You may not realise this but the fridge is probably the most important appliance in your house. What other white appliance is on twenty four hours a day, every day of the year? And forget about white appliance. Even your heating and Hi Fi aren’t on 24/7.

Also how many times do you go to the fridge? milk for your tea/coffee? beer? ingredients for that stir fry for tonight? Yep, do you realise that you probably open your fridge door more often than you do your front door (unless you have wall-to-wall Jehovah Witnesses calling like it seems I do some Sundays!)

So why are you happy with a boring old white fridge? Because it’s a “white appliance”? Forget it. Be bold. Push out the envelope. There are many interesting and colourful fridge designs to tempt (and occasionally appall) you.

There is a down side. Of course. You find a wonderful bright orange fridge that fits in ace with your lime green kitchen. Great. Love it. Two years later, you have the kitchen redecorated- oh dear: the old fridge doesn’t fit in. What do you do? Dump a perfectly good fridge? Sell it on ebay to someone who has a lime green kitchen and is fed up with their white fridge?

There are always purists who will say that the fridge must be white. It must be the colour of ice, of snow. Purity, virginal.. all that tosh.  But at the end of the day a white fridge is likely to blend in with whatever outrageous colour scheme you devise for your kitchen.

And there’s another important factor. The fridge magnet. I kid you not. I have a friend who vets all of her children’s fridge magnets to make sure they complement the colour of her fridge. Just imagine if you have the boss for evening meal and he/she goes to fetch a beer from the fridge and… oh dear… the fridge magnet is cerise and the fridge is magenta… how can your soiree recover from this awful faux pas?

At the  end of the day, it seems that the fridge is not just an appliance for cooling stuff, it’s a statement shouting out loud about you and your kitchen and, yes, your personality. Are you really just a dull white? Be challenged and go for a coloured fridge I say…

The refrigerator. Invented a long time ago. It does what it says on the tin. It refrigerates. It keeps food and drink cold and staves off things going bad- bacteria, rotting, decay, that sort of stuff. Boring. What possible innovations can grab your attention? Well, there are some…

It is possible to use a fridge as a type of “control area” for various other appliances in your house if the fridge is networked to all of these.  The only thing is that all the appliances need to be compatible so that they can talk to each other.  But if you opt for the network fridge, you can do things such as turn on the air conditioning,  the washing machine or even control the TV and stereo.  Of course, the internet connection can also be used to surf the net, order groceries, and keep track of your family’s day to day activities. But what am I saying is this really possible? Yes, it’s true, check out on the ‘net. There are more and more “internet white appliances”.  Here’s the LG Internet Refrigerator:

The LG Internet Refrigerator has the coolest set of features ever seen in the kitchen. It is a 730 litre, stainless-steel, side by side fridge, with an in-built computer which can be accessed via a 37 centimetre touch-screen LCD monitor mounted on the fridge door. Users can watch TV, listen to MP3 music, take and store digital photos, make a video phone call, use the fridge as a message board or surf the web. It also has VCR and DVD ports, a microphone and speakers. Information about food in the fridge can be stored and a map of the fridge allows the owner to keep an inventory of what foods are in each section and how long they have been there. It’s biggest advantage will be its functionality as a food management system. It also has an inbuilt hard drive and modem, so that the appliance can be ‘connected’ by simply running a phone connection into it. How much? Aaaah… $15,000 is the anticipated RRP when it’s released later this year.Bit of a bummer!

Fridges are also becoming more hygienic than ever before.  The hygiene technology goes by different names according to different fridge makers but the aim of the technology is to stop potentially harmful bacteria from infecting foods.  This makes the food last longer, and also reduces your risk of food poisoning.  Many fridges now come with inbuilt deodorisers. What that then? Can you choose your perfume or after shave for your fridge? Chanel No 5 or Police Dark? Well weird!

And while we are talking weird, I came across this ace fridge advert while in Delhi:

Considering that the fridge is one of the only appliances in the home that is on 24/7, it makes sense to look for a fridge that is as efficient as possible.  New innovations mean that internal sensors inside the fridge can regulate the temperature so that the fridge is running optimally.  Other innovations include temperature warnings and electronic temperature controls, humidity controlled compartments, and different temperature zones within the fridge according to the food to be stored.

So, there you have it, it’s probably the most intelligent thing in your house or flat after you, your family, and possibly the cat….