Can I eat it: forgot to remove plastic wrapping edition

August 1, 2015 4:03 PM

We baked some pork spareribs and forgot to remove part of the plastic wrapping. Will it kill us if we eat it (the pork, not the wrapping)?

My lovely wonderful boyfriend cooks delicious dinners for me, and tonight he baked pork spareribs. To his immense chagrin, he neglected to remove part of the plastic wrapper -- the part underneath the meat which was conveniently nearly the same color as the meat itself. It was baked at 300 deg for about 2-and-a-half hours. The meat smells delicious. But he fears that if we eat it, we'll drop dead from ingested plastic molecules that might have vaporized and settled in the meat during cooking. We shall bow to the collective wisdom of Metafilter. What do you guys think -- eat or not?

posted by phoenix_rising to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

Response by poster: Forgot, I have a picture:
here
posted by phoenix_rising at 4:05 PM on August 1, 2015

Yup! Some recipes actually call for Saran wrap around foods you're cooking. Plastic wrap doesn't melt under around 400F or so.
posted by xingcat at 4:05 PM on August 1, 2015

Is that plastic wrap? Or is it that absorbent sheet they put under meat? Because I'd be more dubious about that.
posted by HotToddy at 4:13 PM on August 1, 2015

Trim off the back.
posted by Trifling at 4:15 PM on August 1, 2015

It's the absorbent sheet. It seems intact, not melted. FDA is a bit dubious, but says it is likely ok.
posted by Sophont at 4:21 PM on August 1, 2015

I would have eaten it immediately, including whatever piece of packaging that is.
posted by sanka at 4:36 PM on August 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeeeaaaahhhh . . . from Sophont's link: "the cooked meat will not pose an imminent health hazard." That right there would be enough to put me off of it.
posted by HotToddy at 4:50 PM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

What the FDA ambiguously writes and reality in my kitchen are very far apart. I have roasted whole chickens and found the absorbent sheet on the bottom and eh, whatever. Plenty of things are going to kill me before a single absorbent sheet in a one-off cooking incident.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:55 PM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'd eat that in a heartbeat --- just pull it off; say farewell to any bits securely attached to the sheet, but otherwise dig in!
posted by easily confused at 5:13 PM on August 1, 2015

Here's a simple run down of plastics used for food containers/prep. The pads under meat are usually #1. Some studies (mostly involving single use water bottles, and obviously hotly contested) suggest that over time or with added heat the material can leach endocrine-disrupting antimony, phthalates, and/or brominated compounds. It tends not to contain BPA, and is recommended as a "safer" plastic. The absorbent part is probably silica gel or cellulose. It's not something to do every day for fun, but you won't drop dead.
posted by notquitemaryann at 5:39 PM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Readers, we ate it. Not dead yet.

Btw sophont is the boyfriend in question. Yes, we met on Metafilter. Two great years and counting!
posted by phoenix_rising at 5:46 PM on August 1, 2015 [17 favorites]

Fwiw, my cat *ate* most of an absorbent sheet once. The vet was unconcerned - cat didn't even have an upset stomach. This was a year or two ago; cat is fine and still kickin' :)
posted by jrobin276 at 9:43 PM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]