Is it safe to eat things like chips after a building fire?
Is it safe to eat things like chips after a building fire?
I live in an apartment building. Another unit recently caught on fire, and the building was evacuated. Smoke was everywhere. No heat reached my part of the building. I have not seen any soot, either.
I tried googling it, but I haven't been able to find a good answer that relates to things like chip packaging. They still have air in them, and the packaging doesn't fully match the descriptions of what foods to throw away.
Are things like this ok to eat after smoke exposure, or should I throw *** every *** type of food out? Thanks in advance.
I would imagine that anything that's in an airtight sealed container, such as chip bags, would be fine. That would also include cans. Your refrigerator and freezer, also, would probably count as a sealed container.
Smoke in a building fire can contain all sorts of weird chemicals from burning plastics and whatnot that could get deposited onto stuff, so even if you can't see any soot in your apartment I wouldn't dismiss all concerns. How tight is your budget?
I'd wash sealed containers first, then go for it.
The budget isn't super tight, but nothing is open yet where I am. I'm just a bit hungry at the moment, because I missed eating for most of yesterday.
When the stores do open, I'll be at work and will have to wait until after my shift to buy more food.
I hadn't heard about this aspect of fire safety before today, so I figured I would see if anyone on here knew more about it. Thank you for responding!
Donβt waste good chips on a silly worry like an asbestos fire.
I've worked in fire restoration. If there was smoke, there will be soot. You can take a white cloth and rub it over surfaces in the apartment to see how bad it is. As for food, the general rule is when in doubt throw it out. If cans are blown out from heat, toss them. If food was exposed to smoke, toss it. If the power was out for a long time, you may have to toss any refrigerated or frozen food. If there was no smoke in your unit you might be fine.
Feel free to dm me if you have further questions.
Seems you've gotten your answer, but leave an update after you eat and let us know how it went (and to make sure you didn't die :P )
Only reading the title alone β Iβm glad youβve got your priorities right.
Upholstery-soot ( the fire-retardent version of polyester, etc ), is evil smog/fumes.
If your food was sealed-away from the smog/fumes, then it should be fine.
I'm saying that after learning 1st-hand how evil upholstery-smoke is.
( guy down the hall fell asleep with a cigarette )
_ /\ _
If you have to ask, youβre not hungry enough to take that risk. Toss those chips. Donβt take unnecessary chances with your body.
People have put worse things in their bodies. Some mildly contaminated chips won't kill you and probably won't even give you cancer.
Let's be honest, though... a standard bag of chips is already kind of bad for you -- maybe you should toss them out because you're better off without them either way? It's just a bag of chips at the end of the day.
The soot from a building fire will absolutely give you cancer. Most deaths from a building fire are caused by the contaminants in the air and not the fire itself. It's very nasty, and I wouldn't shrug it off. At the very least, it will taste nasty. At most, it will give you health complications.
I think it's a little unfair to escalate my talking about a presumably invisible and flavorless level of contamination into somehow advocating for choking down soot-blasted cancer nachos.
For the record: that's not what I meant and I think any reasonable person would not have interpeted it as such having read the context of the post. It's a sealed bag of chips -- they have functioning taste buds and eyeballs for Pete's sake!