Periscope Fridge Trend: What Your Fridge Contents Say About You
It's all Periscope users want to see.
— -- Show us your fridge!
That's the popular demand of users on Periscope, Twitter's new live-streaming app released last Thursday.
Showing the contents of your fridge apparently gets you lots of "hearts," users say, and no one -- not even self-professed paranormal investigators -- are free from fridge viewing requests.
And the obsession over the contents of a person's refrigerator probably stems from the fact you can tell a lot about someone based on what's inside their fridge, according to marketing expert John Stonehill.
Stonehill is also a self-proclaimed "Refrigerator Dating Expert," and he runs the blog "Check Their Fridge," where he analyzes the fridges of people's dates and predicts their compatibility.
"It's true that we are what we eat," Stonehill told ABC News today. "From someone's fridge, you can get a true idea of their health, lifestyle, income and even what kind of romantic partner they'll be."
The first thing Stonehill usually examines is the model and condition of someone's fridge, which tells a lot about their social class and income, he said.
"When I was first getting started in my career, I had this really crappy fridge I shared with my roommate that we held together with duct tape," he said. "Of course, common sense tells us that people with higher-end models are probably richer and farther along in their careers."
Once inside, a fridge's hygiene says a lot about someone's personality and quality of life, Stonehill said.
"A messy chaotic fridge means you probably have an equally chaotic life," Stonehill said. "But a regularly empty fridge is also probably a sign a person is constantly busy and won't be an available partner."
"And if you see someone with an extra clean fridge with all their meals for the week labelled and planned out, you also want to stay away," Stonehill added. "That person is probably really controlling."
And from the brands inside someone's fridge, Stonehill said you can figure out where they're from, what they like to do and their social views.
"Certain brands are popular in certain geographical areas," Stonehill said. "There's also lot of politics in the food world, and you can sometimes tell what social causes people support based on what brands they do and don't have in their fridge."
"If someone has a lot of organic foods and reusable containers, they're likely environmentally conscious," Stonehill added. "And if you see three different brands of beers and appetizer foods, that person is probably very social and hosts a lot of gatherings and parties."
Your fridge can also be an accurate reflection of your health, according to ABC News Nutrition and Wellness Editor David Zinczenko.
"Your refrigerator tells you how much control over your food, body and health you really have and how much of that control you're ceding to the food industry," Zinczenko said..
An empty fridge with lots of shelf space means you likely have a more heavily stocked pantry, which usually stores processed foods that don't go bad for a long while, Zinczenko said.
"That means you're likely to have a lot of empty calories in your diet," he explained.
The average American now gets 60 percent of his or her calories from processed food, Zinczenko added, citing a recent study by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
If you see a lot of takeout containers, you're probably the kind of person that likes to let other people make decisions and think for you, Zinczenko said, adding that takeout people probably have a lot of excessive salt, sugar and fat in their diets.
"The leftover quesadillas from last week's takeout are never coming back to style," he said. "When it comes to food, nostalgia is not a good thing."
On the other hand, a fridge full of a variety of dairy, vegetables, meats and fruits is a good sign, Zinczenko said.
If that's the case, "chances are you're the kind of person who has control over what he or she eats, and who primarily eats real food," he said.
And if you're this person with a Tide to-go pen in your fridge?
"If you need a stain remover inside your refrigerator, you're basically admitting that you can't get food from the refrigerator to your mouth without something really messy happening in between," Zinczenko said.
