Here in the U.S. we are pretty lucky. Power outages are rare, and usually resolved fairly quickly, but every once in awhile, inclement weather or freak accidents can knock out the power for a lot longer than expected. Since it’s no secret how much I DESPISE food waste, it’s probably no surprise that it’s the first thing on my mind in the event of a power outage.
First, at any given time I have 2 to 4 plastic milk jugs filled with frozen water in my freezer. In the event of a long term power outage, they serve to keep the food colder longer. It is KEY not to open you fridge and freezer unnecessarily during an outage. It allows the cool air to escape, and speeds up the thawing process.
Installing a thermometer inside your fridge and freezer is also a great idea. During power outages, food that has stayed at least 40 degrees or colder can be safely refrozen. If you don’t have a thermometer inside the appliance, you will have to individually take the temperature of each item. I don’t know about you, but that would take me forever.
As a rule of thumb, if your power is out longer than four hours, you’ll probably need to throw out refrigerated perishables like deli meat, milk, poultry, etc. That is a sad, sad waste of food, so if possible, you may want to consider loading them into a cooler with blocks of ice or dry ice or into the freezer {if they are available}.
Perishable items can safely be left out for 2 hours, so any items you can’t find room for in the fridge/freezer/cooler should become dinner. Weather permitting, make it a BBQ night, so that you can properly prepare the food without electricity.
What precautions do you take to save your food during power outages?
~Mavis
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Michele says
Lost power in December for about 12hrs. Thankfully that was the week here in the Dallas area that we had thick ice and was in the teens outside. We didn’t open the deep freezer or freezer on the fridge. Once we sucker it up to open the fridge, everything that had to be kept cold took a vacation on my lawn nestled in the sleet and ice (about 4″). I had a couple turkeys outside for about 3 days and they were rock hard frozen solid.
Now if it goes out while its 103 down here…we may have a big barbeque to save and not waste completely. Lol
Cecily says
I make sure my freezer is always full with either food or water filled milk jugs. A full freezer takes longer to thaw and also cuts down on energy use. When we have power outages we usually use our woodstove to make “fridge” soup for dinner.
SJ says
One way to know if you’ve had an outage while away from home. Fill a water bottle half full and freeze on its side. Place the frozen bottle standing up. If you see that the water all on the bottom, that means your freezer has thawed and/or restarted and food might be good anymore.
Ani says
Brilliant! !
Pj says
I’ve loaded up my car with frozen food and put it in the freezer at work when we didn’t have power for several days. When our power came back on, I schlepped it home the next work day.
Stacey says
We live 40 miles from a grocery store and only make weekly trips in for groceries, so we have to keep our freezer pretty well stocked. We also are blessed with many power flickers and the expected outages. Whenever it happens, opening the frig or freezer is a HUGE no-no since we never know how long the power will be off. Last outage season the longest was 10 hours. We have come home from grocery shopping to find the power off and left everything packed in the coolers. Thankfully, we have a small convenience gas station that keeps itself well-stocked on ice. Even when they don’t have power, they allow us to buy ice from them. We just have to make sure we have coolers available.
CathyB says
Last year our power was out for 5 days after a big windstorm in the area. Fortunately we do have a small gas generator which we used every so often to run the freezer to keep things cold. For the more perishable stuff that we wanted to get access to regularly for meals, we put in the propane fridge in our camper. We have regularly used our camper for week-long camping trips without electricity, so we just thought of it as a “camping trip” at home. Also great to use are those heavy duty coolers that are used for camping. Basically think of anything that you would use for a camping trip without electricity: coolers, gas grills, camp stoves, etc. The hardest part for us was that we have our own well and our generator is not large enough to run the well pump. But we do have a big emergency water storage tank and smaller 5 gallon carboys to refill and use in the house. We just had to hit the local gym for showers. Also fortunately our septic system is gravity fed, so we could still flush – we just used some rainwater in buckets to flush the toilets. Sorry, probably too much info. But it is good to think through these scenarios before you need them.
Shawn says
One thing that may be a possibility, most often when the power goes out its winter anyhow and the temperature outside is often 40 or below, especially at night. If thats the case, just put the stuff on the back porch in a box or whatever. No power needed 🙂