10 Hour Power Outage. What to Do with Perishables in the Refrigerator

The freezer should be fine if it was closed.

Condiments should be OK.

The cheese, & cooked chicken would probably be OK too.

Everything should be fine. Don't need to throw anything out.

Cheese, hot dogs, anything cooked (chicken, lunch meat, condiments, etc.) will be fine. Eggs probably fine but you will be cooking them anyway. It takes a while for the inside to warm up anyway. Butter and margarine are fine.

I would think a large container of yogurt would stay cold longer than smaller single-serve containers. Stuff in the door warms up more than the things in the main section of the fridge.

Freezer stuff is fine. I doubt it thawed even partially, let alone completely. The more full a freezer is, the longer things stay cold.

One thing a friend does before a storm is adjust he temp in both the freezer & fridge - make them their coldest, and then stays out of there. You can get a cooler and fill it with ice & cold water, and use that stuff during the outage rather than open the fridge door. If you have a spare fridge in the basement with enough room, you can freeze bottles of water (use soda bottles or old & clean milk cartons, but don't fill completely). They form good ice blocks you can use in the event of a power outage. Obviously you don't always know when a power outage is imminent, so you could put a thermometer in there and then you will know how much things warmed up.

Cheese should be fine – it's loaded with microorganisms that have already out-competed spoilage microbes. Most cheese actually spends weeks or months at room temp. or cool temps, and colder refrigeration only slows the activity of the microbes that changed it from milk to cheese.

Yogurt, same deal. But watch for mold growing on either yogurt or cheese, which may happen faster since they have been warmer for awhile. They could both still be good for another week or longer.

Eggs are also known to be durable. They were once sold off the counter, not refrigerated, in small grocery stores. And before being removed from brood houses, they are often sitting there, completely unrefrigerated, for hours. Just be sure to cook them completely.

Hot dogs and chicken are probably fine, but I can understand your not wanting to take chances. However, I often forget to put cooling leftovers in the fridge when I make a big pot of stew or soup. I've never had problems from eating those, even after reaching room temperature for a few hours.

Stuff in the freezer is probably fine if they were still frozen this morning. Ice cream is a good indicator of how much melting occurred. But those items probably didn't get as much melting as they would have had during an extended shopping excursion and slow traffic on the way home. So they are probably as safe as when you first put them in the fridge.

There is a great deal of education about food safety that has become necessary in recent decades because some food-borne illnesses are promoted by lack of refrigeration. But if you know the science behind the foods, you can often assess the actual danger more realistically. For many foods, there is near-zero likelihood of them making you ill when cooked properly.

I wouldn't worry about a 10 hour outage.
Our power was out for 24 hours when the last hurricane came through.
We had our freezer packed with ice and everything stayed cold on the fridge side and frozen on the freezer side.

I think the milk would be fine - especially if you didn't open it after dinner time. Smell it and feel it - if it is still cool to the touch - you should be fine. If it's warm - then no. toss it.

The milk, cheese and eggs are fine too. I wouldn't toss it unless it is warm to the touch. If it still feels cool - then nope. won't throw it out. That's a lot of money you are throwing away...can you afford that?

The freezer items should be fine too. Especially since it wasn't opened.

Many people seem to overthink things like this. Please remember that eggs can sit out ROOM TEMPERATURE for days. Yes. DAYS. My cousin has a chicken farm in Massachusetts - he "enlightened" me to the length of time and temperature that eggs and chicken can be out and not refrigerated.

Cooked chicken at ROOM TEMPERATURE should be good for 24 hours. Eggs at ROOM TEMPERATURE are good for at least 4 days. They do last longer cold but don't panic..

Even if you opened the door a couple times it will retain cold enough temperatures for 24 hours so everything will be fine. Think of it as a huge cooler, ya know?

The only thing you may want to check is whether anything defrosted in the freezer. It won't make meat inedible but it will make it gross if you refreeze it.

We had a power outage for 17 hours this summer, and I kept everything but lunch meat. We put some ice bags in and ate out so we did not have to open and close a bunch of times. I had my husband taste the milk (oh, yes I did!), and it was still really cold and tasted good, so we kept everything else. The freezer stuff was still frozen, so all was good and no one got sick.

IF I remember correctly, the guidelines say that things in the refrigerator are ok for 12 hours and the freezer is ok for 3 days; so most of your food should be just fine. Eggs, yogurt, hot dogs and chicken should be ok; if you're concerned about the milk, toss it. The old saying goes, "When in doubt, throw it out." Oh, if the ice cream melted you may to toss it too only because refrozen ice cream has a funny texture that I don't like.