Everyone wants to trust that their freezer is reliable for keeping food frozen for long periods. However, even a new freezer can encounter issues that lead to defrosting.

Food Accidentally Defrosting

Life is unpredictable. Power outages, natural disasters, or even routine maintenance you didn’t notice can all disrupt the freezing process, leading to defrosted food. This poses a health risk, especially for meat and dairy products, due to bacteria growth. This is where the coin in a cup method becomes useful, which we’ll explain shortly.

Imagine you’re going on a trip, even just for the weekend. If the power remains on and your freezer is working well, your food should be fine when you return. But, if there was a power outage or if your freezer has issues, your food might have defrosted and refrozen. This makes it difficult to know what is still safe to eat.

Coin in a Cup to the Rescue

You might be wondering how a coin in a cup can indicate if your food is safe. Sheila Pulanco Russell explained this life hack on her Facebook for those who might need to evacuate their homes. “For those of you that are evacuating from the coast,” she wrote. “I just heard a great tip. It’s called the one cup tip. You put a cup of water in your freezer. Freeze it solid and then put a quarter on top of it and leave it in your freezer.“

She added, “That way when you come back after you’ve been evacuated you can tell if your food went completely bad and just refroze or if it stayed frozen while you were gone. If the quarter has fallen to the bottom of the cup that means all the food defrosted. And you should throw it out. But if the quarter is either on the top or in the middle of the cup then your food may still be ok.”

She concluded her post by saying, “It would also be a great idea to leave this in your freezer all the time and if you lose power for any reason you will have this tip to fall back on. If you don’t feel good about your food, just throw it out. The main thing is for all to be safe.”

Reactions

Sheila’s post received 231 thousand likes and over 420 thousand shares. Nearly 30 thousand comments praised the simple and ingenious coin in a cup idea. One commenter said, “Brilliant and simple!” Another added, “Have used this for years in the porch freezer.”