Grocery shopping when the weather is blistering hot requires a different strategy. When temperatures top 90 degrees, any perishables you buy need to be refrigerated more quickly—within an hour, according to the federal Food Safety and Inspection Service. That keeps food out of the danger zone (40 degrees F to 140 degrees F) when bacteria can multiply rapidly.
If you're doing a number of errands, make the grocery store your last stop. Then go straight home from there. And if your supermarket is more than a half hour away from home, bring a cooler with you. Put your meat, poultry, seafood and eggs on ice for the drive home. Unload the groceries right away and refrigerate or freeze all perishables promptly.
Even though many of today's refrigerators have door bins made to hold milk jugs and egg cartons, it's safer to store those items in the cabinet because the temperature in the door fluctuates more than the temperature in the main compartment. Refrigerators should maintain a temperature between 35 and 38 degrees F and the freezer 0 degrees, according to the FSIS.
In Consumer Reports refrigerator reviews, we test temperature performance under a number of different scenarios including whether a model can keep a constant temperature when the temperature in the room changes and whether it can maintain a set temperature in a room with very high temperatures. The best performers should get you through a hot summer like this one. We also test energy efficiency, which is important for an appliance that's plugged in all the time. More than 80 models made our list of recommended refrigerators.
Via: Take special precautions when food shopping in hot weather
Take special precautions when food shopping in hot weather Gallery
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