Baking with plastic wrap? Ew.

8 years ago

Just read this little article & honestly, it seems like a bad idea to me, but then I prefer organic & minimally processed foods...

http://a.msn.com/06/en-us/AAu3z8r?ocid=se

"...an old school trick that is commonly practiced in professional kitchens, but makes a lot of home cooks cringe. In a recently published Well Done video, Chef Akhtar Nawab demonstrates how to cook a short ribs in the oven. He tightly wraps the ribs in a few layers of plastic wrap and bakes the wrapped ribs in the oven at a low temperature of 225°F for 6 hours. In another recipe from the chef, Butternut Squash Gratin, we again see Nawab build a dish surrounded in plastic wrap, then bake it. The purpose of this common restaurant technique is to seal moisture into the food. However, the hack had a few viewers scratching their heads and screaming in the comment section....

...According to a Washington Post article, chemistry professor Robert L. Wolke, explains that common plastic wraps found in consumers’ homes melt between 220° and 250° (depending on the specific manufacturer). So even with the protective layer of the foil, I can see where this trick might still make home cooks uneasy...."

That said, I sometimes use a similar technique with baking parchment instead of plastic wrap, but now I wonder if that's all that much safer?

What do you think?

Featured Answer

writersblock (9b/10a)

8 years ago

Yes, silicon is an important trace mineral needed for healthy bones. Silicone is a synthetic polymer that includes silicon as one of its constituents.

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writersblock (9b/10a)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Eeww is right.

As for parchment, regular parchment now is coated with silicone, the "organic" type parchments, with latex, the way baking parchment used to be.
lindac92
8 years ago
I have more than once left plasticw rap on something that had been frozen when I popped it into the oven....and I can second the "ewww!"
You know the old hint about making an extra lasagna to freeze and have later?....and the warning about putting foil on something tomato-ey....cover it first with saran, then the foil....but I will add...be sure to remove the plastic before baking!!
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I have a stainless steel, professional workbench in my kitchen, and at the moment they're just stacked up at the very back of it. However, I'm thinking, when I have some work done on my kitchen, I may get the carpenter to build a couple of cradles for them on the back of the island. Something that would hold them in a way that I could just reach down and grab/dispense what I need. As to price? I'm really not sure. You see, my husband put them in my Christmas stocking (okay, so they didn't really fit IN the stocking) a couple of Christmases back. Whatever they cost, though, it's got to be way cheaper than the many rolls I normally go through. As to the thinness of the foil--yes, it's thinner, but it seems to hold up as well as thicker varieties. I haven't had any problems with it being too thin for anything I've used it for.
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carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10
Original Author
8 years ago
That's 1 example of where I use parchment paper, lindac!

How is silicone bad to ingest? I didn't think it was...
writersblock (9b/10a)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
How is silicone bad to ingest? I didn't think it was...

No, for the moment there's nothing bad about it. But in view of the number of other miracle substances that turned out to be major oopsies, I'm not convinced at all.

I loathe all the needless silicone coating on bakeware these days, too, but that's just me.
plllog
8 years ago
Silicone is supposed to be inert to foods. Does it come off the parchment? I didn't think it did... Even so, the trace amount shouldn't be an issue. The issue, as I understand it, with leaking silicone breast implants isn't the silicone itself, but the foreign substance getting into parts of the body where foreign substances aren't supposed to go. Like the classic grain of sand in an oyster. If it goes into your alimentary system--which is designed to push indigestible substances out--it shouldn't be a problem. I suppose if you were ingesting a lot of it, and it somehow glommed onto your tissues, it could be bad... Breathing flour is bad for you too.

The problem with many plastics is that component chemicals are altered under heat from something innocuous and inert to something bad that can be leeched into your food. There are some plastic films that are rated safe for heating as in no altered and mobile substance has been found when they're heated, but still ewww.
writersblock (9b/10a)
8 years ago
Hi, plllog. I wasn't thinking of implants or anything like that; rather of all the things over the years that have been suggested as safe alternatives to bad stuff that years later turn out to be at least as harmful when more is known.

i'd prefer not to consume either plastic or silicone, given a choice.
plllog
8 years ago
I agree with you entirely! I don't want to consume them either, though I'd prefer either of them to shards of glass. My question is whether the plastic on freezer paper or the silicone or latex on parchment actually gets into the food.
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10
Original Author
8 years ago
Hmm, I was under the impression that silicon is a nutrient that we need for good health. I realize that silicone, with an 'e', is not the same thing, but isn't it somewhat related?
User
8 years ago
There are two types of plastic wrap, commercial kitchen wrap and supermarket plastic wrap.

The commercial grade kitchen wrap is approved for cooking, comes in 2,000’ Rolls.

Baking with plastic wrap? Ew.

writersblock (9b/10a)

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writersblock (9b/10a)

lindac92

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Baking with plastic wrap? Ew.

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