After a power outage, what to keep and what to throw out

By The Pantry Pro team · 6 September 2026 · Updated 8 September 2026 · 8 min read

An outage asks two questions with different answers. The refrigerator is a question about hours. The freezer is a question about ice.

The four-hour refrigerator figure and the 24-and-48-hour freezer figures are federal guidance restated by the extension services. Minnesota names the original: the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service's A Consumer's Guide to Food Safety: Severe Storms and Hurricanes. The produce rules, the condiment threshold, the dry-ice rate and the ice-cube test are the services' own, and they do not all agree.

Two clocks, and what they both assume

University of Illinois Extension gives the three numbers in their plainest form: refrigerated food is safe for up to 4 hours, food in a half-full freezer for up to 24 hours, and food in a full freezer for up to 48 (Illinois Extension, Power Outages).

Other services widen the refrigerator figure, because a kitchen is not a fixed environment. Minnesota gives 4 to 6 hours "depending on the temperature of the kitchen" (UMN Extension, Power outages: keep food safe, reviewed 2021), and Clemson about four to six (Clemson HGIC 3760, Food Safety in Power Outages). Plan against four and treat six as luck.

The gap between the two freezer numbers is frozen mass rather than the appliance, so filling the empty space is a precaution rather than tidiness. Water frozen in jugs is the cheap version of the ice blocks Illinois says to add.

Every number assumes a closed door. Minnesota's instruction is not to open the refrigerator except to add ice, and not to open the freezer unnecessarily. That is the reason to know what is in the freezer without looking, which is what a freezer inventory you will actually keep is for.

That count is worth having before the forecast. In Pantry Pro, open Inventory and work through the rows in each refrigerator and freezer location, comparing the recorded quantity against the shelf; Still here stamps a row as checked once a person has looked. Then write the counts down: the rows load from the server, and paper survives a dark kitchen.

The refrigerator is judged by temperature, then by category

When the power comes back, the first reading is the thermometer, not the shelf. Clemson discards any perishable food that has been above 40 °F for two hours or more; Illinois says it from the other side: four hours above 40 °F and the perishable food goes.

Clemson then sorts the refrigerator by category, and the split is not intuitive. From its two lists:

Discard if above 40 °F for 2 hours or more	Keeps at room temperature a few days
Meat, poultry, fish, eggs and egg substitutes, raw or cooked	Butter or margarine
Milk, cream, yogurt and soft cheese	Hard and processed cheeses
Casseroles, stews and soups	Fresh fruits and vegetables
Lunch meats and hot dogs	Opened jars of vinegar-based salad dressing, jelly and relish
Custard, chiffon or cheese pies	Fruit pies, bread, rolls and muffins
Cut fresh fruit; greens, cooked vegetables and opened vegetable juice (Penn State's rows, not Clemson's)

Clemson bounds that right-hand list: those foods keep at room temperature a few days, and anything that turns moldy or takes on an unusual odor is discarded.

The produce row is where HGIC 3760's list stops short: it reads "Fresh fruits and vegetables" and nothing more, which is why the cut-produce row in the discard column is Penn State's. Penn State's chart discards "cut fresh fruits" and "greens, cooked vegetables, opened vegetable juice" and keeps uncut fresh fruit and fresh vegetables (Penn State Extension, Keeping Food Safe When the Power Goes Out, March 2022). Clemson makes the same split in its other factsheet: the Power Out Chart in HGIC 3780 discards cooked vegetables, baked potatoes, and packaged, pre-cut, pre-washed greens (Clemson HGIC 3780) — bagged salad, which the shorter list never reaches. Read HGIC 3760's row as the uncut case: the melon you cut on Tuesday and the greens do not keep.

Two more things catch people. Hard cheese survives and soft cheese does not, though most kitchens think of cheese as one food. And three condiments get their own threshold: discard open mayonnaise, tartar sauce and horseradish above 50 °F for more than eight hours.

