think it had no room for washer/dryer and would go to the laundromat.

Really, in a house this size?

OK Brits:

If you had the room and money was not a concern, would you prefer a larger refrigerator?

I noticed on the Curry's and Debenham's sites that a wide range "American Style" refrigerators are for sale, so UKers must be buying them. Is a big fridge something to which one aspires?

People may say about a big, American style refrigerator "it's too big, I'd never fill it, wasted space" but I posit they would find it rather like moving to a new home with triple the closet space of your present one.

You might say the same things, but eventually you would find good usage for the additional closet space and I think the same would apply to refrigerator and freezer space.

You would enjoy new found shopping convenience and buying strategies, i.e., reducing your weekly trips to market and buying in bulk to save money. And you could prepare meals in advance and freeze them. Electric tariffs in the UK as a percentage of household expenditure are about on a par with the US, so operating expense should not be a concern.

Therefore, if you have the room, I say take a tip from your former colony -- move on up and buy the big box.

You'll be so glad you did!

(this message brought to you by Whirlpool, Siemens, Samsung, Hotpoint, LG, SMEG, BEKO, etc.)

To the poster who asked about fridges in Australia...if you are still interested...they are pretty much the size you have them in the States. Unlike Britain, soft drinks, juices and beer have to be ice cold. Every gas station ( known as petrol stations or "servos" )sells huge bags of ice for filling the bathtub or an esky to chill bottles for a party. I guess that's come from the US too. The weather in most parts of the country is good enough to line dry laundry, but dryers have been heavily marketed and are very common. Sad, really.

[quote]If you had the room and money was not a concern, would you prefer a larger refrigerator?

No. I have lived in houses with big enough kitchens to house a larger fridge but I've not been interested in buying one. They really aren't green or cost effective unless you have a huge family. Most of the foods Americans store in theirs are kept elsewhere in British kitchens anyway. My sister who has a husband and two kids has a bigger fridge than me but she can't seen the need for a huge American style one either. She can always walk down the road to the supermarket if she runs short of anything and she'd prefer to have fresh food rather than food that's been a few days in the fridge. If she's feeling too lazy to walk half a mile the supermarket delivers.

And as for extra cupboard space. I have unused kitchen cupboards and wardrobes so more space wouldn't lead me to have more stuff.

US electricity tariffs are on average half those of the UK.

I had an enormous fridge once. It was pretty empty. Have gone back to standard size UK fridge and don't miss the big one.

Electricity is so cheap that I cannot imagine it as much of a factor in choosing fridge size. I never had a huge American fridge but I have had mostly the average size. I keep a lot of stuff in there like pasta and chips mostly to keep any bugs out.

I cannot imagine it cost more than $5 more a month to run than the smaller ones. (My entire electrical bill is about $40 or $50 per month.)

Of course, recently I discovered frozen food. It is the freezer I would miss!

r148, no I wouldn't get an "American fridge". They spoil the look of a kitchen. Instead, I'd get two built-in fridge-freezers, or I would get one built-in fridge-freezer and cooler drawers (see link), which is what we're in the process of doing.

For two people though, a standard tall British fridge-freezer (as shown in Debenhams) is a sufficient size, even to fit in a full week's shopping.

Most brits I know do indeed have small fridges and get along fine. Apart from space saving, the fact is that most of them live within easy walking distance of grocery stores, and need buy only what is needed for a day or two. There isnt a concept of storing food the way we do in the states. Milk is delivered. Tesco will even deliver groceries in some places. The upshot is that food always tastes fresh in England. Also they tend not to store things in their fridge (e.g. bread, jam etc, condiments) that we tend to in america.

[quote]Electricity is so cheap

Electricity, gas (for cooking and heating), petrol and water are all more than twice the price in the UK than the US. Utility bills have risen more than 30% this year alone. A bigger fridge or a new electrical item makes a big difference. Many utility companies now issue monitors so you can see just how much money you are saving by switching off one light or not leaving the TV on standby. Fuel poverty is a very big issue.

Why on earth would you keep bread in the fridge? That's just odd.

I think supermarket delivery covers almost all of the UK now. You'd have to be very remote to not have at least one of the five or six delivery services locally.

Meanwhile, R156, my private healthcare on the open market is my second largest annual expense.

Food first, then health insurance, then all other insurances, then utilities (gas and electricity).

If you pay more for energy in the UK, you pay less for healthcare.

Right?

I'd say the additional cost to run a big fridge is a lot less than the cost to privately insure on the open health insurance market as we have here.

