Alistair found me in the laboratory at 9:17 Tuesday morning holding a container of macaroni and cheese beneath my nose. This is apparently how investigations begin now.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Science,” was my reply.

He put down his clipboard. I’ve noticed that when Alistair puts down his clipboard, the conversation is about to become considerably less enjoyable. “Why are you smelling that?”

“I’m determining whether it’s safe.”

“By smelling it?”

“It’s one of the senses, Alistair. Humans have several.”

He stared at me. Technically, I have a somewhat complicated relationship with the word human, but this didn’t seem like the appropriate moment to bring that up.

The macaroni and cheese had arrived that morning with several boxes recovered from one of our smaller field stations. A storm had knocked out power in the area, and the station’s refrigerator had been without electricity for an uncertain amount of time.

The field team did the sensible thing. They labeled everything DO NOT EAT and sent samples to the laboratory. I interpreted this as an invitation.

Alistair did not. “How long was the refrigerator without power?”

“Unknown.”

“What was the temperature?”

“Also unknown.”

“So you don’t know whether that food is safe.”

I held the container beneath my nose again. “Smells fine.”

That’s when he took it away from me.

An Unexpected Problem With Noses

This became irritatingly educational. Food safety after an extended power outage is not something most people think about until the lights go out. When the power returns, the refrigerator starts humming again and everything looks exactly as it did before. The milk still looks like milk. The leftovers still look like leftovers. The macaroni and cheese still looks like macaroni and cheese. Therefore, a perfectly reasonable person might conclude that the proper scientific procedure is to smell it.

Apparently not.

Some dangerous bacteria don’t announce themselves with dramatic smells, unusual colors or tiny warning signs. This seems like poor design.

“If something is dangerous,” I told Alistair, “it should smell dangerous.”

“That’s not how bacteria work.”

“Perhaps we should speak to them.”

“We’re not speaking to bacteria.”

I wrote that down. ALISTAIR OPPOSES COMMUNICATION WITH MICROORGANISMS.

He crossed it out. This is why scientific progress takes so long.

The Emergency After the Emergency

Eventually, however, he made a good point. Emergencies create secondary problems. The storm is the obvious problem. The power outage is the obvious problem. During a zombie event, the zombies are extremely obvious problems.

Those are the things everyone watches. But after the dramatic part comes the considerably less dramatic business of staying healthy. Do you have clean water? Are medications being stored correctly? Is the food safe? Has anything been contaminated by floodwater? Do you actually know how long the refrigerator was without power, or are you guessing because throwing away an entire package of cheese feels personally offensive?

Preparedness isn’t just surviving whatever makes the news. It’s avoiding the preventable problem that arrives afterward. This is especially important during a zombie outbreak. Food poisoning while avoiding the undead would be embarrassing. Imagine surviving three days of infected activity only to be defeated by questionable chicken salad.

There are some things you simply don’t want written in your official ZRS personnel record.

The Experiment Ends

The recovered food was eventually discarded. All of it. Including the macaroni and cheese. I objected on scientific grounds.

Alistair objected to my objection on what he called “basic survival grounds.” The clipboard won. Again.

I did, however, receive permission to turn the incident into a training note, so perhaps something useful has emerged from this tragedy.

If you experience an extended power outage, don’t assume refrigerated food is safe simply because the power eventually returns. Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible during the outage, know what foods require refrigeration and follow current food-safety guidance about what should be discarded.

Most importantly, don’t invent your own safety standard. Especially this one: “It smells okay.”

Apparently, that is not science. I’ve been told to emphasize this. Twice.

— Samuel
Research Division
Zombie Readiness Society