Power Outage 5 1/2 hours - Can I eat it question 1,000,000
September 24, 2024 3:24 PM Subscribe
I did check other asks on this topic, but I could swear that it used to be longer than 4 hours. Is this AI garbage or is this the new recommendation?
Do I really need to toss unopened packaged cheese (colby jack if it matters)? Unopened pepperoni? Eggs? Really? I just had to replace my water heater, so I'd like to keep as much as I can right now. I had JUST shopped on Sunday. Jellies - fine, right? Unopened mozzarella? Help me avoid food poisoning, but also keep me from tossing EVERYTHING.
Do I really need to toss unopened packaged cheese (colby jack if it matters)? Unopened pepperoni? Eggs? Really? I just had to replace my water heater, so I'd like to keep as much as I can right now. I had JUST shopped on Sunday. Jellies - fine, right? Unopened mozzarella? Help me avoid food poisoning, but also keep me from tossing EVERYTHING.
Did you open the fridge at all? I wouldn’t toss anything if that’s the case.
posted by jabes at 3:32 PM on September 24
posted by jabes at 3:32 PM on September 24
The 4 hour rule is at room temperature. Your fridge won't get up to room temp that fast.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:06 PM on September 24 [6 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:06 PM on September 24 [6 favorites]
Most of those things are pretty shelf stable. Look, cheese, if you don't see mold it's fine. If you do, cut the mold off and eat it anyway. Pepperoni, that's a cured meat, same deal. Eggs, 5.5 hours I wouldn't worry about.
posted by rodlymight at 4:08 PM on September 24 [5 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 4:08 PM on September 24 [5 favorites]
As others have said, without power, your fridge is just a giant cooler. All is fine.
posted by msbrauer at 4:24 PM on September 24 [3 favorites]
posted by msbrauer at 4:24 PM on September 24 [3 favorites]
It's fine. You'll be fine. The pepperoni is probably "refrigerate after opening" anyway, and the colby-jack might as well be for this purpose. I'd prioritize eating up the mozzarella if you think it actually got warm, but eggs aren't going to be secretly bad, nor jellies as long as you mean the sugary fruit kind.
posted by teremala at 4:26 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
posted by teremala at 4:26 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
Food Safety dot Gov says Exposed to temperatures of 40°F (4°C) or above for more than 2 hours. If you have a new fangled fridge, it should have said what temp it was at when the power kicked back on. Judge from there what to dispose of.
We had a power outage during a snow storm. Nothing got above 40F, in the entire house.
posted by fiercekitten at 4:52 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
We had a power outage during a snow storm. Nothing got above 40F, in the entire house.
posted by fiercekitten at 4:52 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]
As long as you weren't standing there with the fridge open while the power was off, I would eat all of this. And I'm pretty far down the path of throw it out if there's any question.
posted by mollweide at 5:19 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 5:19 PM on September 24 [2 favorites]
Food safety rules are designed for population health. They are designed so that businesses can't legally feed people sketchy food, so that people don't feed frail family members anything bad, etc. They are on the far end of hypercautious. That's not to say that you should just leave your milk on the counter overnight or anything, but if you are a healthy person with a strong digestion, you can use your judgement on many foods.
Raw meat, no. But think about the times that you have been at a dinner party, for instance, and you've sat at the table talking for hours and finishing the cheese tray. Or when you've ordered Chinese food and watched movies, and had that last bite of pork probably four or even five hours after it first came out of the wok. You don't think about how the pizza that sat on the table from the start of the hang-out at 7pm to someone eating the last slice at midnight was really about eating food that sat out, warm, for five hours, because that's not how we tend to categorize food when it's right in front of us. But obviously, the food is still good at that point.