We don't pay very much less for healthcare, we simply pay it to different people, through our taxes. If we abandoned the NHS tomorrow and contracted out to American insurance companies my premiums would be much the same as the amount that goes from my taxes to the Health Service. I think your priorities are a bit skewed - a bigger fridge or healthcare, hardly a decision anyone would make.

After taxes my biggest expense is the mortgage, then the utilities and petrol, then food. The UK cost of living for the average employed person is far higher than for the average working American and our wages are lower. Where we do benefit is if we're unemployed - the poor out of work Brit is much better off than the poor out of work American.

Everything in the US is bigger than elsewhere. You cars are simply huge, your bags of crisps (potato chips) inconceivably large, your steaks, massive, your houses, your lakes, your shops, your debts, your people. Gigantic. Why just pick on fridges?

Bread goes moldy and stale if you do not use it in a fairly short time frame.

Refrigerating prolongs the life (though many of us still end up throwing out a lot of bread because we do not use it up fast enough).

Refrigeration dries bread out and does not prolong its shelf life. How big are your loaves if you can't eat the size you buy in a couple of days. If it's going off regularly then buy smaller loaves or keep sliced bread in the freezer and defrost what you need.

In America you do not have much choice in loaf size. If I could buy five to ten slice loaves that would last me a week or two (depending on what my work situation is at the time).

To be honest, it never occurred to me to freeze bread.

In 1950, the average volume of the US refrigerator was 9 cubic feet. Today it is 20 cubic feet.

It's not like the US has always had these enormous boxes in their kitchen.

20 cubic feet? That is nuts.

I think most people in the U.S. have much smaller ones than that. Only the McMansion people have those.

And from the sound of it, Brits tend to have bigger freezers than most of us do. If their freezers are minibar sized, then they are much bigger than any I ever had!

[quote]In 1950, the average volume of the US refrigerator was 9 cubic feet. Today it is 20 cubic feet.

And people ate more fresh produce then so why didn't they have the storage issues many posters here think they would have if forced to have smaller fridges?

^^ More packaged and frozen food, perhaps?

Also, milk, butter, and eggs delivered daily.

Somebody with a lot of spare time did a study--bread grows moldy faster in the fridge than on the counter.

"Somebody with a lot of spare time did a study--bread grows moldy faster in the fridge than on the counter."

Study source?

No source--some trivial bit of information I came across a long time ago.

Now I wouldn't mind having one these English appliances, see link.

What an RR is to motorcars, is an AGA regarded the same to cookers?

[quote]What an RR is to motorcars, is an AGA regarded the same to cookers?

No, not really. You tend to find them in farmhouses and country properties. They are also part central heating boiler so you have to have a separate cooker for summer when you turn them off. In towns the only sorts of people who have them are the country squire wannabees; the Gwynneth Paltrow and Guy Ritchie types.

They are good for baking cakes but if you don't do that on a semi-industrial scale then it's not worth having one.

These are more what serious cooks buy

BTW: People really don't aspire to a Roller. These days, dream cars are Zonda's, Koenigseggs and Ferraris.

Just as i thought this fascinating thread was coming to its natural conclusion, someone mentions Agas. Agas make me quite angry, they should be outlawed. They have no reason to exist.

the fact that there could possibly be 173 responses to a thread about the size of British frigerators says a great deal about DL, no?

To refrigerate or not refrigerate bread again involves differences in shopping habits and the weather!

Lots of Brits eat freshly baked bread from a bakery or in-store bakeries, like the French. This does not keep well in a fridge.

Many (dare I say most) Americans eat factory-made sliced bread or rolls which are loaded with preservatives... what Jennifer from the Two Fat Ladies referred to as "slimy bread". This actually tastes better chilled.

I was told as a kid to never to put bread in a refrigerator as it will go off quicker. However, when it's hot we do keep sliced breads in the refrigerator, so I would expect many parts of America and Australia to do this all the time.

Bread sure as heck molds, and quickly, when it's 78 degrees in your house (recommended energy saving temp) and the humidity outside is above 60%.

In order to save money and conserve energy, the AC cannot remove a suitable amount of indoor humidity as it would be able to at a lower temperature setting.

In order to keep from buying multiple loaves of bread that get moldy before you finish eating them, you keep your bread either in the freezer (long term) or refrigerator (for everyday use). In either spot, you put it in an airtight container so that it doesn't get dried out.

Re AGAs: why the AGA hate? Now I want to import one and have the only one in town, just the cheese R173 off.

[quote]They have no reason to exist.

Unless you live in an area which isn't connected to the gas supply in the UK and you need alternative to expensive electric central heating.

But they are pretentious in village and town houses.

The Duchess of Derbydouche is not going to drive, or be chauffeured in, any one of those cars you cited, R172.

What do the staid, moneyed classes aspire to own?

