I bought some pork chops on the other day, and when I went to cook them today, I noticed that when I put them in the refridgerator, the plastic got a small tear on the one side. The tear was less than the size of a dime, and there was no smell, or discoloration in the meat. The pork chop closest to the tear seemed a little hard, but the other three seemed fine. I wouldn’t eat the one that was by the tear, but what about the other three? They were in the fridge the whole time, not sitting out.
Sound ok to me—as long as they have been properly refrigerated.
As between meat refrigerated in a bag and meat refrigerated not in a bag, the only difference is the unbagged meat is going to be a bit drier and has perhaps picked up some flavors from other things in the fridge. IOW, no heath difference. Maybe a small palatability / taste / texture difference, but nothing that’s going to hurt you. A small break in the bag of otherwise-bagged meat will create a much smller drying and disflavoring.
If I cooked all four up with any halfway-decent technique I doubt you could tell which is which. Go ahead & eat 'em.
Just remember: People were eating meat for a long time before the invention of plastic.
After the great Montreal ice storm of '97, we were advised to discard the contents of our freezer which had been unpowered for a week. We did throw out a lot of things (e.g bread products that deteriorated) but we took all the meat and made a giant stew, cooking it for hours, and then ate some and froze the rest. It was delicious.
Not only was meat stored before plastic, but also before refrigeration. Amazing but true and we survived. In fact, many people think that we evolved as carrion eaters, grabbing meat that a lion had eaten its fill of. That is thought to be the reason we like to hang our meat for a while.
Thanks…I cooked it and it tasted fine, no problems.