From the Tips Box: Defrosting Meat, Packing Materials, and Remembering Secret Numbers [From The Tips Box]
March 12th, 2010 | 
Author: Brandon Zimmerman
Author: Brandon Zimmerman
Readers offer their best tips for defrosting meat in the microwave, shipping items with just a paper bag, and remembering sensitive numbers like Social Security or bank PINs. More »
Props to Lifehacker
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@ShannaraFan: There’s on of those As Seen On TV products that does this. I bought one a few years ago at a yard sale and it works like a champ.
DaveyNC
I store my debit card number under the name Debbie Card.
DaveyNC
Microwaving food causes food to become acidic. Also, it rearranges the molecules to become ‘nasty’
fotd_spectacular
Cast iron to the rescue! You can quickly defrost just about anything by simply placing it in a cast iron skillet, and leaving it sit on the stove top. Don’t turn the stove on, just let it sit there. Cast iron excels at heat transfer, quickly thawing your food.
ShannaraFan
@mediaphile: Jeah, also how every kitchen/restaurant I have ever worked in has thawed out frozen meats.
Murdlih
Defrosting in a plastic bag sounds like a bad idea to me. Ziplocs are not intended to be nuked, so I’m betting you’d get some chemical leaching out of the process.
Oldbrass
You can skip the microwaving and just submerge the plastic-wrapped or -bagged meat in cold water.
elgilicious
Here’s another good way to thaw frozen foods without introducing any heat into them:
First, make sure the frozen foods are sealed in a zip-top plastic bag. Second, put the whole bag in a bowl large enough that the item can be submerged (I find that stainless steel mixing bowls work best). Next, stick the bowl in the sink and fill it with cold water. Then just keep the cold water very slowly pouring into the bowl.
Depending on the size of the food, thawing will take as little as a few minutes. The benefit here is that you keep the food under the temperature at which bacteria can grow, and you don’t cook the items at all.
I find that sometimes if the items won’t stay submerged, I just put a very small bowl on top of the food, and pour a little water into that to balance out the buoyancy of the food. Works like a charm.
Stolen directly from Alton Brown.
mediaphile