Food Safety Tips During a Power Outage
Food safety tips during a power outage 01:44
(CBS Detroit) – Severe storms knocked out power to more than 200,000 customers Tuesday night, and tens of thousands of DTE customers remain without power.
Those same households are now having to contend with rotting food.
“Food left in the fridge for more than four hours puts it at risk for foodborne illness,” says Ashley Carnahan, a registered dietitian with Henry Ford Health.
“Fruits like apples and oranges and vegetables like tomatoes and peppers should be fine,” Carnahan says.
Carnahan added that the main problems are with items that need to be thrown out after four hours, like eggs, milk and meat. If the temperature in your fridge is above 104 degrees, that might be OK, but that's not always the case, she said.
“Anything you put in the freezer is safe for 24 hours,” Carnahan told CBS News Detroit, “especially if there are still crystals and the temperature is below 41 degrees.”
Carnahan understands that this week's storms have really upset a lot of people.
But he stressed that no one wants to add food poisoning to their current list of problems.
“Food poisoning is a risk,” Carnahan says, “so you don't want it to happen to you. You can't put a price on your health, right? Better to be safe than sorry.”
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