The safety of your frozen food can be jeopardized of you lose power due to storms, fire or other disaster. Fortunately, modern refrigeration and frozen are well insulated and can keep food cold or safely for several hours.
Poor handling may introduce bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and their toxins.
Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature. Avoid opening refrigerator and freezer doors to seal in cold air until power returns.
A refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. Food should be thrown away if the power is out for more than 4 hours for a refrigerator or 48 hours for a freezer.
Keep freezer fully stocked. Food in fully loaded freezer should stay frozen for up to two days if the door is kept shut.
In a half full freezer, food will keep for twenty four hours.
Freezers that are part of a refrigerator-freezer combination will keep food frozen for up to 24 hours.
When your freezer is not full, keep items close together. This helps the food stay cold longer.
If expected a prolonged power disruption, spread heavy cardboard over the food packages and with gloves on, pack dry ice on top and close the door or lid.
Dry or block ice can be used to keep your refrigerator and freezer as cold as possible. Fifty pounds of dry ice should hold an 18-cubic full freezer for 2 days.
Coolers are a great help for keeping food cold if the power will be out for more than 4 hours. It is most important to keep meat, seafood, dairy products and cooked foods cold.
Seafood, eggs, and pizza are considered unsafe to eat of they have gone for more than two hours without refrigeration.
Fresh fruit and vegetables, jams and jellies, butter and margarine, and ketchup, mustard, pickles, relish and similar condiments can generally be kept on a countertop.
Have canned food or dried foods on hand in the event of a power failure to prevent having to open refrigerator and freezer doors.
Do not store food outside. The food may become contaminated by animals and the outside temperature varies from hour to hour. The sun may thaw frozen foods or warm refrigerator foods enough to grow bacteria.
If the power is expected to be out for an extended period of time, use foods that can spoil rapidly before those that keep longer. Compared to other foods, meats, seafood, dairy products and cooked foods are most likely to cause foodborne illness when left at temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 2 hours.
How to check if the food is safe to eat? To test for food safety when the power return, check the internal temperature of foods with a food thermometer. Frozen food at 40 degree F or cooler and frozen meat at 32 degree F or cooler may be refrozen.
Partial thawing and refreezing may reduce the quality of some food, but the food will be safe to eat.
If a perishable food item registers higher than 40 degrees F and has been kept at that temperature for more than two hours, it is probably not safe.
Never taste a food to find out id it has spoiled. When in doubt, throw it out. It may look and smell fine, but the bacteria may have grown to unsafe levels.
Food Safety During Power Outages
