Cooked meat diaper: toxic?
I accidentally left the meat diaper underneath my roast in a slow cooker. After 8 hours, the diaper is mostly disintegrated. I am able to fish out fragments, but big chunks seem to be missing. (For one thing, these sorry remains don't have any thickness to them.)
Is it safe to eat the rest of my roast?
Best Answer
According to the USDA:
If packaging is accidentally cooked in a conventional oven, is the food safe to eat?
Plastic packaging materials should not be used at all in conventional ovens. They may catch on fire or melt, causing chemical migration into foods. Sometimes these materials are inadvertently cooked with a product. For example, giblets may be accidentally cooked inside the turkey in their packaging or a beef roast may be cooked with the absorbent pad from the fresh meat packaging underneath.
The giblet bag and the absorbent pad are clearly not intended to be cooked, however if this happens and the packaging materials remain unaltered (that is, do not melt or come apart) the cooked meat will not pose an imminent health hazard. If the packaging materials have melted or changed shape in some other way do not use the product.
Who are they kidding? Of course, they are altered. With deep regrets, I threw my roast away. (More info here.)
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Is it safe to eat meat cooked in plastic?
These packaging materials are clearly not intended to be cooked, however if this happens and the packaging materials remain unaltered (that is, do not melt or come apart) the cooked meat will not pose an imminent health hazard.Is the pad under raw chicken toxic?
Don't worry, the materials in those pads are non-toxic. The absorbent material is silica (purified sand) or plant cellulose, and the plastic is thin and non-digestable.What is the packet at the bottom of meat?
What are they? Absorbent meat pads or absorbent meat soakers are the little package that often sits between your raw meat and your butchers tray. They are essentially an absorbent pad with an often plastic type of cover.What happens if you cook ham with the plastic on?
It turns out that this ham is not safe; I will quote the USDA: The plastic bone guard covering the exposed bone is used to keep the bone from breaking the outer wrap. If left on the meat during cooking, a 325 or 350 \xb0F oven temperature may not melt the plastic but still give off an abnormal chemical odor or taste.What’s That Absorbent Pad in My Meat Packaging (And What Happens if I Cooked It)?
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Images: Ruslan Khmelevsky, Farhad Ibrahimzade, Umut Ülgi, Farhad Ibrahimzade