Food Safety After A Power Outage

Keep Food Safe

• Use and store food carefully to prevent foodborne illness when power outages make refrigeration unavailable.
• Use foods first that can spoil most rapidly.
• Keep doors to refrigerators and freezers closed. Your refrigerator's freezer will keep food frozen for up to a day. A separate fully-loaded freezer will keep food frozen for two days.
• Use an ice chest packed with ice to keep food cold. Buy dry ice to save frozen food. Do not handle dry ice with your bare hands. Use blocks or bags of ice to save refrigerator foods.
• Frozen food may thaw and refrigerator food may become warm enough to grow bacteria.
• If in doubt, throw it out. Throw out meat, seafood, dairy products and cooked foods that do not feel cold.
• Never taste suspect food. Even if food looks and smells fine, illness-causing bacteria may be present.

More food safety information is available at: www.cdhd.wa.gov