Here's How Long You Have To Save Your Food If Your Fridge Dies

Power outages are no fun, and they often lead to a lot of wasted food. You might want to save as much as you possibly can, but the hard truth is that a disconnected fridge can only keep food safe for four hours. Once those four hours are up, you'll need to do as the United States Department of Agriculture recommends and throw out all the perishable food like meat, eggs, fish, and leftovers.

Because the time limit is so tight, keeping track of when a power outage starts and ends is essential. This is most problematic when your power goes out during the night — but there could be ways of figuring it out. If your fridge has a thermometer in it, that should be the first thing you check. As long as the temperature is still below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, your food should be fine. You can also check electronics like your phone to see how charged they are — a full battery won't tell you much but if it barely charged at all, you'll know the outage happened pretty soon after you went to bed.

If you can't confidently pinpoint the time, you'll unfortunately need to forfeit your perishable food. It's annoying, but you and your family will have a really bad time if you end up with food poisoning. On the bright side, not all foods need to be thrown away.

If you pass the four-hour mark, you don't need to empty your fridge completely. FoodSafety.gov has a detailed list of what to do with each kind of food — but here's the lowdown. The main food types you need to get rid of are raw meats, fish, seafood, or soy-based meat. Soft cheeses are also a no-go, along with other dairy products and eggs. Lastly, any leftovers or half-eaten foods need to go too, including cut-up fruits and veg or cooked meals you intended to reheat later. All of these foods will go bad quickly when they rise above a certain temperature, but, on the upside, there are also plenty of foods that can survive for longer. 

Most condiments, for example, should keep just fine, as well as uncut fruit and vegetables and hard or processed cheeses. Butter and margarine will also keep, and anything baked like breads, muffins, cakes, tortillas, waffles, or pancakes will survive too. 

If your power has been out for less than four hours but you don't know when it will come back, you can try to save your perishable food. This involves packing the food you want to save into a cooler and filling it with ice or ice packs. You'll also need a thermometer because it's important to be sure the food is kept at 40 degrees or below.

To maintain this kind of temperature, you'll likely need to replace the ice fairly frequently — which could be difficult considering the lack of power. On the bright side, freezers stay cold for much longer during power outages, especially if they're full. So if you run to the store and buy enough ice to fill your freezer, it should last for around 48 hours.

Once your power comes back, you'll also be able to refreeze most of the food in your freezer, as long as it still has ice crystals and feels nice and cold. The main exceptions to this are ice creams and frozen yogurts, which are pretty much useless as soon as they melt (unless you feel like making melted ice cream cake).