Senior News Line: Food safety during power outages

There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and not all of it is good. We need to be aware of what’s going on around us, especially with the important things like our food.

FoodSafety.gov has become my go-to for all types of food safety information. At this writing, the headlines on their opening page include an investigation into an outbreak of salmonella in cucumbers, lead in imported cookware, listeria in ready-to-eat beef and poultry and three ways to keep your food safe when you lose power.

The section, “Food Safety During Power Outages,” of FoodSafety.gov has become increasingly helpful — the more storms we get, the more often the power goes out.

This sentence caught my attention, because I had not known it: “Discard refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs and leftovers after four hours without power.”

I’d always used temperature as a gauge. Not accurate and not safe, it turns out. Their chart lists foods with a “Keep” or “Discard” notation if that food has been in a refrigerator or freezer without power for four hours.

You can even click the download button to print out the information. Not a bad idea — if you have no power, you can’t use your computer to access the FoodSafety.gov website to check the details.

To keep your food safe during all of our winter storms and outages, I invite you to go online to FoodSafety.gov and look around. There is a Recalls button that leads to a page of recalls and outbreaks.

From the linked page there are additional links to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration.

For even more information, go to CDC.gov and search for “food safety” to learn how to prevent foodborne illness.