On a fridge left ajar

I closed the refrigerator door last night but a wine bottle was sticking out a little and the contact wasn’t made so the light stayed on the whole night, heating up everything on the top shelf so it was warm to the touch. 

I know I should throw all of that out but do I also have to throw out the rest of contents? (Things are cooler the lower you go.) And also... do I really have to throw all of that out? What if fridge items weren’t opened? This is such a bummer. Thanks for your help! 

Is this a Biden fridge, a Trump fridge, or a joke that no one will remember in 2 months?

I once knew a guy who successfully started a line of bottled beverage that was half-coffee and half-juice. It’s not hard to imagine the origin story here: he groggily reached for the coffee, then groggily reached for the OJ, then groggily determined he would “hack” breakfast by cutting out a step. Silicon Valley, baby! He probably mentioned 2-in-1 shampoo during his investor pitch and it definitely worked because he raised a bunch of venture capital money. It was 2017 and breakfast was ripe for disruption.

One time he gifted a bottle of the stuff to a prospective investor after a pitch. The investor left the bottle on his desk and returned the next day to find the walls splattered with coffee-juice and broken glass. It turns out the coffee-juice wasn’t 100% sterile when it was packaged, which means it required refrigeration to stay fresh. In a midtown investor’s climate-controlled office, the microbes in the juice began to multiply and exert pressure against the walls of the glass. At some point around midnight: Boom! 

Now, onto your query. (Thanks for the helpful photo, by the way.)

After 12 hours under that blazing refrigerator light, I would categorize everything on the top shelf somewhere between “science experiment” and I.E.D. You are correct to discard it all. For the rest of the stuff, I’m going to make a two-category list:

For everything else, use your senses. This climate change event in your fridge undoubtedly shortened the shelf life of everything, but you should feel comfortable drinking those milks and alt-milks if they pass a smell test. I’m undecided about the 3+ containers of ricotta. Do you always keep 2 lbs of soft cheese on hand? 

Last thing: I make this same mistake all the time because my refrigerator has a faulty gasket. Consider buying a cheap refrigerator thermometer* so you can see how out of wack things have become after using a bottle of wine as an overnight door stop. If the temperature is somewhere in the 50s, you can follow the logic I’ve described above. If your thermometer reads 70ºF or higher, call the bomb squad.

*This is an affiliate link because I’ve decided I need the nickel in sales commission. Also, I own this one and it works. If this offends you then just google Taylor 5925N Classic Design Freezer/Refrigerator Utility Thermometer.

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