If you’ve ever bought a packaged hamburger at the grocery store, you’ve probably faced a very common doubt: should that thin, almost transparent film attached to one side of the meat be removed or can you cook everything as it is? If you’ve asked yourself this question at least once, know that you’re in good company. And no, it’s not a trivial question: the answer affects the quality of cooking and your health.
By Ilaria Canevara
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Should the paper on the hamburger be removed before cooking or not? Yes, the film should be removed. You can cook the hamburger with its “wrapping” only if there is baking paper, which can withstand high temperatures. In all other cases it is better to cook the hamburger without superstructures both for a question of taste and for a question of health, reducing the micro-plastics consumed by eating it.
The Film on the Hamburger Should Always Be Removed
Let’s start from the beginning: what you often find stuck to the packaged hamburger is not a mistake by the butcher or an excess of attention by the manufacturer. It is a thin layer of food grade plastic film, called “separator film” in jargon. Its job is purely technical: it prevents two hamburgers packaged together from sticking together, maintaining their shape and making portioning easier. It is often present in both industrial products and in artisanal burgers sold in multiple packs. Unlike the transparent films you use to preserve food in the fridge, this one is more rigid, sometimes opaque, but other times so thin and adherent that it is almost invisible. And that is precisely why it can happen that you forget about it and cook it together with the meat. But it is a mistake to avoid.
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