Flutterby™! : Leaching plastics 2008-11-21 15:17:14.360327+00

Leaching plastics

2008-11-21 15:17:14.360327+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Bisphenol A leaches from 'safe' products:

Food companies advise parents worried about BPA to avoid microwaving food in plastic containers, especially those with the recycling No. 7 stamped on the bottom.

But the Journal Sentinel's testing found BPA leaching from containers with different recycling numbers, including Nos. 1, 2 and 5.

"There is no such thing as safe microwaveable plastic," said Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri researcher who oversaw the newspaper's testing.

Yep. One of the cooking techniques I'd love to play around with is "sous vide", but I don't trust even moderate heating of the plastics I've used in vacuum sealing, and as I've played with such things more I'm getting further skeptical. We're moving away from plastic food storage containers to glass, as well, although that's not just because there may be leaching issues, it's also because glass containers seem quite a bit more durable.

I think Consumer Reports (you know, that magazine of radical environmentalism and health paranoia) recommended not to microwave in plastics about a decade ago.

I've avoided the whole issue largely by avoiding microwaves, I'm just starting to get more and more paranoid about plastics in general.

I'm with Alton Brown on thinking that microwaves are a pretty cool invention, but well over half of my nuking is done in glass or ceramic, and I probably use the toaster-oven as much as I do the nuke.

The microwave is great for heating up my coffee in my ceramic cup. It also does bacon right in my Pyrex® baking dish. Popcorn is another good use for the microwave oven. I use it for little else.