What to Do When Your Refrigerator Dies - Part 1

One night I noticed my refrigerator light was out. That happens sometimes, so I didn't think much of it. The next morning, I noticed the light was still out and the food wasn't quite as cold. Things in the freezer weren't quite as frozen. Uh oh.

You might read that you should put your food into a cooler with some ice packs. That's a great idea if you know for sure when your refrigerator took its last breath, or for food that can last a good day without refrigeration. It can be painful to follow the wise adage "When in doubt, throw it out" when it refers to an entire refrigerator's worth of food. But it's better to waste food and the money it cost you than to take a chance and become deathly ill (no, that's not too dramatic). So my first bit of advice is:

Step 1. If you're not sure when the fridge stopped working, don't make any assumptions other than to assume the fridge has been out since the last time you remembered it being on. If you can't remember the last time you noticed it being on, assume the longest possible period. Your health is worth more than the food.

Step 2 is similar. I had some of my beloved Trader Joe's gluten-free chicken nuggets in the freezer. Chicken nuggets are already cooked, right? They were still cold. I turned on the oven, but I had a nagging feeling these particular nuggets were not fully cooked. I phoned Trader Joe's and the kind man who answered my call took some time to check it out. They were not fully cooked, and eating them would have been really foolish. Throwing those nuggets out was the most painful part of the whole experience. 😭 Had I eaten them, my experience would probably have been far more painful than that! 🤮

Step 2: Don't make any assumptions about the food itself. If you're not sure an item is salvageable, either call to find out or throw it away. See above note about importance of health over food.

Only now can you move on to Step 3:

Step 3: Salvage what food you can by using a cooler or borrowing the fridge and freezer of a nearby friend or relative.

One of the most helpful articles I found on what can be salvaged was this one from FoodSafety.gov that gives a rundown of what foods can be kept unrefrigerated.

The next steps are to determine whether to repair or replace; to figure out how to eat reasonably well without a fridge for a few days without splurging too much on take-out food; and how to find the right fridge if you need to replace it. Stay tuned!