Warm weather.  Sunshine.  Thunderstorm season.  

With winter in the rear-view, mother nature will shortly be throwing her usual tantrums of lightning and thunder.

Power outages in Saskatchewan are a fact of life during the summer season, and once again, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is reminding residents to take extra precautions to ensure that any frozen or refrigerated food is safe after an extended outage.

According to the SHA, previously refrigerated food that should be discarded if left above 4 degrees celsius include:

  • raw or cooked meat products, including cold cuts
  • poultry and poultry products
  • fish and seafood
  • milk and milk products, including yogurt and soft cheese
  • casseroles, stews, soups
  • salads such as pasta, potato, and rice

They added that frozen Foods should be kept at -18 degrees celsius.  

Fully thawed vegetables, fish, shellfish, ice cream and frozen foods should be discarded immediately.  But food that has only been partially thawed, meaning that ice crystals are still present, can be safely refrozen.  They warn, however, that partially thawed and then refrozen food reduces the quality of most food.

Fruit meanwhile that still looks or smells good can be refrozen without concern.

Most importantly, according to the SHA, is that it is better to be safe than sorry, pushing home the adage of "When in doubt, throw it out".

If food is disposed of, document the type and amount for insurance purposes.  Small amounts can be thrown away into the regular garbage after being treated with a cleaning product to prevent scavengers from being tempted.  For larger amounts of food, residents should contact the local landfill or garbage disposal company for instructions.

The final step, as per the Health Authority, is proper cleaning of refrigerators and freezers before refilling with new food in order to avoid cross-contamination.