A fridge that's too cold or too warm will struggle to keep your food fresh. Produce is particularly susceptible to errant temps, but nearly everything you stick inside benefits from keeping your icebox set to a magic number,
Not one to waste, I set out to find out how cool my fridge was since there's no built-in thermometer. The ultimate goal was to ensure it's set to that Goldilocks zone: the recommended temperature to keep most items as fresh as possible without freezing.
Here's how it went down and what I learned after testing nearly every temp setting on my fridge.
What temperature should your fridge be?
Before I can determine the best temperature setting for my fridge, we need to know what constitutes a safe temperature for storing food. John Carlsen/CNET
The scientific consensus puts the ideal fridge temperature at 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) or below -- cold enough to keep bacteria in check, but not so cold that it freezes delicate foods.
Your freezer should be set to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius) or lower. It might seem like anything below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) would do the job, but the colder target exists for good reason: it keeps food solidly frozen even when you open the door, add fresh items, or ride out a brief power outage. As a bonus, lower temperatures also speed up freezing, which means smaller ice crystals and better preservation.
I ran tests using real-world conditions
When storing food in your refrigerator, ensure it falls within the safe temperature range for food storage. John Carlsen/CNET
When testing the fridge temp settings, I didn't unload all of my food, though I did move more sensitive items -- fresh produce, eggs, and some glass jars -- into temporary coolers for colder tests. Likewise, I couldn't keep items outside the fridge or at warmer temperatures for longer than two hours.
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