Meat softening

[lissetetiff]

Did you know that some people use products containing paracetamol as meat tenderizers? What is your view on this...is it even legal?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Can you give an example of some of these products? Or what paracetamol actually does to tenderise meat please?

 

[lissetetiff]

Panadol is an example of a painkiller drug that contains a high concentration of paracetamol.
About how the substance works to soften meat, I am as clueless as you are...I think it's just a barbaric invention.

 

[DancingLady]

I think this is an unsafe food additive. Unfortunately there are many food additives that are far from healthy. The best way to tenderize meat is to pound it or to slow cook it.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I did find this report dated 27th May 2015...
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/Natio...nadol/-/688334/2730590/-/t6lddyz/-/index.html

Kampala. The National Drug Authority has warned restaurants to refrain from using paracetamol, commonly known as Panadol, as a meat tenderiser because of the health effects on the consumers.
Mr Frederick Sekyana, the authority’s head of public relations, on Monday told Daily Monitor that they have been receiving complaints since last year about food vendors and restaurants that use paracetamol to tenderise legumes like beans.
“The common complaint is that some unscrupulous people are using paracetamol to soften meat, molokony and legumes such as beans to cook in order to save charcoal. We are glad that the public is now vigilant and we ask them to report these cases to us,” Mr Sekyana said in a telephone interview yesterday.
In a notice carried in Daily Monitor on Monday, NDA also warned that while consumers of food tenderised with paracetamol may not experience immediate discomfort, the possibility of long-term side effects cannot be ruled out such as liver and kidney damage.
Dr David Okello Ayen, the director of curative services at Kampala Capital City Authority, said the authority has not yet received such complaints but asked whoever has information that could lead to the arrest of the unscrupulous food vendors to forward it to them

This website indicated that the breakdown of paracetamol under heat, then consumed can cause kidney damage.
http://www.kat-chem.hu/en/prod-bulletins/paracetamol

FOOD (harmful food tenderiser)
Unfortunately some food vendors and chop bar operators use paracetamol to tenderize meat to avoid the long hours of boiling.
The drug has been proved to be very harmful to human health if used for the wrong reasons other than it serving as a pain killer. It could give severe kidney problems when heat is applied to it because as a chemical compound it undergoes changes, depending on how it is handled.

 

[Corzhens]

This may sound funny but in the olden days when there was no pressure cooker yet, tenderizing the beef takes more than 2 hours of boiling. What my mother used to do was put a fork together with the beef in the cauldron. You read it right - that's fork and beef. My mom said that the fork increases the temperature so the softening takes less than 2 hours.

 

[cupcakechef]

I usually use natural things to tenderize meat - a cooking class I went to once said that enzymes in pineapple, papaya and kiwi fruit all work to tenderize meat. I would prefer those options over paracetamol any day!