Bernard O'Shea: Can I feed my family for a week without using the fridge? 

Today, avoiding the fridge involves clever shopping and embracing traditional preservation methods. Opting for less perishable, more shelf-stable foods is key. This means choosing items like dried beans or canned goods over fresh meats. This concept might not thrill the younger crowd, but it offers a practical alternative to refrigeration. 

This approach combines modern knowledge with ancestral eating habits, balancing food safety with a touch of nostalgia. It also encourages a deeper appreciation for the resources we often take for granted and a more sustainable lifestyle, reducing reliance on energy-intensive appliances. 

Plus, it's a chance to get creative in the kitchen (basically, I wouldn't be eating my usual Goodfellas pizza). Influencers I found online who have gone without refrigeration use the opportunity to explore recipes that our forebears used before the luxury of refrigeration became a household norm.

So I tried in vain to see what it would be like to go without using anything from our fridge for one week. Sound easy. Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

Day one was the easiest – primarily because I was prepared. For breakfast, I had toast and avocado and a flapjack. For my dinner, I had soup that I bought in fresh, sealed, foiled bags and stored in the cupboard, and that evening, I had toast and sardines. I drank my coffee black and went without tea. Dare I say it, day one was simple.

However, by day three, having repeated the same meals, my salad dreams had wilted. I had bought green beans, mini cucumbers, carrots, and a few heads of lettuce, thinking it would be fine in the press. I was looking forward to, as the D'unbeliveables would say, "a simple bit of salad," but it had shrivelled and died. I plunged it into cold water from the tap, but there was no saving.

Day four, I'm in Super Valu with my eldest, looking at vegetables in glass jars. She quipped, "Dad, don't get them for me." They were all right. The best had to be my newfound love for pickled beetroot.

Day five is the third time I've been to the butchers. Now I know there's a hypocrisy here. Yes, butchers use fridges, but I DON'T agree. I shared a burger with no chips (they came out of the freezer) with the kids for dinner and boiled some pasta.

On day six, I hit a curve ball. We were heading out to eat. I ordered a roast dinner. I didn't ask the wait staff, "Sorry, but can you only serve me food that hasn't been in your fridges, please?" because my family are continually embarrassed by my social excursions with them already, and I didn't want to heap any more misery on them. Also, I was hungry. I repeated my first day's feast of sardines and bread the following day and was happy that the week had ended. However, I gained three really valuable insights over the seven days.

Firstly, our food choices today are endless. Take away the fridge, and due in no part to food science, they still are, but the convenience goes away. That ham sandwich or pack of chicken breasts you rustle up disappears. You have to do something that I hate: plan ahead.

Secondly, you visit the shops daily when you are without refrigeration (even for one person). I understand why every small town and village had dozens of little shops a century ago. They were vital to a pre-refrigerated world.

Finally, I stockpile meat and vegetables that we never consume, especially for no reason when I have a plethora of shopping options nearby. But it's the fresh vegetables that gave me a surprise. If I treated them with the same respect as I did with meat, I would most definitely eat more of them.

But honestly, a week of sardines and longing glances at my idle fridge? I've never been happier to reunite with a chilled carrot.