Going Green
By Jim Bona
(Hamilton, NY – Dec. 2014) I have been on a recycling kick lately. It is amazing how many plastic food containers can accumulate. I thought that I had gotten rid them all, but I just found another big plastic garbage bag stashed away, filled with all sorts of containers that I used to store food in. It has all gone out to the curb over the past few weeks.
As I have been educating myself about going green, I have learned that storing your food in plastic may not be safe or healthy. Plastic comes from petroleum by-products and contains many chemicals. We have been hearing about bisphenol-A (BPA), which is a known carcinogen. Many of the older style water bottles – those hard plastic ones – contained it. Even plastic baby bottles had it. (It even lines the insides of some tin cans. It also can be found on most cash register and credit card receipts).
When subjected to extremes in temperature, the bisphenol will leach out of the plastic into whatever is in the bottles. This gets into our bodies, where it builds up and can get us sick. That is why freezing food in plastic, or putting really hot liquids in plastic, or even reheating food in the microwave in plastic containers, can all be potentially dangerous for your health. If you do this every once in a blue moon, it might not be that bad. If you do it regularly, it probably could. Why take the chance?
In our household, we are now trying, as much as possible, to store our food in glass. It is amazing how much food comes in plastic. It is unavoidable. But, at least with the food with which we have control, we try to go with glass.
If you frequent the whole food stores, sometimes you can fill your own glass containers. Using glass is a great opportunity to repurpose your empty jars and bottles instead of recycling. Use them for storage instead.
Glass is not the perfect container, though. Traveling with glass is one potential problem. Pack a cooler with a few glass containers and bottles and you have to worry about them knocking into each other. Same goes for filling the fridge. You can be rough with plastic but not with glass.
If you put glass containers in the freezer, you run the risk of them breaking. You have to be extra careful. When you freeze in glass, you have to take into account there will be some expansion. You can’t fill a glass container with liquid to the top and tighten the lid because it will break when it freezes. When defrosting, sudden changes in temperature, and even a slight bounce is enough to break glass.
So, as much as glass might be less reactive and not leach chemicals, there is the possibility of breakage that storing in plastic never has. I don’t think that there is any comparison though. I will take the risk of some breakage. I am going with glass as much as I can.
Jim Bona is recently retired and a resident of the village of Hamilton for more than 30 years. He is passionate about all things green…and a few other things too. He can be reached at: madnews@m3pmedia.com