Meat – Cooked meat diaper: toxic

chemistryfood-safetymeatslow-cooking

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.)