Mark: All this plastic in and around our food...? page

[Sturmeister]

Dear Mark,

One or two years ago I heard that in the US claims are beeing raised that it is rather unhealthy to use plastic when microwaving food.

During the last month I was a little bit stunned about all the plastic used when preparing and handling food. Plastic is as I can recall mostly based on the same oil that is used to power our cars, and I think it is certain to say that gasoline is not the healthiest drink there is around. Is it a real danger to use plastic utensils when preparing food? I am thinking about the risk of having tiny piecese of plastic getting of the bowl when whisking my cream or to use plastic tools when frying a piece of meat where the temperature could (?) raise to levels where the plastic starts to melt?

Beeing better safe then sorry I have started to exchange my utensils for wood (as far as I can get) or steel/stone.

/Sweden

[Mike in Virginia]

I have looked into this issue a little, and it seems that there is no settled science. There is some evidence that BPA, a common chemical in plastic containers, can cause issues, and that plastic molecules that get into food from heating plastic containers can cause problems at the cell level.

There is enough uncertainty that I decided to go along with what you said: better to be safe than sorry. So, I threw away my plastic food containers and bought glass containers from Pyrex. They do have plastic lids, but without BPA; I remove the lids and cover the containers with paper towels when microwaving food in them. I also hand wash the lids, so that the high heat of the dishwater doesn't break down the plastic over time.

[Ika]

This would be an interesting blog post topic!!

[sarahmasteller]

Personally I wouldn't microwave anything I was going to eat...just my 2 cents I have heard some bad reports on what microwaving does to your food and I'm inclined to believe it!

[RitaRose]

The whole idea of storing food, and especially reheating it, in plastic has always bugged me. It's just so prevalent that it's difficult to avoid.

I'm all for glass. My only problem is that I'm really, really, really clumsy.