Food Safety and Power Outages
Tips on what to do with food during and following power outages:
When the power goes out
- Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible.
- Refrigerator will keep foods cold for 4 hours or so.
- Freezer will hold for around 48 hours if full; 24 hours if half full.
- If outage is prolonged, procure dry ice at 50 lbs/18 cubic feet.
- Do not put food out on the snow – the sun may cause warming.
Once power is restored
- Check temperatures in freezer and refrigerator – if above 40, you need to take action with respect to how long they were above 40. Stick a thermometer into a food item and determine what it temperature is.
- For frozen foods, look for ice crystals and temperature.
- Discard perishables such as meat poultry leftovers.
Do Not Refreeze
- Food that has thawed completely -- especially meat, poultry and seafood
- Prepared, cooked foods such as pizza, casseroles and stew
- Any food that has poor or questionable color or odor
- Thawed vegetables
- Creamed foods, puddings or other low-acid foods that have thawed
- Melted ice cream
Safe To Refreeze
- Foods that still contain ice crystals
- Thawed fruit if it still tastes and smells good
- Bread, cake, cookies, plain doughnuts
- Nuts, flour, cereal
- Raw meat and poultry that has thawed but is still cold (40°F or less can be refrozen raw or cooked thoroughly and refrozen)
- Juice
- Margarine
- Cheese
For more information
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