Should I eat this?

February 7, 2022 6:39 PM

I left cold prepared food inside a car inside a tiny unplugged freezer, overnight, in below-freezing temperatures: can I eat it?

Yesterday I bought a tiny freezer. It was plugged in and freezing when I bought it; I unplugged it and put it in my car. A few hours later I bought cold prepared food at a grocery store, and then I drove to a hotel parking lot where I was leaving my car overnight before driving home. I was planning to leave the food in the car, because the temperature was below freezing and I figured it would be fine. And then I thought why not put it in the tiny freezer! Because it is already freezing! So I did. 26 hours later, I got home and put it away properly.

Now I am kicking myself, because I think maybe the freezer actually insulated the food against the cold. By the time I got home the freezer interior, and the food, were I think cool but not extremely cold.

Do I have to throw it all out? It's a bunch of different things: some is vegetarian and some is poultry. No fish or seafood. It's all pretty heavily spiced so I'm worried if it's spoiled I might not notice. It will be delicious so I want to eat it, but I am afraid :(

posted by Susan PG to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

If the food was already cold and the freezer was cold and it was cold all around the freezer, all the presence of the freezer did was stabilize the temperatures. It was basically acting as a cooler - the job of an unplugged freezer is to be really well insulated. Where are you - was it cold all day? Was it sunny enough that it was really warm inside the car when you got inside? I think your food is probably fine.

Respectfully, the spice is kinda irrelevant - common harmful things like listeria and e. coli don't taste like anything.
posted by ftm at 6:50 PM on February 7, 2022 [10 favorites]

Response by poster: The temperature was ranging from about -9 to -2 C, or 16-28 F. And it was a little sunny, but the car was super cold.

I did not know that about spoilage: thank you! I'd thought you could always tell something was decomposing from the smell.
posted by Susan PG at 6:59 PM on February 7, 2022

If you didn't, say, hang out for a long time in the place you bought the food, so that it warmed up to an unsafe temperature between the time you took it out of the cold storage where you purchased it, and the time you took it outside into the freezing weather, and it didn't sit in your warming-up car for too awful long before you put it into the presumably still reasonably cold inside freezer that you purchased, you should be fine.

Generally speaking, you have (at least) four hours *at unsafe temperatures*, though that counts things like preparation time, so you shouldn't assume you have nearly that much still-available time with purchased, prepared food.

And while the spices might hide the taste of some types of foods going bad, keep in mind that many spices were traditionally used in foods as preservatives, not necessarily for flavor. So depending on the spice and the food and the preparation, that variable might even be in play.
posted by stormyteal at 7:00 PM on February 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

Fridge temperature is around 38F. Unless it was very very sunny and that made the environment of the freezer quite warm, I don't see how this food could have ever gotten above that, since it started out cold and was in a very well insulated box that started out cold and spent time being 16 degrees in the dark. Not a guarantee, just a mechanical engineer's educated guess.
posted by ftm at 7:03 PM on February 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

This sounds very low risk. I would eat this without hesitation. It sounds very unlikely that the temperature inside the cooler was above fridge temperatures for any significant amount of time. Even then, food still takes a long time to go bad at slightly warmer than fridge temperatures. The highest risk was probably your drive home, when the car would presumably have been warm inside, but assuming the food was in the freezer during this time, I doubt it would have warmed up much unless you were driving eight hours or something like that.
posted by ssg at 7:26 PM on February 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think you can eat it. I don't see how at any point it could have gone over freezing, let alone to temperatures where it would thaw significantly and rot. A night below freezing isn't going to be undone by a bit of sun, and even then the fridge would insulate it against major changes. Eat and be merry!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:27 PM on February 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'd probably eat it without worry. If you want to be cautious, eat a little bit, wait at least 8 hours and see how you feel.
posted by theora55 at 7:57 PM on February 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think you can eat this. We ran a porch dairy drop-off/pick-up from our porch for the better part of the pandemic which used a variety of coolers in freezing temps (and hot weather). On a below 0 day, the cold milk went into the cooler without ice and the cooler kept the food very cold (not freezing but very cold). Your freezer may have more insulation than our coolers but the principle is the same. The freezer wouldn't hold the food at a higher temp than the food went & likely the food, freezer, car interior reached a stasis with only a few degrees of "warmerness" inside the cooler.
posted by countrymod at 8:11 PM on February 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

The temperature was ranging from about -9 to -2 C
So, pretty much the temperature of a fridge? It will be fine.
posted by dg at 8:21 PM on February 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Normal fridge temperature is between 3°C (37°F) and 5°C (40°F) so the ambient temperature was well below that, it may have frozen and defrosted (which can impair the quality of some foods) but it hasnt been too warm when left in the car overnight.

During your drive home the interior temperature of the car was probably around 20C, so the question is how well did the freezer insulate things and how long was the journey. If the food temperature went from -5C to +5C during a 1 hour journey, it will be fine, if it went from -5C to +15C during a 5 hour journey then no.

FDA: Refrigerated food should be safe as long as the power was not out for more than four hours and the refrigerator door was kept shut. Discard any perishable food (such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs or leftovers) that has been above 40°F for two hours or more.
posted by Lanark at 3:58 AM on February 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, did Yzma write this question? First I'll take the food and put it into a container. Then I'll put the container into a freezer. Then I'll put that freezer into a car. Then I'll leave the car in below freezing weather.

I think your food is fine. This is my favorite should I eat this question.
posted by phunniemee at 4:53 AM on February 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

How could an unplugged freezer raise the temperature of its contents above the ambient temperature outside it? Where would that heat have come from?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:13 AM on February 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I <3 you all :) Let's just chalk up this q to a little free-floating anxiety that was looking for somewhere to land. I am now reassured and will eat the stuff. Thank you :)
posted by Susan PG at 9:42 AM on February 8, 2022 [1 favorite]