Why you have to put a coin in the freezer before leaving for the holidays

When we are leaving for a weekend, a holiday or a short trip, we are used to leaving various foods in the freezer but when we come back home nobody guarantees us that they are still good to eat: during our absence it is possible that there was a power failure that undermined the freshness of our food. However, there is a brilliant trick to find out if stored foods are damaged by a power failure during the absence from home: just put a small coin on a glass of ice water and your health will be saved.

Leaving a coin in the freezer before the holidays is an ingenious solution: if you are thinking of going on holiday and leaving food in the freezer, to ensure that there has not been a power failure in your absence that could have spoilt your food, you can use this really simple and effective trick. Take a glass full of water and place it in the freezer. Once the water has frozen, remember to put a coin on its surface before leaving. When you will come back home, if the coin has remained in the same place you left it it means that there have not been power failures or outages. If the water instead has melted and/or the coin has slipped lower in the glass, it means that there has been a power failure and therefore it is better for you not to consume the foods left in the fridge and/or the freezer because they may have gone bad during your absence.

Whether you are leaving home for an emergency or for pleasure, everyone would like to know if the electricity has gone missing. Beyond any short circuits that may have damaged the electronic devices in the home, the problem arises when you leave food in the refrigerator and/or the freezer. If the electricity is back when you will come back home, it is difficult to determine how long the food has not been cold/frozen. The trick of the coin in the glass of frozen water is just to understand if you can consume your frozen food when you come back home. If the coin is on the bottom of the glass, it means that the electricity has been missing for so long that it has defrosted the food in the freezer and that for your good health it is better not to consume it. If when you come back home the coin is in the same position in which you left it before leaving, it will mean that there has not been any power failure or that electricity only had temporary drops. In this case, even with a brief interruption, modern refrigerators and freezers are designed to isolate most food products well enough to keep them fresh and good.