Good Lifestyle

Take a look inside your freezer. Have you packed it withfrozen food? It turns out to have apacked freezer is not a bad thing after all. In fact, having more food in the freezer finally saves energy. Whenever you open the freezer door, you let it escape cold air and invite hot air in, which could cause your solid foods once frozen to thaw prematurely. When your freezer is perfectly packaged with foods already frozen, the device must not necessarily work as difficult to cool the air because it would do it in a barely full freezer. Not to mention frozen foods in the freezer will also work to maintain the surrounding food. But that raises the big question: what is the perfect freezing temperature you should use?

In this spirit, we wanted to understand exactly what is the best temperature for your freezer so as not to take the chances of any of your thawed food and potentially spoil. We called Janell Goodwin, food security expert with the USDA food security and inspection service for such insight.

What temperature should you define your freezer and why is it so important?

"Your freezer must be set to 0 ° F or below for security. Foods constantly stored at 0 ° F will always be safe," she says.

If you leave your food in the freezer for a prolonged period, the quality of it can suffer. You probably had your fair share of food developfreezing burns, which does not make them dangerous to eat, but it causes the quality of the food to decrease. So, yes, food will last at the freezer for a long time, but just keep in mind that quality begins to decrease over time. For example, you will want to keepchicken In the one year freezer of over a year to enjoy its best quality.

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What could happen if the temperature increases above 0 ° F?

"Frozen food will hold its superior quality for the longest time when the freezer maintains 0 ° F or below. The gel retains safety food by slowing down the movement of molecules, causing microbes to enter a dormant step" , explains Goodwin. "The higher the molecules above 0 ° F, the faster it is faster to exit the sleeping stage, resulting in the growth of microorganisms that cause both food alteration and a dietary disease."

What is the best way to make sure your freezer remains at the right temperature?

"A device thermometer must be kept in the freezer to monitor the temperature at any time," she says. This is particularly important for a power failure because as soon as the power returns, you will be able to see if you have to start one of your frozen products.

"When the current goes up, if the freezer is always colder than 40 ° F, the food is safe," says Goodwin.