This question is about frozen dinners.?

Question

I am very concerned about the packaging of frozen dinners, and the fact that we cook them in the plastic trays with plastic
covering the food. They cook at very high temperatures. How
do we know what happens to the plastic at that temperature.
Does it affect the food? Does it affect our bodies? Please just sensible answers. I don't want to find out that it causes cancer, because I live on them when I am working a lot.

Answer 1

This is the partial article in Harvard Medical Newsletter, and I have included the link to this article below. Hope this helps..

When food is wrapped in plastic or placed in a plastic container and microwaved, substances used in manufacturing the plastic (plasticizers) may leak into the food. In particular, fatty foods such as meats and cheeses cause a softening agent called diethylhexyl adipate to leach out. This certainly sounds scary, so it’s little wonder that a warning is making its way across the Web.

But here’s what the e-mails don’t mention. The FDA, recognizing the potential for small amounts of plasticizers to migrate, closely regulates plastic containers and materials that come into contact with food. Before approving a container, the FDA conducts tests to make sure that it doesn’t leak unsafe amounts of any substance into food.

According to Dr. George Pauli, a retired associate director in the Office of Food Additive Safety at the FDA, these tests measure the migration of chemicals at temperatures that the container or wrap is likely to encounter during ordinary use. For microwave approval, the agency estimates the ratio of plastic surface area to food, how long the container is likely to be in the microwave, how often a person is likely to eat from the container, and how hot the food can be expected to get during microwaving. Because microwaves heat the water in food, the peak temperature is the boiling point of water — 212º F, or 100º C. The only exception is microwave popcorn and other packages that come with the instruction, “this side down.” Such packages, says Pauli, are made with small amounts of metal to create a “frying pan effect.” They get hotter than the boiling point of water and are tested accordingly.

Answer 2

I think the majority of the air we breathe, food we eat and water we drink contain or are packaged in things that are not good for our health. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I consider myself a realist. Big business and big dollars can get away with poisoning people, until something incredibly bad happens...

Just try to enjoy your life and control all the things that you can. If you feel like eating those dinners are bad for you, stop eating them and replace them with whole foods. Or make your own "frozen meals" in advance. That way, you'll have the convenience and not have to worry so much about the ingredients.

Answer 3

This argument has been around for a long, long time, so you're telling us nothing new. If you are worried about it, the answer is simple----don't eat them. I am not all that worried about it and I don't eat them that much anyway.

Besides how hard is it to put the frozen dinner onto a dinner plate and microwave it in that. I mean the frozen food comes right out of the trays. You DON'T have to use the tray they come in. Common sense.

Answer 4

yes it affects the food in bad way.keeping food in plastic is not a good thing and make the food hot in plastic tray is even worse.what the best thing is if food is made and cool down and then packed in plastic trays and warm it in glass containers and then eat.plastic is worst for health but it is unavoidable now a days. so take just precautions...

Answer 5

I don't see how they would be more healthy than home grown fruits and vegetables somewhere in let's say Montana... especially if you don't use any pesticides.

But... since FDA approves this product to be sold in the us market it means the product passed the safety inspection and is considered safe to the public.

I would be more concerned of not getting enough vitamins that come in fresh foods than the ill effect of plastic...

Answer 6

Let's start with the differences in types of radiation. Basically, anything that moves is radiation, from visible light, to ultraviolet, to X-rays, to microwaves, to alpha particles, to neutrons, and even to flying pigeons. These different radiations do different things when they hit you, particularly the pigeons. While "ionizing radiations" such as X-rays, ultraviolet, alpha particles, and neutrons usually have enough localized energy to do chemical damage to the molecules they hit, "non-ionizing radiation" such as microwaves and pigeons do not damage molecules. When you and your organic friend worry about toxic changes in food or precancerous changes in your tissue, what really worry you are molecular changes. Microwaves and pigeons don't cause those sorts of changes. Microwaves effectively heat food or tissue thermally, while pigeons bruise food or tissue on impact.

Wearing a lead apron while working around ionizing radiation makes sense, although a simple layer of fabric or sunscreen is enough to protect you from most ultraviolet. To protect yourself against pigeons, wear a helmet. And to protect yourself against microwaves, use metal. The cooking chamber of the microwave oven is a metal box (including the screened front window). So little microwave "radiation" escapes from this metal box that it's usually hard to detect, let alone cause a safety problem. There just isn't much microwave intensity coming from the oven and intensity matters. A little microwaves do nothing at all to you; in fact you emit them yourself!

If you want to detect some serious microwaves, put that microwave detector near your cellphone! The cellphone's job is to emit microwaves, right next to your ear! Before you give up on microwave ovens, you should probably give up on cellphones. That said, I think the worst danger about cellphones is driving into a pedestrian or a tree while you're under the influence of the conversation. Basically, non-ionizing radiation such as microwaves is only dangerous if it cooks you. At the intensities emitted by a cellphone next to your ear, it's possible that some minor cooking is taking place. However, the cancer risk is almost certainly nil.

Despite all this physics reality, salespeople and con artists are still more than happy to sell you protection against the dangers of modern life. I chuckle at the shields people sell to install on your cellphones to reduce their emissions of harmful radiation. The whole point of the cellphone is to emit microwave signals to the receiving tower, so if you shield it you spoil its operation! It would be like wrapping an X-ray machine in a lead box to protect the patient. Sure, the patient would be safe but the X-ray machine would barely work any more.

Returning to the microwave cooking issue, once the food comes out of the microwave oven, there are no lingering effects of its having been cooked with microwaves. There is no convincing evidence of any chemical changes in the food and certain no residual cooking microwaves around in the food. If you're worried about toxic changes to your food, avoid broiling or grilling. Those high-surface-temperature cooking techniques definitely do chemical damage to the food, making it both tasty and potentially a tiny bit toxic. One of the reasons why food cooked in the microwave oven is so bland is because those chemical changes don't happen. As a result, microwave ovens are better for reheating than for cooking.

Answer 7

ever considered taking the frozen meal out of the plastic container and putting it in a china bowl
just a thought

Answer 8

People have been eating them for years I am sure there are worse things then the plastic in tv dinners.

Answer 9

I eat them every Friday~ I put my water bottle on top of my oven @ 350 degrees! It shaped into something else and I still used it! i hope I don't have cancer but I don't think u do! lol ♥

Answer 10

they have to be tested for these things before they are sold anyways...
if you are really concerned you can always call the number on the box...