Power outages can occur at any time, whether we’re away, at work, or relaxing at home watching a television series. If we’re at home when it happens, we know how long our refrigerator and freezer are without power, leaving our food vulnerable. If you’re traveling or away for the day, it’s a different story. Once frozen food begins to thaw, bacteria start to grow immediately.
Regardless of whether the power is off for a short time or many hours, once it restores, your food will refreeze, now with bacteria present. A valuable lesson many of us learned from our mothers is that refreezing thawed food is not advisable. Even refrigerated food is affected as bacteria grow during the outage, causing it to warm up. There’s a straightforward life hack to help with this situation. You freeze a cup of water and place a quarter on top of it. Any coin will do.
After a power outage, the coin’s position will indicate how long the power was out, according to the Tiffy Taffy website. If your freezer gets warm enough, the water will melt, and the coin will sink. Once the power is back, the water will refreeze, and the coin’s location informs you whether it’s time to discard much of your food.
