The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Si_Clist

If I may ask, roughly whereabouts on the planet are you, Mrs CD?

jk0

My mother's 40 year old fridge freezer was without power for 21 hours. She's not bothered about checking if anything thawed. Should she have? I'm concerned about food poisoning.

MrsCD

Si_Clist said:

If I may ask, roughly whereabouts on the planet are you, Mrs CD?

I'm in a little village in north west County Durham, Si. Otherwise known as out in the sticks! 

MrsCD

jk0 said:

My mother's 40 year old fridge freezer was without power for 21 hours. She's not bothered about checking if anything thawed. Should she have? I'm concerned about food poisoning.

I checked online as I was concerned as well. If the freezer is packed, then 48 hours should be ok if the door hasn't been opened. If ice cream has thawed, please throw out. Fridge, just throw any high risk foods out if you're worried. I tried not to open the door, so most of my foods were ok. I have a thermometer in the fridge so I knew the temperature hadn't gone above 5c.  I put milk in a small bottle on the bench. It was so cold in the house it was fine!

LadOnTheHill

You can get remote thermometers to use in fridges and freezers. You put the sensing unit inside the freezer, then there's an lcd display that shows you the temperature. You can set them to alarm if the temperature goes above a certain point, too. They don't have long term tracking, so it wouldn't show you if the freezer had defrosted and then re-froze (put an ice cube in a box, if it melts you'll know the freezer has defrosted at some point), but the alarm is relatively loud and the display can be sited several yards away, depending on wall thickness. You'll need lithium aa batteries if you're using it in the freezer, as they work better at lower temperatures.

The brand is Oria on the big river website, about £15 I think I paid. We have been using them for several months and they've worked great. Where in the freezer you site the sender unit does make a difference. Putting it at the bottom of a chest freezer will mean it won't alarm you so quickly and may reduce the distance the signal can be sent, putting it on the top might mean a better signal but more alarms if you have the lid open a lot and allow the unit to "defrost". We put ours under the top layer of food, so there's a bit of a buffer, but it will still go off relatively quickly if there's a problem.

Si_Clist

In case these are new to anybody on here who might be interested in the subject(s) of them, here's links to Freeze It and the Food Standards Agency - https://www.freezeit.co.uk/  and https://www.food.gov.uk/

The first one has the advantage of not being an American site, and apart from anything else, the second one's where you can sign up for emails warning you not to buy that disgusting-looking stuff that posh folk buy in dinky little jars 'cos one of the undeclared ingredients in the last batch is botulism toxin

-taff

Wow..never knew so much stuff was being recalled.....

Toonie

Once again glad of preps as my three week old job has ended as the family I was working for decided they needed a more flexible approach to childcare, something which just doesn't work as a zero hours contract is unacceptable and I'm not willing to be at their beck and call. Right now I'm feeling rather glum, but tomorrow I'll start job hunting again and I'll work out what we have against what we need to get through to the end of the month (including Christmas as we're hosting FIL).

Si_Clist

-taff said:

Wow..never knew so much stuff was being recalled.....

And that's only the stuff that's been notified to the FSA ...

tiddles

Very useful, thank you Si_Clist. 

My daughter had bought some Lidl stuffed dates as part of a Christmas present, and is now going to return them to the store for a refund.