Can I eat it? Power's out!

June 16, 2022 12:31 PM

My first can-I-eat-it question, I'm so honored? To be part of this tradition? The item in question is a steak.

My power has been out since late Monday. It's Thursday afternoon and we just brought some items over to my mother in law's house to save them from the general carnage in our fridge.

I feel ok about my choices, for the most part. But there is a large and beautiful steak that was in my freezer and which we have put back in her freezer. It was soft at one end but solid in the middle.

It's okay, right? We can eat the steak at a future date?

posted by Lawn Beaver to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

I would not re-freeze it. Eat it soon.
posted by hwyengr at 12:36 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

What was the temperature, roughly? Cold? Cool? Warm? If it was at least cool, should be fine. I don't think it matters whether you eat now and freeze or eat later health wise, but it might change the texture.
posted by coffeecat at 12:38 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ehhh I would personally prefer to cry over having to toss the beautiful steak in the bin, rather than have to deal with the possible unpleasant consequences of eating meat that’s been partially defrosted and re-frozen without cooking it...

"Do not refreeze any foods left outside the refrigerator longer than 2 hours; 1 hour in temperatures above 90 °F." - USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service

...although hmm see also their "Power Outage in Freezer": "If food is partly frozen, still has ice crystals, or is as cold as if it were in a refrigerator (40 °F), it is safe to refreeze or use."

But meat is one particular food where I absolutely wouldn’t want to risk it.
posted by bitteschoen at 12:46 PM on June 16, 2022

Best answer: Still partially solid? I'd eat that without complaint. A refreeze might harm texture, so I would likely have finished thawing it and ate in the next day or two.
posted by advicepig at 1:01 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yeah the steak was in the freezer, we have not been opening it, and most of it was still solid. We took it out along with a totally frozen chicken and brought it immediately to a freezer with power.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 1:01 PM on June 16, 2022

Best answer: Part of it still frozen, I'd eat it. If the defrosted part was warm, at most I'd cut that part off and cook to medium well. If you can get dry ice, you can extend the life of stuff in your freezer.
posted by theora55 at 1:04 PM on June 16, 2022

Best answer: If USDA says it's safe to refreeze, which they do, then I wouldn't consider it risky at all. They're very cautious about what they consider safe. I would refreeze and eat later without worrying about safety at all (texture might be affected though).
posted by randomnity at 1:14 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

If it's still largely frozen, I assume the whole thing was still at least down to fridge temperature, so I'd absolutely eat it. Re-freezing it is almost certainly fine but, as others have said, may negatively impact on the texture.
posted by dg at 4:10 PM on June 16, 2022

Mazel tov!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:49 PM on June 16, 2022

I generally warm steaks to room temperature before grilling them - wouldn’t give this a second thought.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:12 AM on June 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

I would 100% eat this, and I am frequently the one saying "hell no!" to these questions. However, I'd be inclined to eat it now rather than refreeze and eat at some future date, mostly due to not wanting to have that weird texture change that happens sometimes when you refreeze.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:44 PM on June 17, 2022