Frozen food left out!


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Wow do I feel stupid! Yesterday went to Walmart and picked up some groceries, mostly non refrigerated items. Dropped them off at my place and left to go out for the night. Woke up next morning and was putting away those groceries when I found two items that should have been refrigerated (keep frozen). So if those items were left out for about 12 hours but they are back in the freezer now, are they still eatable or did I just waste my money?

According to a site like this they should be thrown out but I just wanted to double check here first. The room temperature was a solid 70 degrees.

I used to work in the grocery business, and many years ago for a time worked in the frozen food dept. Frozen food is damaged after less than a third of that time out in room temperature.

Throw it out. Refreezing thawed items will make them quite unpalatable. It's nasty!

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Ive done this many times myself. It has been awhile since I have done it though.

One time I got lucky I accidentally left my bag out in my car of frozen foods. Luckily it was winter and it was a freezing night so they where safe in my car because the next morning they where still frozen :-)

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Throw them out. You're told to keep them frozen for a reason. If we're dealing with frozen foods at work you're only allowed to keep them out of the freezers for half an hour. If the freezers break down they have 30 minutes to an hour (depending on the product - ice creams are safer) to empty them and chuck everything into one of the freezers out back before everything gets thrown away.

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sounds like you've worked out what your having for lunch!! as a chef i would say re-freezing items is a no no, however after defrosting (depending on the product) a 48hour window (when kept in a fridge) for cooking and eating is fine. as a little bonus if the defrosted item is raw, you can refreeze after cooking it, for example if its mincemeat, you can cook it in a lasagne and freeze it again

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