I travel all over the country giving preparedness presentations to a wide variety of audiences.
So who watches my place while I’m gone?
Usually my better half does, but sometimes she travels with me and neighbors keep an eye on security, plus we have an array of systems, services, electronics, etc. to help keep us safe.
But who monitors the food in the fridge? And why should anyone?
Here’s why. Some times when we get home it’s obvious there’s been a power outage. We can tell because all the clocks on the appliances that took us so long to set are now back to showing a zero or a blinking “12.”
That begs the questions, “How long was the power out, and how safe is the food?” “If we eat something, is it going to make us sick?”
Naturally, the first thing we do is ask the neighbors when we see them. And, we have some indicators we set in place before leaving.
If you travel like we do and want to know how things are when you get home, here are a few things to do to ensure food safety.
1. Take a saucer, put an ice cube in the middle of it and set it all back in the freezer. If you come home from a trip and the cube has melted and refrozen as a little pond in the saucer, then the power was out long enough for some of your more perishable items to be tossed. Things like mayonnaise, raw meats, etc. that could be very bad for you should be tossed. Other things like milk or vegetables that you can still tell whether they’re good or not (milk will sour, veggies will wilt, and so on) and can be checked and possibly saved.
2. Another thing we do is we keep two-liter plastic bottles full (well, 3/4 full actually. Need to leave room for ice expansion) of water that we stick in the freezer and let freeze solid. We do this so that if we do have a power outage, the fridge stays colder longer and so does our food. We lay the bottles on their side and when they freeze, the air bubble is along the top side of the bottle. We turn this 1/4 turn in the freezer so that the air bubble is on the side. If we come home and not only is the cube melted, but the bubble in the bottle is now at the top, that means the power was out for several hours and pretty much everything that was perishable needs to be tossed.
Better safe than sorry, and these are a couple of no-cost tricks that can help you stay safe and healthy when coming home from vacation.
Paul Purcell
Author – Disaster Prep 101
Available through 1-800-Prepare