FIFO in the kitchen

[Fat Guy]

FIFO (First In, First Out) as opposed to FILO (First In, Last Out) seems the inevitable system of usage when you keep plates in a stack in the cabinet. We have a stack of 12 plates. I'm not sure we've ever used the bottom one.

Has anybody come up with a good way to defeat this arrangement?

[dcarch]

Keep two stacks of plates?

dcarch

[Jenni]

How about when you put plates away, always put them at the bottom? More effort but it will achieve what you want.

[Fat Guy]

The two-stack solution requires either cabinet space to burn or one of those risers that divides the stack. That might help but is not something that can just be implemented by change in procedure.

When I was putting my plates away today, which is what caused me to think about this issue, I realized it would be a real pain to put plates on the bottom of the stack. They are heavy earthenware plates so it's definitely not a one-step job -- it would require either two people or removal of the whole stack and shuffling on the countertop.

[weinoo]

Do you think the plates on the bottom will expire?

[Fat Guy]

My concern is potential uneven wear over the course of hundreds of uses and trips through the dishwasher.

[Blether]

I have a wire rack that allows four plate stacks where otherwise there'd be one great big one. It's a mixture of large & smaller plates and bowls, I keep them at most four to a stack, and I do put the washed ones in at the bottom of each stack.

[Fat Guy]

Do you have a link to an example of that product?

[Mjx]

My concern is potential uneven wear over the course of hundreds of uses and trips through the dishwasher.

I'm slightly concerned about that too, even though I don't use a dishwasher, so I just haul the stack of dishes out of the closet, put the just-dried ones at the bottom, and put the others back on top. Sort of a drag, but in the general scheme of things, not a huge deal.

[dougal]

FIFO (First In, First Out) as opposed to FILO (First In, Last Out) seems the inevitable system of usage when you keep plates in a stack in the cabinet. We have a stack of 12 plates. I'm not sure we've ever used the bottom one. ...

No your single stack is not FIFO.

The first plate into the stack (on the bottom) is the last one out, not the first.

Your last plate in, on the top of the pile, is the first one out.

Hence your stack is LIFO (last in, first out), the exact opposite of FIFO!

FIFO is what you would like to be happening, and it isn't!

I saw an advert for a squeezy sauce bottle that promised FIFO instead of LIFO. Using the sauce in rotation, rather than letting some go very old in the bottom of the bottle is more critical than with the plates.

The FIFO bottle (using the oldest, first-in, sauce first, rather than the newest, last-in) has a nozzle on one end and a filler cap at the other end.

http://www.nisbets.co.uk/products/productdetail.asp?productCode=CF949

Regarding the plates, I'd suggest, just occasionally, taking approximately the bottom half of the stack out of the cupboard just before you empty the dishwasher (when the stack is small and light), and put the old bottom ones back on the top of the pile after you've stacked the newly washed ones. Do it at random occasions, moving a variable number of plates, and you should randomise the stack order, thereby evening out the usage.

Edited August 15, 2011 by dougal (log)

[DanM]

I rotate my dishes by taking the clean plates out of the cabinet, put the clean ones in, and then place the others on top..

[Chris Hennes]

Wash your dishes less frequently, so that you'll wind up using all of them. At least, that's my "solution"...

[weinoo]

FIFO (First In, First Out) as opposed to FILO (First In, Last Out) seems the inevitable system of usage when you keep plates in a stack in the cabinet. We have a stack of 12 plates. I'm not sure we've ever used the bottom one. ...

No your single stack is not FIFO.

The first plate into the stack (on the bottom) is the last one out, not the first.

Your last plate in, on the top of the pile, is the first one out.

Hence your stack is LIFO (last in, first out), the exact opposite of FIFO!

FIFO is what you would like to be happening, and it isn't!

You must be an old accountant or an inventory clerk...I should have noticed that, but didn't!

[Toliver]

FIFO (First In, First Out) as opposed to FILO (First In, Last Out) seems the inevitable system of usage when you keep plates in a stack in the cabinet. We have a stack of 12 plates. I'm not sure we've ever used the bottom one.

Has anybody come up with a good way to defeat this arrangement?

How about stacking plates vertically? I've seen some kitchen designs where they have vertical slotted spaces for the plates. I think it was a Martha-type thing. Not very efficient use of space, though.

Of course, this means redesigning the kitchen you just finished redesigning.

Or perhaps someone sells slotted racks that can fit in cupbards. Not sure...

edited to add: Here's a link to a picture on a web page that shows the vertical slots: click

Edited August 15, 2011 by Toliver (log)

[Fat Guy]

I don't follow.

The stack is already there.

If I have one plate in the dishwasher and I unload it and place it on the top of the stack, that's essentially first in.

If I then go to the cabinet to get a plate and take that plate off the top of the stack, that's first out.

If I'm working with two plates, or three which is the norm in my home, I don't really know which one has priority, but overall I'm still only getting three plates deep into the stack of 12. The bottom plate is not affected.

[Chris Hennes]

The bottom plate was the first in. It will be the last out: it's the definitive characteristic of a "stack" both in real life and computer science .

[Fat Guy]

But the stack is preexisting. It came out of the box as a stack. It lives in the cupboard as a stack. The behavior being analyzed is the behavior of taking plates off the stack and putting them back on.

[Chris Hennes]

You are mis-using the terminology: take all of your plates out of the cabinet and start placing them back in, one at a time. The first one you put in will be the bottom plate on the stack: it will be the last one you take out.

[Fat Guy]

But that does not accurately describe what happens in my kitchen.

[Chris Hennes]

What it DOES describe, however, is the definition of FILO (and by extension FIFO). If you are adding and removing arbitrary numbers of plates in arbitrary order you are neither FIFO nor FILO. And the fact of the matter is that it DOES describe what happens in your kitchen: you have a plate on the bottom of the stack that is never being withdrawn. The reason it is never being withdrawn is that it was the first one in (put at the bottom of the stack by some plate factory packer or whoever). It was first in, it will be the last out.

[Fat Guy]

I can buy that this is something other than FILO or FIFO. However I just spoke to the plate-factory packer, a Mr. Chang in Shinzen, China, who informed me that he remembers my plates and that, as is his signature, he built the stack upside-down, then flipped the whole thing over for packing. I then reviewed the security-video footage of the storage room in the Bronx where the plates spent approximately a year. The order was not altered.

[Broken English]

They're right, it is a FILO system you're using. Not that it matters though. I guess the only way is to have multiple stacks or to take from/put away on the bottom of the stack.

[Chris Hennes]

Or you could buy one of those plate racks for hyper-expensive dishware that prevents the plates from contacting one another, and that you can thus withdraw any plate you want at any time. One might describe this as an array of plates rather than a stack .

[maggiethecat]

How about choosing two arbitrary dates, say the 4th of July and New Years Day, and switching the bottom half of the stack for the top half?

[Beebs]

Why not randomly shuffle the plates around every month or couple months? At some point all your plates will be receive an equal amount of usage.