Have you ever noticed-while watching your favorite cooking show-how great the stars’ appliances look?
They go to their refrigerator for supplies and you glimpse beautifully arranged stacks of perfectly fresh, brightly colored produce, chilled water, juices, and wine. There is plenty of space and light. Everything looks healthy, appealing and delicious.
They take their healthy ingredients to their immaculate counters, cook tops and gleaming ovens and prepare mouthwatering, attractive meals. Suddenly, you feel inspired to cook something nutritious and wonderful for your family.
Then, you go to your own refrigerator and what do you see? Doors stuffed with years-old, sticky sauce and condiment jars. Plastic leftover containers jammed into every available space. Fruits and vegetables that don’t look quite as fresh or as crisp as they should. Bits of hardened cheese and other unidentifiable crumbs in your meats drawer. A sticky, hardened spill from the milk container that leaked in the back without anyone noticing for a few days. Oily-looking grime on the metal bits. And-way in the back- tiny foil wrapped packets containing that you euphemistically refer to as, ‘our little science projects.’ You assume they are the reason for that mildly unpleasant odor you also smell at the moment.
Your stovetop and oven don’t look so great either, so just as suddenly as you felt inspired to cook a wonderful, nutritious meal for your family, you find yourself reaching, once again, for your trusty file of takeout menus. All the while, you are wondering if your family might consume more fruits and vegetables if they are easier to see, more attractively presented in your refrigerator.
Beyond food and cooking aesthetics, though, there are plenty of other reasons why it might be time to give your large kitchen appliances the proper cleaning they deserve:
• Health. Based on those ‘little science projects’ you have at the back of your refrigerator, you will know from experience that mold, mildew and bacteria can grow and multiply even at 38-40°F, which is the recommended temperature for healthful refrigeration. You might throw out that rotten, mushy cucumber from the crisper, but without sanitizing or disinfecting the drawer, you don’t know what germs might be left behind, ready to help other food spoil or risk making your family sick.
• Food cost. In addition to the money you spend on takeout meals when you don’t feel inspired to cook, how much do you spend each month on food that goes bad before you can consume it (a process hastened by a dirty refrigerator)? Or on food that you don’t need because your refrigerator is so crowded that you don’t readily know what you have on hand, what is still fresh or consumable and what is not?
• Energy efficiency and cost. Does your refrigerator run a little more than it should to stay at the correct temperature? (Do you even know?). Do you find food in the back or in the fruit and vegetable drawers freezing? Dust on condenser coils and/or blocked internal vents are the likely culprits.
• Asset preservation. Next to your home and your car, large home appliances are some of the biggest investments you will ever make. Keeping them clean and regularly maintained ensures they last a long time, ultimately delivering higher investment returns.
• Time. Soils gain complexity over time. Extreme hot and cold temperatures help that process along. The greater the complexity of soils, the more difficult and time-consuming they are to clean. And because your appliances come into direct contact with your food, harsh cleaning solutions are not always viable options. This is especially true of your refrigerator, which can absorb permanent odors from harsh sanitizers or disinfectants like bleach. There are other time aspects as well. For example, how much longer do you spend each weak processing and putting away groceries when there is too little free space to accommodate them in your refrigerator?
Cleaning frequently, say 6-12 times per year, can dramatically reduce the time it takes to clean your heavy kitchen appliances and to give them cooking-show appeal. Using a professional cleaning service, meanwhile, ensures these jobs get done correctly and thoroughly using techniques and solutions that are both effective and safe for your family and appliances.
If you are inspired and interested in taking on these tasks yourself, plan on dedicating the best part of a day to do them properly. For example, cleaning a refrigerator correctly involves some 14-16 discrete steps, depending on who you ask. If, on the other hand, you would rather spend your time starring in your own personal cooking show, call MaidPro to do the dirty work for you!
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