Cooked food sits in the left column with the raw meat it came from, and how long food really keeps covers why.

The freezer is judged package by package

The freezer question is not how long the power was out. It is what state each package is in now.

The core test is the same everywhere: food that still contains ice crystals can be refrozen, and Illinois states the threshold as ice crystals or 40 °F or colder. Penn State covers the case where the crystals are gone — food thawed completely but still at or below 40 °F on a digital thermometer can also go back in (Penn State Extension) — and Minnesota names raw meat and poultry as safe to refreeze at 40 °F or less.

Past that the services disagree, and the disagreement is about produce. Minnesota's discard list carries "thawed vegetables" flat, with no test attached. Clemson is more permissive: vegetables frozen plain, with no sauce, may be cooked and refrozen if they still contain ice crystals, feel as cold as if refrigerated and show no sign of spoilage, and are discarded if held above 40 °F for six hours (Clemson HGIC 3780). Penn State goes furthest: fruits and vegetables and their juices, "if they look and smell normal", can be refrozen even after more than two hours above 40 °F. Nothing reconciles the three. Minnesota's line costs the most food and asks the least of your judgment.

Meat is the second disagreement, and a smaller one. Minnesota and Penn State refreeze raw meat and poultry that is still at 40 °F or below; Clemson says that once meat, poultry or fish has completely thawed it is best discarded, ground and sliced cuts first. On cooked food they agree: cooked dishes are not refrozen — Minnesota names pizza, hot dishes, stews and soups, and adds melted ice cream, creamed foods and puddings; Clemson says the same of any cooked food that thawed, and adds cream pies. Iowa State catches the awkward middle of most freezers: rice and pasta casseroles, and baked goods with a custard or cheese filling (Iowa State Extension, updated April 2025).

Fruit is the category every service still takes back: Minnesota refreezes thawed fruit "if it still smells good", Clemson if it looks and smells acceptable. Quality is a separate question — Iowa State says refreezing costs it, and Utah State puts thawed fruit into cooking or preserves (USU Extension, September 2020).

So the decision is made one package at a time. Clemson's rule has no conditions on it: examine each package, and discard it if the color or odor is poor or questionable. One verdict for the whole cabinet is wrong about part of it.

Nothing gets tasted

Minnesota, Penn State, both Clemson factsheets and Iowa State say it in nearly the same words: food is not tasted to find out whether it is safe. It can look and smell fine and still carry enough bacteria to make somebody ill, and after an outage there is less to see: a package that thawed and froze again looks like the one beside it that never moved. Iowa State puts it in six words: "When in doubt, throw it out."

The outage nobody was home for

That is the hard case, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension answers it with a plastic bag: keep an ice cube or two in a sealed bag in the freezer, because an unsealed cube evaporates and leaves no reading. A cube melted out of its shape means the power was off long enough to matter (UNL Food, reviewed 2026).

Dry ice, with the caution attached

For a long outage, dry ice extends the freezer. Clemson's rate is 2½ to 3 pounds per cubic foot of freezer space (Clemson HGIC 3780), more of it spread across the shelves in an upright model, handled with gloves or tongs because it burns skin. Minnesota adds the warning: ventilate the room, because carbon dioxide gas can accumulate and cause loss of consciousness or asphyxiation.

Write down what leaves

The last step happens with the trash bag already open, and it gets skipped. List what you threw out: after a bad outage that list is the only record any of it existed.

Work down the same rows you counted before the storm, applying the guidance above to each one, and mark what failed Threw out — the quick action for food discarded rather than eaten. Add the replacements you actually want to the shared shopping list by hand.

Nothing in the app decides what is safe — no temperature sensing, no keep-or-discard verdict, and a household record of what was lost is not an insurance claim.

The thermometer and the clock decide what is safe. The list decides how much of the rest you get back.

Prepare your freezer inventory before the next outage

Opens Pantry Pro, which is free to start. It asks you to sign in, or to start a pantry if you do not have one yet.