I rarely cook with meat, so I almost never have raw meat in the fridge, and I don't really drink milk. I have never thrown anything out as an adult as a result of a power outage, because we've been lucky and our power hasn't been out for more than twenty-four hours. (If I'd had soft cheeses and it were a twenty four hour outage, or any kind of significant leftovers, I probably would have tossed those.)
posted by Frowner at 6:44 PM on September 24 [9 favorites]
Raw meat, no. But think about the times that you have been at a dinner party, for instance, and you've sat at the table talking for hours and finishing the cheese tray. Or when you've ordered Chinese food and watched movies, and had that last bite of pork probably four or even five hours after it first came out of the wok. You don't think about how the pizza that sat on the table from the start of the hang-out at 7pm to someone eating the last slice at midnight was really about eating food that sat out, warm, for five hours, because that's not how we tend to categorize food when it's right in front of us. But obviously, the food is still good at that point.
I rarely cook with meat, so I almost never have raw meat in the fridge, and I don't really drink milk. I have never thrown anything out as an adult as a result of a power outage, because we've been lucky and our power hasn't been out for more than twenty-four hours. (If I'd had soft cheeses and it were a twenty four hour outage, or any kind of significant leftovers, I probably would have tossed those.)
posted by Frowner at 6:44 PM on September 24 [9 favorites]
I agree with everyone above, eat it, but one small consideration would be the age of your refrigerator and the status of the seal. Older less efficient would be something to think about for 5 seconds before you decide it is ok to eat.
The cold food inside the frigerated works as sort of ice packs in a cooler. An very empty frig has to work harder to keep content cold. A very packed one will also work harder to get cold but will stay cold longer.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:17 PM on September 24
The cold food inside the frigerated works as sort of ice packs in a cooler. An very empty frig has to work harder to keep content cold. A very packed one will also work harder to get cold but will stay cold longer.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:17 PM on September 24
Best answer: A very packed one will also work harder to get cold but will stay cold longer.
This.
My normal response to our power company notifying us of the 7 hour maintenance outages they schedule every now and then is simply to go shopping the day before and pack the fridge as full as it ever gets.
If your fridge is normally fairly sparsely stocked and you live somewhere with frequent unscheduled power outages, keep half a dozen soft-drink bottles 90% filled with water in your freezer (water expands as it freezes and a 10% air gap is plenty to stop a typical PET bottle from splitting). If an outage looks like persisting for more than an hour, transfer those into the fridge and relax. They will keep your fridge safely cool for as long as there's any solid ice remaining inside, and I doubt you'd see them even halfway melted after a six hour outage.
posted by flabdablet at 9:37 PM on September 24 [4 favorites]
This.
My normal response to our power company notifying us of the 7 hour maintenance outages they schedule every now and then is simply to go shopping the day before and pack the fridge as full as it ever gets.
If your fridge is normally fairly sparsely stocked and you live somewhere with frequent unscheduled power outages, keep half a dozen soft-drink bottles 90% filled with water in your freezer (water expands as it freezes and a 10% air gap is plenty to stop a typical PET bottle from splitting). If an outage looks like persisting for more than an hour, transfer those into the fridge and relax. They will keep your fridge safely cool for as long as there's any solid ice remaining inside, and I doubt you'd see them even halfway melted after a six hour outage.
posted by flabdablet at 9:37 PM on September 24 [4 favorites]
Americans refrigerate some things that don't get refrigerated elsewhere. Eggs and cheese do not have to be kept cold. Nor cured meats before slicing.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:51 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
posted by SemiSalt at 4:51 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
Eggs are refrigerated in the US because the cuticle is removed in a washing process. This is not done in European egg processing. Eggs with no cuticle need to be refrigerated. Thus, eggs are refrigerated in the US and not in Europe. Also, the shelf life of refrigerated eggs with or without cuticle is about double that of unrefrigerated eggs.
posted by slkinsey at 4:58 AM on September 25 [12 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 4:58 AM on September 25 [12 favorites]
Best answer: If the fridge was closed and your health isn't frail then you should be fine.
Factors that might affect bacteria growth during the outage:
- How many times you opened the fridge during the outage (fewer is better)
- How full the fridge was, especially with liquids (fuller is better because cold stuff helps keep the other stuff around it cold, and in my experience, containers of cold liquids seem to do a better job of this)
- How cold you normally keep the fridge (if you keep it pretty cold then it will take longer to warm)
The main effect (if any) is that the food might go bad a little faster, so you might want to pay close attention to the "best by" dates and start giving things the sniff test the day before until you've eaten through everything that was in there. Be particularly attentive to anything stored in the door shelves, as that's usually the warmest part of the fridge.