Duchesses drive themselves in their sports cars or Land Rovers, R178. The Land Rover is the most popular car of the truly upper classes. If they have to go to an event which requires a big showy entrance they usually hire a Merc but they are still far more likely to drive themselves in an ordinary luxury saloon.

They're not usually into aspirational cars unless they are vintage car collectors. Only chavs and the middle classes really care about that stuff.

I think you have a really odd view of the British aristocracy. They don't act like Hollywood starlets and many are as poor as church mice. Class does not equal money in the UK and the upper classes are just people with better traceable family names than the rest of us.

"Also, milk, butter, and eggs delivered daily."

But what about the days you do not use them?

If I used these items everyday, they would never go bad. Instead, I just don't use them at all.

Don't buy them, never go bad.

You have an interesting thought process, r180.

R181

So I don't eat those three or four eggs and the two or three teaspoons of butter or the quarter cup of milk that I used to have most weeks. But I also do not have rotting food stinking up my fridge or garbage pail.

I think what did it was there was a month in which I went out a bit and bought milk and eggs but did not use any before they went bad.

There are enough foods out there that do not go bad so I do not miss these. And I am not wasting them.

bump

I would think Hyacinth would have a full size.

UK refrigerators are not as deep as a standard US fridge. My fridge sticks out from the counter and is much wider than a UK tall fridge-freezer. I call it my obese fridge. The double door, closet size fridges are also uncommon in the UK, although people who can accommodate them, do buy them.

[quote] In the US a family living in 1,000 sq ft probably think it had no room for washer/dryer and would go to the laundromat.

Our house growing up was 850 sq ft and we had a washer and dryer in the basement.

[quote] I am the only American on this thread who has a washer and dryer in the kitchen?

Mine is right off my kitchen. If I knocked down a wall that is about 3 feet wide, it would be in the kitchen. Right across from the washer dryer is a small bathroom. It has a tiny shower. When I first bought my house, it had a small half bathroom on the first floor and a small whole bathroom on the second floor. I insisted there be a shower in the half bath instead of a closet that was in the floor plan, because I felt there should be more than one shower in the house, as I was planning on renting it out in the summer. Good thing too, because I rented it to a catering company who needed a certain number of beds. Since I had a pullout sofabed on the first floor and a shower, that made it just right for them.

Well, now I want to take out the shower, since I've added a basement apartment with a bathroom and a bathroom over my garage. It would be super easy to take out the shower and slide in the washer dryer, making a large closet along the wall where the W/D is currently. I would put folding doors in front of the W/D.

But contractors are refusing to do this because they believe my guests (it's the only bathroom on the first floor) would be grossed out by seeing my w/d is in my bathroom. WTF? They want me to rip out the entire outer wall to my shower and position my w/d facing the new closet. This would cause me to lose my recycling area. Then I'd have to wall up the area that is now the entry to the shower in order to isolate the w/d from the bathroom..

I have a sink in my bathroom. You use the toilet, you flush it, you wash your hands in the sink and dry them on the handtowel. You have no contact with the w/d. (Except to wash the hand towel when doing laundry) Conversely, when using the w/d, I would not be shitting in it.

I find all go this faux hygiene horror to be ridiculous. Even the current fashion of hiding the toilet from view in the bathroom is silly and money wasting. My grandparents sat on a wooden bench in an outdoor shack and shat in a hole in the ground and so did most everyone's grandparents or great grandparents. Having a w/d in a kitchen or bathroom is not the equivalent of shitting in the sink or washing clothes in the toilet. Idiots.

I have a question for all you Americans who buy huge amounts of food and store it in your big American fridges. Do you really use all that food or you throw away lots of it? Because, looking at my habits, I wouldn't eat half of it. It looks like such a waste. If you buy huge package of something, you're just forced to eat it before it goes bad. Or throw it away. Even in the fridge, food can't stay fresh too long. So it makes more sense to me to go to shop on daily basis (or a few times a week).

According to this article, R188, 40% of the food bought in the USA goes to waste. I go shopping every couple of days, and throw hardly anything out.

r184

Then you'd be wrong. Wrong as the people that order Chinese takeaway

Did the fuckin Easter Bunny resurrect this thread?

England sounds like a Communist country. I had no idea!

I guess most of you are too young to remember but they used to deliver milk and eggs in the US too. Metal insulated box was on your stoop.

House Hunters International has a parade of ignorant Americans who want to move to country X to lead a 'simpler life.' Then they MOAN and COMPLAIN about the lack of: large bedrooms, an updated double vanity, separate shower and large tub bathroom/s, extra luxury items like washers and dryers, and oversized appliances they will need to adjust to if they live in country X. So disappointing!