Power Outage – When Does The Food Go Bad?

This weekend we had a windstorm that caused a power outage. The power outage lasted 24 hours in temperatures hovering near 90 degrees.

The first thing you become concerned about, other than the sweat rolling down your back, is how long do I have before my refrigerated and frozen food becomes spoiled.

Knowing that my refrigerated foods should be kept below 40 degrees I started to hunt for a thermometer. I found a Taylor probe thermometer that I have occasionally used when grilling out hamburgers and chicken breasts. Battery was dead.

Then I came across a battery operated, small, portable clock. The reason I’ve kept this clock around so long is it resets itself by the Atomic Clock which I think is pretty cool. But it also has a temperature readout on it. So I stuck it in the refrigerator. I reminded the kids for the 50th time to quit opening the refrigerator door. Yes I know the light does not come on – that’s because the electricity is out – NOW SHUT THE DOOR.

I checked back a couple hours later and the temperature inside the refrigerator is 67 degrees. Now as I seem to recall from a Food Manager Certification class that I took that this is not good. This food is no longer salvageable.

To make a long story longer….This became an opportunity to rid myself of all the tin foil wrapped mystery foods, the zip lock bagged chunks of freezer frost and other alien life forms that had been living in my refrigerator/freezer.

… the cats in the neighborhood… they were driven into a frenzy when the trash was set out Monday morning.