My sister was prevented from returning to her home for a week after the big fire in Oakland years ago. When she got home, the food in the fridge looked and smelled fine. It was only AFTER she got food poisoning that she learned that the power had only just been turned back on shortly before she arrived. If in doubt, toss it!

So, who funded this study?

If I had to throw out milk/eggs/meat for every four out outage, I wouldn't be allowed to keep any such food for a week, thanks to BGE. I'm in a rural area near a transformer, every time anyone has a tree limb down, for safety they disconnect power in front of my house and I get it back 8 hours later.

When I was in Ireland they kept eggs on the kitchen counter and get to them some time during the week.

If you leave the freezer door closed throughout the entire outage, everything inside is fine.

Milk is easy to tell; if it smells sour, throw it out, if not, it's fine.

Excuse me, I have to run around in circles now and scream the sky is falling.

FR: The study was funded by a grant from the National Integrated Food Safety Initiative of the USDA. It was conducted by reserachers at Tennessee State University and Jackson State Community College and RTI International. http://bsun.md/ole9un Scientists say sniffing your food is an unreliable means of detecting dangerous spoilage. Also, with regard to frozen food, the study notes that it is partially or completely thawed food that is suspect.

I live nr Loch Raven in an area where we have power issues (none in the most recent year, but a few epic ones in the past). One thing I do is keep all of my "artificial ice" packs in the freezer at all times unless it is too full & I have to take some out. This is stuff like "Blue Ice" picnic cooler packs & orthpedic "ice packs" -- anything with a healthy heat of fusion that holds temp as long as possible. The important thing is to have your freezer as full as possible -- if it is half full, consider an ice block -- so there is maximum mass to be thawed. If you expect an outage, and if you have empty space in your fridge, consider putting in an ice block (in a water-proof container for when it starts to melt!!) Anything that will suck in heat when it melts. I don't have a full-sized freezer any more, but would definitely keep it well packed -- it is more efficient than keeping a half-empty chest cool and helps in a power failure.