Is Plastic-free Sous Vide Possible?

A friend of mine has a PhD in toxicology and highly advises against ingesting anything "warm" that has touched plastic. For instance, she refuses to drink coffee if a plastic stir stick has been put in it. What are some ideas for removing plastic from the sous vide process? The best I can come up with is covering the food in an organic medium, like banana leaves, before sealing in plastic. Thanks for the help, cheers!

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Pepijn_31744

user rumtscho commented on a thread about this on http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13550/sous-vide-without-plastic-bags

"About the only thing that fulfills all criteria would be a wax with a high melting point, like carnauba wax. You could paint the steak with the melted wax, or, probably better, you could soak a piece of gauze in the melted wax and wrap the steak in it, pressing out any air bubbles. Then let it cool and set before cooking. The downside: not only is the food grade wax difficult to source for private people, it also can end up costing quite a bit.

Another option would be silicone, like the one used for baking pans. Unlike plastic, food grade silicone does not contain any chemicals which could leak - the medical sector uses the same stuff for prostethics and implants; it is safe to have it inside your body, so it is definitely safe to cook your food in it. The problem is that you'll need a sealable bag made of silicone, and I don't know if anybody manufactures such bags.

You might consider very tightly wrapping the meat in a caul (not necessarily an amniotic caul, a peritoneum should do nicely) and binding it, but I don't know where you can get cauls. Maybe you can ask a butcher. Also, it probably won't be 100% watertight (but still enough to keep the tasty juices in the steak where they belong, instead of having them flow out into the water).

If you are willing to relax your rules a bit, you can solve the problem much easier. I think you will agree that whatever hypothetical substance might leak from a plastic bag, it cannot travel far through a solid medium. So a steak wrapped in something protective and then sealed in a plastic bag should be safe - you just discard both the plastic bag and the presumably contaminated protective substance. Yes, it is possible that meat juices that have come in contact with the plastic bag end up on the steak, but the possible contamination should be hundreds of times less than if direct contact is allowed between the plastic and the meat."

Jeff_85680

Thanks for the help. After speaking with my friend and hearing about her research at the NIH I've now replaced as much plastic in my kitchen as possible, and one solution already has been replacing plastic containers with mason jars for storage. They actually make mason jars in many sizes so I'm sure this could work for sous vide cooking. I foresee it being difficult to always displace all the air in the jars before cooking, but if I'm correct the vacuum-sealing part of standard sous vide is not essential, just convenient.

grandpa.yum

I assume silicon is also on her list? If not, there are silicon bags marketed as reusable ziplock bags that may work for this purpose.

Alternatively, you could consider replacing the water bath with something more flavorful (e.g. oil some other fat) and prepare it as a sort of very controlled poaching. I'm not sure if this would effect pasteurization times or microbial growth. I would also imagine it would heavily impact effect fluid retention and texture, but may be worth a shot if it can be done safely.

Jeff_85680

From what I understand the jury is still out on silicone being "completely" safe, but it does appear to be hundreds of times less likely to leach endocrine disruptors than any plastic at moderate to high temps. I'll have to give silicone bags a try.

Is it okay to use anything but water in a standard sous vide cooker?

ejf12009

Could one use a glass container such as a mason jar, preferably about the size and shape of the food to be cooked sous vide? That is, put the food in the container, fill with a liquid to enable heat transfer between container and contents, seal (optionally with a vacuum, but perhaps it wouldn't be beneficial here), and then stick the container in the bath?

This will mean some loss of flavor to the liquid the jar is filled with, but if the glass container is about the size of the food and a flavorful liquid is used, presumably this wouldn't be such a problem?

tshewman

Yes, this could be done. However, it would take much longer and to check the core temp would require removal and resealing the container.

ttpoker

Sous vide techniques can be replicated in any method that maintains moisture and can be accomplished at low temps. Any reasonable steam oven will do the job.

David_C_78141

@TheBikingBrewer Do you or your friend with a PhD in Toxicology recommend any articles on plastics and food. I'm always interested in journal articles on food related subjects.

Jeff_85680

I will ask.

ParkerCook_66639

You could place whatever you're cooking in a hotel pan, cover it with butter/oil and place the hotel pan in the bath.

They do this for the Perfect Yolk recipe.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-yolks

tshewman

@David C, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/. What I found interesting (I follow this topic relatively closely) is that HDPE required extreme "stressing"

before chemicals with estrogen activity reached detectable levels. First, with Sous vide, the conditions are not stressed even close to this degree. So, at this point, no detectible levels at sous vide parameters, but there were under more extreme conditions.

Manfred_18311

@TheBikingBrewer

font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#444444;background:white;mso-ansi-language:

EN-US">You could use a water-xanthan stabilized gel for anything cooked less

than 1hr., 60° C-70° C, directly in water or SV, In fact I have to try this with spiced gel,

wonder if the spicing, let’s say pepper, salt, lemon on fish cause a detectable

effect on the product. .

Jeff_85680

@Todd Is it easy to determine if the plastic used for Sous Vide is EA free?

tshewman

@TheBikingBrewer, to the best of my knowledge, we have to be a bit pragmatic. I know of no plastics that are 100% EA free. That said, the bags commonly used (e.g. HDPE) will only pose a problem under severe stress (autoclaving >100C and such). Below those conditions, no EA was found. In Sous vide, we are normally well (extremely) below those conditions. So, although we can't say the plastics are EA "free", at this point we can say, under sous vide conditions there is no detectible levels of EA from the leaking of these plastics. As a FYI - this is one of the big things that held me back from purchase (for about 2 years). On the bright side, the circulators came down in price so I saved a bit. :-)

AngelArs_240456

I know that this is a old thread but just wanted to update it by saying that fairly recently people have been switching to silicon sous vide bags with great success. They are 100% bpa/ea free and reusable. You can even turn them inside out and wash in the dishwasher. Your friend is right about about being cautious about the toxicity.

Kat_Nouri_454552

Cooking in plastic! Have you seen stasherbag?

It's the only self sealing platinum silicone zip top bag. The larger half gallon size is coming out and it's perfect for sous vide cooking. You can retain the nutrients without the petroleum brewing into your food.

Jeff_85680

There are some referenced articles here! https://wellnessmama.com/23757/dangers-of-plastic/

Boris_814210

@jeff_120098 sorry for replying to such an old thread but I am very interested in sous vide w/o the effect of plastic. Seems like silicone is the way to go, mason jars to me seem like they would leave a lot of air inside which would affect the process. Can you ask your friend about using foil to "insulate" the food from the plastic. I'm thinking along the lines of a steak, oiled/salted/peppered/anything else wrapped fully in foil, placed inside of a plastic bag and then submerged. Would that prevent the leaching of the chemicals from plastic into the food?

Matthew_hupert_295042

my issue with plastic is not fear of chemicals, its non biodegradable waste.

ove yet to find a silicone bag that works as well as plastic, but im hopefully it will happen soon

brian_martin2001

As long as you're using a food grade plastic, there won't be any leeching of chemicals