What is a safe temperature for foods in a refrigerator?
Refrigerators are designed to work non-stop, all
day, every day. They are never expected to get a break, and they are meant
to be on even in the toughest of weather conditions. Even a small bit of
time with your refrigerator not working could mean that much of your food
goes bad, and so they have been designed to rarely, if ever, shut down and
to withstand a fairly decent amount of abuse.
But sometimes things can happen – things that you
cannot necessarily control. At any point while you won a refrigerator:
·
Your power could go out for as long as
24 hours or more.
·
Your refrigerator can experience some
type of significant problem and break.
When these occur, there is rightfully a great deal
of concern that all of the content of your fridge may spoil, and if that is
the case, you could lose a great deal of the food you had spent good money
on purchasing. Here are some things you can do if the power goes out in your
fridge.
When the Power Goes Out Less Than 24 Hours
For the first 24 hours after the power goes out, do
not open your fridge for any reason. Try to make sure it is tightly closed,
and that no one goes in there for even a small drink, no matter how quickly.
Cold air in your refrigerator will linger a long time, but only if it is not
diluted with warm air from outside of the fridge. As soon as the door is
opened, the cold air will come rushing out, and with the power out, no new
cold air will be there to replace it.
After 24 Hours
After the initial 24 hours there is a good chance
most of your very perishable items are now gone. However, you do have the
option of continuing to make the refrigerator cold by putting large pieces
of dry ice (available at most grocery stores) inside of the refrigerator to
help it last a little while longer. In your freezer, you will need several
pounds if you wish to keep those foods cold, and experts recommend 1 pound
of dry ice for every 1 cubic food of space. In the refrigerator, you will
need less, but still a fairly large amount of dry ice.
Preparing for Power Outages
If there are heavy rains or wind and a power outage
may occur, consider turning your refrigerator and freezer down to their
coldest temperatures possible in advance, so that if the power does go out
the air inside of the fridge is colder.
As soon as the power comes back on, give your
refrigerator time to cool back down, and then go through any foods that may
have expired while they were inside the warmer fridge. Be liberal with
throwing out the foods that may have expired, because the price of replacing
those items is less than the price of experiencing serious illness from
bad/expired food items.
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