The published food safety guidelines are to protect the very young, the very old, and people with crappy immune systems. Remember the Jack in the Box e. coli contamination a couple decades ago? Tens of thousands of people ate the contaminated burgers, but the four deaths were all children under the age of 7. If you don't have any especially vulnerable people in your household then you don't need to follow them as strictly.
Going forward, put a cup or open jar of water in your freezer door shelf. Once it has frozen solid, put a coin on top. Then in future power outages, once the power is back on, check to see if the coin sunk. The general rule of thumb is if the coin hasn't sunk then the contents of both the freezer and fridge are likely safe to eat, with the caveats of you didn't open the fridge a bunch during the outage, you don't have any especially vulnerable people in your household, and you should be aware that things may eventually go bad a little faster than normal so pay closer attention to "best by" dates.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:24 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
Factors that might affect bacteria growth during the outage:
- How many times you opened the fridge during the outage (fewer is better)
- How full the fridge was, especially with liquids (fuller is better because cold stuff helps keep the other stuff around it cold, and in my experience, containers of cold liquids seem to do a better job of this)
- How cold you normally keep the fridge (if you keep it pretty cold then it will take longer to warm)
The main effect (if any) is that the food might go bad a little faster, so you might want to pay close attention to the "best by" dates and start giving things the sniff test the day before until you've eaten through everything that was in there. Be particularly attentive to anything stored in the door shelves, as that's usually the warmest part of the fridge.
The published food safety guidelines are to protect the very young, the very old, and people with crappy immune systems. Remember the Jack in the Box e. coli contamination a couple decades ago? Tens of thousands of people ate the contaminated burgers, but the four deaths were all children under the age of 7. If you don't have any especially vulnerable people in your household then you don't need to follow them as strictly.
Going forward, put a cup or open jar of water in your freezer door shelf. Once it has frozen solid, put a coin on top. Then in future power outages, once the power is back on, check to see if the coin sunk. The general rule of thumb is if the coin hasn't sunk then the contents of both the freezer and fridge are likely safe to eat, with the caveats of you didn't open the fridge a bunch during the outage, you don't have any especially vulnerable people in your household, and you should be aware that things may eventually go bad a little faster than normal so pay closer attention to "best by" dates.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:24 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
Best answer: This happened to me last week when our power company shut off power for about 5 hours to fix a pole. I am sitting here alive and healthy a week later after eating out of my fridge- milk, cheese, eggs, ice cream, fruits.
posted by inevitability at 6:44 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
posted by inevitability at 6:44 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]
If storms are coming, I pack my fridge and freezer with bottles of water and turn it to a colder setting, so that it will stay cold a fair bit longer. 5 hours would not worry me. People think you can't thaw and re-freeze food. There can be a degradation of quality - specifically texture - but as long as the food is frozen or quite cold, it will be fine.
posted by theora55 at 4:46 PM on September 25
posted by theora55 at 4:46 PM on September 25
I would not be worried about anything except raw (not cured like pepperoni) meat/fish/leftovers that were already near their limit. Even those I'd only toss if they were room temperature when the power came back on, or if they smelled off, and otherwise just try to use them up soon. Everything else would be fine for a few hours even at room temperature, which the fridge will remain colder than for several hours.
I like to keep a small thermometer inside at all times, so if the power ever goes off for a long time, I can immediately see the warmest it got and make decisions based on that.
posted by randomnity at 7:37 AM on September 26
I like to keep a small thermometer inside at all times, so if the power ever goes off for a long time, I can immediately see the warmest it got and make decisions based on that.
posted by randomnity at 7:37 AM on September 26
By the way, if you have an ice maker where the cubes dump into a larger bucket then you don't need the coin trick - the cubes will melt together and refreeze into a tell-tale lump.
posted by metahawk at 9:54 PM on September 26
posted by metahawk at 9:54 PM on September 26
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If you have fresh seafood in there, I'd eat that tonight as it is the most sensitive to temperature, but you really don't need to worry about this.
posted by ssg at 3:32 PM on September 24 [25 favorites]