After 12 hours of no electricity, how much of my food is still good?

[TheFarseer]

We lost power in Omaha yesterday. I never once opened the fridge or freezer. I would think most of it's fine, but I have really low standards so maybe someone can set me straight :)

[begin_within]

1. I would venture to say none of it is truly safe now except for items that did not need refrigeration

[tainted_chimp]

2. id start eating the contents now.

cook it up - invite pals...and have a picnic.

[TheFarseer]

5. power's back now

so no need to eat all the icecream in one sitting or anything like that!

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. It's all still good, esp. if you never opened the door.

[Wcross]

4. As long as it smells good eat it!

Don't worry, it is good.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

6. Avoid anything...fuzzy.

:)

[TheFarseer]

9. there's some of that

but I can't blame that on the power!

[Gormy Cuss]

7. If you have a refrigerator with good door seals, a lot of items can be saved.

Otherwise, consider the refrigerator compartment products as mostly spoiled. Dairy products and meats and leftovers may have spoiled. For those items, if you choose to eat them it's probably best to do so after cooking and eat them today. When in doubt, throw it out. Fresh uncooked fruits and vegetables should be fine, as should pickles, olives, and the like.

The freezer stuff should be fine since the outage was less than a day.

But don't take advice from me:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/NR_121007_01/index.asp

[TheFarseer]

8. good to know the freezer is fine

as for the fridge I'm thinking no on milk, mayo and yogurt(store brand yogurt, it sucks anyway) and yes to everything else. The bacon is a bit of a wildcard. Damnit, it's really good bacon, not store brand crap.

[Chan790]

11. Bacon is fried at high-heat...

so that should kill anything in it...just cook to crispy. Loose-meats (hamburger, sausage) also will be fine if you cook to well-done.

Most Salmonella and E.coli outbreaks and contamination occur as a result of poor food-handling techniques. Nothing that touches raw meat touches cooked meat. Wash your hands a lot. Scrub down counter and cooking surfaces. Never reuse a cutting board. Common sense stuff you already know.

[Chan790]

10. Well...

according to food safety standards we have to follow at work (I work in a coffeehouse...so a food establishment) it's all garbage. We have much stricter standards however than what an average consumer could use in their home because we're feeding a public with potentially much higher sensitivities. Most of your food should be fine on account of the fridge/freezer staying closed as that usually will keep the inside near-temp for 24 hours unless it was very warm during the outage.

For home usages, I'd use some basic guidelines, in descending order:

All raw-consumed seafood is trash. Theoretically, you can cook it. "Today's clams on the half-shell are tomorrow's chowdah"...as they say in these parts. (That is true...most fresh seafood restaurants use the previous day's raw bar for cooked ingredients. They're not supposed to, but they do.)

Anything still hard-frozen (no visible liquid in the packaging, still hard to the touch like a rock) is automatically fine.

Anything which has to cook (hotdogs, hamburger, meat, poultry, eggs) in direct heat (i.e. stove-top, fried or boiled but NOT the oven) should be fine. You do need to cook it to well-done though and use it as soon as possible. I'd probably "de-case" any raw sausages though into loose-meat.

If you have pot roasts, pork roasts, pork bellies, sides of beef, roaster fowl. etc. That's your dinner. If you've got a lot...throw a party. You've got approximately 2-3 days to use all of it. You can cook it, piece it down to serving sizes, and refreeze (once).

Pre-cooked/heat-and-serve foods (pizzas, hot pockets, veggie-burgers, packaged entrees and/or sides, etc.) are fine as long as they are not fully thawed.

Raw fruits and vegetables are fine. Refrigerated meat-free pasta is fine...the texture might change though.

Anything with dairy in it, gets the smell test before consuming. When in doubt, throw it out.

Anything else, come back and ask.

[rug]

12. How hungry are you?