Refrigeration temperature is beset maintained in the range from 35 to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.5 to 3.5 degrees Celsius). This is the sweet spot for food preservation, as anything cooler risks freezing your supplies, while anything warmer can result in rapid spoiling.
Once food reaches 40 Fahrenheit, the rapid growth of pathogenic bacteria can occur. If you leave leftovers – or other perishables – at this temperature for too long you are exposing yourself to the risk of food poisoning.
For this reason it is critical to keep your fridge below that temperature, be sure to set your refrigerators thermometer accordingly. Some cautious people will even purchase an additional thermometer to act as a backup should the built-in one prove faulty. This can be a wise precaution if you wish to be absolutely sure your fridge is cold enough.
While it may be tempting to set your refrigerator super cold, this can have its own set of drawbacks. Once food starts freezing its composition changes, having ice crystals form in your food in the fridge can be very inconvenient, and also adversely impact the taste.
Keep freezing temperatures for the freezer compartment, and make sure your fridge is set – just – above freezing.
If your power should go out in your home, you should leave your fridge closed for the duration of the outage. With any luck by doing this you should be able to keep the contents cold enough for an hour or two to prevent decay. Opening and closing the door frequently will allow unwelcome heat inside faster.
In case of an extended outage don’t take any foolish risks. If you even suspect that the contents of your refrigerator have warmed for any length of time then clean out anything perishable. It is much better to need to replace the contents of your fridge than to potentially have to rush someone with food poisoning to the hospital for treatment!
Keeping these basic principles of temperature for refrigeration in mind will ensure your families food supply remains safe to eat.