Many people have complained of having to empty their fridges after long periods of no electricity; others are wary about whether their food is still safe to eat in the hot weather. Certain supermarkets do have standby generators mainly for their tills and lighting. It is of extreme concern when power outages extend for a long time, particularly if for more than four hours. Their frozen and chilled foods usually deteriorate and the products become unfit for human consumption. According to the bylaws, cooked foodstuffs have to be kept either hot or cold at a temperature above 65C or below 10C. What to do Frozen products like ice cream and sorbet, excluding sorbet that was used for soft-serve purposes, have to be kept at -18C and all other foods which were marked as a frozen product at -12C. Chilled products such as raw unpreserved fish, mollusks, crustaceans, edible offal, poultry meat and milk are to be kept at temperatures below 4C, and other perishables that were to be kept chilled to prevent spoilage should be stored at below 7C. "Ice cream shall not be refrozen once the contents have thawed. If it has, you would find ice crystals in the product," a food safety manager, Singh, said. Warwick Rebeck, owner of a Butchery shop, said that food items stored in fridges, which were usually about 5C, should be fine for 18 hours after the fridge went off. "But then it must be cooked or eaten straight away. If the fridge has been off for 24 hours, then you should dump the food." It was also advised that 24 hours without power was all right for meat stored in a freezer as it held the cold for a long time. People should not open their fridges or freezers, to preserve the food. If it has completely defrosted, then don’t use it. Singh added that the rule of thumb is that cold meats and meat are not supposed to be at more than 7C for more than three hours because then bacteria start to grow quickly after that. SOURCE: IOL NEWS