What’s Safe to Eat After Extended Outage? USDA Lists Do’s and Don’ts

After going without electricity for up to 9 hours or more, many locals are wondering Friday what food in their refrigerators and freezers is safe to eat.
 
The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline has good news about your freezer food and more concern about dairy products left unchilled Thursday night for more than four hours.
 
Here are their recommendations:

• Refrigerator foods to throw away: mayonnaise, cut fruit, luncheon meat, leftovers, eggs, unprocessed sliced cheese and dairy products.
• Refrigerator foods safe to keep: condiments (ketchup and mustard, etc.), processed cheese, vegetables, butter/margarine and opened fruit juice.
•  Anything with vinegar in it, such as pickles and olives, is OK to keep.
• It’s not enough to rely on the “sniff test” or appearance of the food to determine the safety, said a USDA spokeswoman. If food gets warm enough, the bacteria that grows cannot be cooked out of the food.
• Freezer food, however, will be less of a problem, the spokesman said. As long as the power outage last less than 24 hours, it’s a quality issue rather than a safety issue, the spokeswoman said.
• As long as the freezer temperature didn’t exceed 40 degrees, the food should be fine, she said.
• If the food has ice crystals or a frozen core, the food will be safe, she said. Freezer burn may be possible, though.

For more information, call the USDA at 1-888-674-6854 from 10-4 eastern time or go to askkaren.gov, which has a 24-hour database that gives information about food-borne illnesses.