Food safety tips
Given the recent winter weather and related power outages, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management yesterday sent around a list of food safety tips. Many are common sense, but I found them to be a good reminder. I hope someone out there can benefit from seeing these ideas.
After the loss of power, people can practice safe food handling and prevent food-borne illness by following simple steps:
- Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature.
- The refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) and the door remains closed.
- Discard refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, soft cheeses, milk, eggs, leftovers and deli items after 4 hours without power.
- Food may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40°F or below when checked with a food thermometer.
- Never taste a food to determine its safety.
- Obtain dry or block ice to keep your refrigerator and freezer as cold as possible if the power is going to be out for a prolonged period of time. Fifty pounds of dry ice should hold an 18-cubic-foot full freezer for 2 days.
- If the power has been out for several days, check the temperature of the freezer with an appliance thermometer. If the appliance thermometer reads 40°F or below, the food is safe to refreeze.
- If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine its safety. If the food still contains ice crystals, the food is safe.
- Discard any food that is not in a waterproof container if there is any chance that it has come into contact with flood water. Discard wooden cutting boards, plastic utensils, baby bottle nipples and pacifiers.
- Thoroughly wash all metal pans, ceramic dishes and utensils that came in contact with flood water with hot soapy water and sanitize by boiling them in clean water or by immersing them for 15 minutes in a solution of 1 tablespoon of unscented, liquid chlorine bleach per gallon of drinking water.
- Undamaged, commercially prepared foods in all-metal cans and retort pouches (for example, flexible, shelf-stable juice or seafood pouches) can be saved. Follow the Steps to Salvage All-Metal Cans and Retort Pouches in the publication “Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency.”
- People who have experienced an outage of water service should contact their water provider immediately. For more information on drinking water safely during weather emergencies, access the FSIS publication “Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency.”
- When in doubt, throw it out.
For additional food safety information, call the toll-free USDA/FSIS Meat and Poultry Hotline at (888) 674-6854. Food safety specialists (both English and Spanish speaking) are available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT on weekdays year-round.
February 9, 2010 - 10:07 AM
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Put your perishables in a cooler and pack it with snow and leave it outside! Its the best way to keep food chilled in a power outage!
Some Homeowner’s Insurance Policies have endorsements that allow for coverage for lost food in refrigerators/freezers (some with deductibles, some not)due to loss of electricity from wind/water damages. Each company will have their own exclusions.
That’s a great idea, Sandy, thank you! We certainly don’t have a shortage of snow and have three good coolers.
I guess it’s because I grew up in a hurricane zone, but these ideas are second-nature for me nowadays. So is being prepared for any storm situation by having non-perishable food, batteries, battery-operated flashlights and radios, and a source of dry firewood for heat if our power goes out. We also have a lot of blankets and whatnot. If we did lose power, we would wall off the main living space in our house with a heavy blanket and leave the faucets on drip in case the lines froze, and retain the heat in a small part of the house, and then try to thaw the rest when power was restored.