I recently spoke for a community group that requested a class on food safety. That’s my favorite topic, so I was right in my element. I told them the title of my class would be “We haven’t died, yet”. At first, they were reluctant to use it, but, after I explained they agreed.

Over the many years I’ve worked for the Cooperative Extension Service, I’ve answered many phone calls and questions regarding the safety of food ---usually something someone did in their home and were concerned that the food wasn’t safe to eat. Sometimes, after I give them the answer (even after extensive research) they didn’t like what I tell them, especially when I recommend tossing the food. Frequently the response I get is: “We’ve always done it this way and we haven’t died, yet.” Thus, the name for this class. I’ve always said when I retire, I’m going to write a book about all these questions and that’s going to be the title.

First, before I share what we talked about in this class, here are some basics about food safety.

There is a temperature danger zone (TDG). This TDZ is between 41 degrees F and 135 degrees F. (Yep, room temperature.) The general “rule of thumb” is that food should not stay in this TDZ for longer than four hours, because after four hours, if there were pathogens on or in the food, they will have grown to an amount that may make someone sick. The goal is to keep food hot (over 135 degrees F) or cold (below 41 degrees F) to help avoid these problems.

I gave the class members a short TRUE and FALSE quiz. Here are a few of the questions…see how well you do.

Q: True or False?

The temperature inside your refrigerator should be between 41 degrees F and 50 degrees F.

A: FALSE.

Think about that Temperature Danger Zone. The temperature in your refrigerator should be cool enough to keep the food below 41 degrees F. Typically, the best temperature is between 35 degrees F (cold enough, but won’t freeze your fresh fruits and vegetables) and 38 degrees F (this allows for the opening and closing of the doors). The best way to know if your fridge is at a good temperature is with a thermometer.

Q. True or False?

Placing a coin on top of ice in a cup is a great way to know if the food in your freezer has defrosted during a power outage.

A: FALSE.

It seems like a great idea but (sorry) this method doesn’t work as well as we would like to think. There has been no evidence-based research to show that it is reliable. One problem is that as ice melts, water begins to collect in the cup the ice will float. The coin may stay on the top and when the water refreezes it looks as if nothing melted. This could give you a false sense that “everything is good” ---when in reality the temperature in the freezer did go up. There are just too many variables and unknowns. On the other hand, if the ice completely melts and the coin is in the bottom of the cup you definitely know that the freezer defrosted. But you still don’t know how high the temperature got. The only true way to know how warm/hot your freezer got is to use a thermometer. But, if you’re not around when the power comes back on it’s hard to get that temperature. Some newer freezers have built in temperature alarms that will tell you when the temperature is going up. Some are digital and remote can be read without even opening the door and letting warm air inside which is a nice bonus. There are even some that use wi-fi.

Q: True or False?

It is safe to eat a steak that was thawed in the refrigerator and then refrozen.

A: TRUE.

It is perfectly safe to eat that steak (or any other food). The key is that it was kept below 41 degrees F during the thawing. You need to treat that thawed meat as you would any food or leftover in the fridge and eat within 5-7 days. Freezing slows pathogen growth, but it doesn’t kill it. There may be some quality and texture change, due to freezing and thawing and refreezing, but safety is not a concern.

There were many more questions and lots of discussion. If you’d like to have someone from our FCS team, come out to your group with a food safety class, give us a call or drop an email.

Brunswick County Center Syracuse is a Family and Consumer Science team member and can be reached at NC Cooperative Extension, Brunswick County Center 910-253-2610 or clsyracu@ncsu.edu