Foo - How long can you keep food in the fridge after the power goes out?

We've had another power outage up here (no wacka wacka puffa puffa either this time), but lots of people (like the GF) here don't have power. She didn't take my advice to fill the fridge with beer to provide ample reserves of cooling in case the power goes out, and I'm wondering how long until the food starts to spoil in there. Does anyone know?

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/keeping_food_safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp

The article I referenced says as little as 4 hours on many items. Better start an egg fight NOW.

You can keep it in there forever. Now, if you're expecting it to be edible, that's a different story.

There's no blanket time frame; it depends on the food item. Obviously meat and dairy are of prime concern. What are you concerned about?

If you never open the fridge after the power goes out and the fridge was in good shape and working well, you can go a day. My advice, run to the store and get ice, pull out the diary products and keep them cool. Leave the frozen food alone - it should be oK for day and eat what you can.

You can keep it in there forever. Now, if you're expecting it to be edible, that's a different story.

Now there's a foo answer! Maybe we'll discover an antibiotic that will kill off MRSA if the power's off for long enough.


There's no blanket time frame; it depends on the food item. Obviously meat and dairy are of prime concern. What are you concerned about?

The stuff she's feed me when I'm over! She's got some eggs and lunchmeat that I expect would go first.


If you never open the fridge after the power goes out and the fridge was in good shape and working well, you can go a day. My advice, run to the store and get ice, pull out the diary products and keep them cool. Leave the frozen food alone - it should be oK for day and eat what you can.

The power failed about a month ago - and came back on about a hour after I brought the ice and cooler over.

The article I referenced says as little as 4 hours on many items. Better start an egg fight NOW.

We can throw them at the houses of the people who still have power - wait, that'd be my place!

you shoudl eat all the food that would spoil soon.

When in doubt throw it out.

Now there's a foo answer! Maybe we'll discover an antibiotic that will kill off MRSA if the power's off for long enough.


And thus, Foo will save the world again!

Could be worse. Friends went away for a few week vacation with an outstanding electrical bill and got their power turned off. I checking in on their place, noticed the stench, and spend a good 4 hours trying not to be sick cleaning spoiled food. By far the worst part was the ice cream that melted down and then leaked over everything in the fridge. It was bad enough that I worried that they would be in bad shape with the complex if left till their return.

Ice cream, be sure to eat all of the ice cream!

Um....it all depends on how long was/is the power out.

We lost our power on Thursday and our food is still edible, 'course the power was only out for about a second or two!! :D

Ice cream, be sure to eat all of the ice cream!

I'm going to start with the beer. Her power came back on early last night, and I haven't been over there to check things out. "Everything must go" is one of her mottos (I'm not sure how I've lasted this long), and I'm sure there will be a big pile in the garbage when I get there.

smell test followed by the 6 second rule.

We used to live in Pakistan and the power goes out there every other hour(only get 12 hours each day). Sometimes the power was out for up to 6 hours at a time so the food did spoil sometimes. We just used to buy lots of ice and put it in our freezer and when the power went out we put all the meats/dairy into a cooler with the ice.

You can keep it in there forever. Now, if you're expecting it to be edible, that's a different story.

Let the truth be told.

:):roflmao::lol:

Depends on the size of the fridge. The one at my work holds about 10 million pounds of cheese and takes 8 hours to go from 34 to 36 degrees.

when my power goes out, it's usually off anywhere from hours to days, so after 11 days of melting snow & ice to wash (electric water pump), we installed a Generac back-up generator, which actually woke me up last night around midnight. Hubby says the power came back on around 1 this afternoon. It automatically fired up after the power's off for 30 seconds, and shuts itself down when the electric feed returns (what a smart machine!), and runs on that same free natural gas we use for heat. One of my bro's happened to be visiting when we had an outage, and went home to VA and installed one for his house - of course, he had to put a propane tank in along with it, but it has come in handy for him, too, during big storms.

But, prior to the age of Generac, we always kept a bunch of gallon jugs of water in the bottom of the deep freeze, which we could put in the fridge to keep stuff cool, and rotate around the freezer, too. When it melted, we had drinking water.

Personally, I prefer not to store too much perishable food in the refrigerator/freezer. I like to keep a small supply of fresh food no longer than about 2 days there. For longer storage (and allowing for brown/blackouts), I like canned, dried, prepackaged room tempurature foods sitting in the pantry's shelves.