The high temperatures during the summer months can entail some health risks when it comes to preserving food, especially when it comes to frozen. Bacteria reproduce more easily in hot and humid environments, so poor defrosting can cause food poisoning or gastrointestinal problems.
In summer, a large number of factors add up that can cause food to spoil. During these months, leaving groceries in the car for longer than they should, taking food to the beach or leaving food out of the fridge, favors the proliferation of microorganisms in fruits, vegetables, meat or fish.
Leaving some foods at room temperature or not defrosting properly can pose some risks. In addition to being able to cause gastroenteritis, microorganisms such as anisakis, listeria or salmonella can ruin the holidays, and carry a greater risk in the elderly, pregnant, minors or immunocompromised people.
Microorganisms are living beings that need food to provide them with favorable conditions to develop, such as availability of nutrients or adequate temperature, among others, according to the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (Aesan). If they are granted these conditions and the necessary time, "they will reproduce, being able to reach infective doses, and they will turn an innocuous food into a dangerous product", the organism emphasizes.
For this reason, one of the fundamental steps to correctly preserve food is to freeze it properly and, when eating it, follow a correct defrosting process. In this way, it will prevent them from deteriorating and, therefore, causing health problems.
With the heat, it is key to refrigerate food as soon as possible (in this article you can consult the products that you should keep in the fridge in summer). Food that cannot be consumed immediately or leftovers must be kept under the action of heat, above 60 °C, or cold, below 5 °C.
When defrosting, whatever the food, the safest way to do it will always be in the fridge and giving the product the necessary time to thaw completely. For this reason, it is important to be proactive and place them in the refrigerator in advance. It is best to leave the product in the refrigerator for 24 hours, although in some cases less is enough, always seeking a minimum of 12 hours. In any case, they should never be thawed at room temperature.
There are some exceptions or precautions that must be taken into account for some foods, as well as, in case you are in a hurry, there is the possibility of using the microwave to defrost the food. Below, you can find some tricks or recommendations to carry out a safe defrosting process:
