6 ms·

After reading that article back in the 90's I lobbied the wife hard to get rid of the microwave, replace the tupperware with glass or ceramics, and to stop buyi

After reading that article back in the 90's I lobbied the wife hard to get rid of the microwave, replace the tupperware with glass or ceramics, and to stop buying prepared foods in plastic bottles and containers. It took nearly 10 years to get rid of the microwave. The other things were easier since glass, stainless steel, and ceramics are easier to manage in a kitchen anyway. Finding prepared foods in glass bottles like tomato sauce, soups, etc is more difficult but we manage.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
What does microwave do?
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  At the time, my wife was fond of heating food in the microwave and I could never get over the fact that the plastic would sometimes get hot enough to soften signalling to me that there were probably chemicals being released as it got hot. I didn't want those chemicals in my food and I was hoping to have kids later so I wanted to try to avoid the possibility that my kids would grow up eating food microwaved in plastic tubs, possibly poisoning them from infancy. And, most importantly from my own personal history, I hated microwaves since the first time I saw one in a convenience store. Popping a plastic-wrapped sandwich into one to have a hot lunch or heating some beanie-weenies or Dinty Moore Stew was just gross but I saw people do that all day long like it was great. When Mom finally convinced Dad to buy one back in the 70's she would use it because it supposedly saved time on things like baking potatoes or cooking meat. If you grew up back then you would have learned quickly that there is a huge textural difference between a potato baked in a microwave and one baked in an oven or in coals on a fire. Microwaved potatoes caused me to hate microwaves since the potato was not fluffy at all. It was very dense and chunky and hard to melt butter throughout the potato. Meat was an even worse indictment of the technology since it would come out red and uncooked looking even if it was scorching hot. It prefer steak medium well to well done or with a good smoke ring so I have to see that color difference for it to be edible. The microwave was a personal decision mostly because I knew that if we got rid of it we would use less plastic since no one would use a plastic container in a conventional oven. Eliminate the microwave and the incentive to keep other plastic kitchen things disappears. That's a win for me.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    Huh, I never had a microwave growing up. But I use one fairly regularly now for heating up sauces, reheating leftovers, or frozen foods (either home frozen or store bought). I feel like it’s case of the right tool for the right job.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    What about reheating or defrosting food in non-plastic containers? That's pretty much the only thing I use a microwave for.
    - doodlebugging 4y ago
      Before we got rid of ours this was the only use we had for it, reheating foods that were refrigerated or frozen in glass or ceramic containers that were microwave safe.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  It's not the microwaves, it's the tendency for people to use microwaves to heat food in plastic containers. Which is probably a bad thing to do, if you're concerned about the potential for chemicals leaching out of the plastic, and are going to consume the food you just heated.
- jchanimal 4y ago
  Presumably, encourages cooking in plastic containers and use of plastic wrap for leftovers.
- stevenicr 4y ago
  best article I've seen was from NYT a few years back... do a startpage.com search for: new york times plastic microwave plastic hormones my view credits are up so I can't find the exact one, I feel it may be well explained in this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-children-health.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-child... maybe I can check bookmarks on my other system and be more sure.
cameldrv 4y ago
And yet, even your tomato sauce in the glass jar went through probably hundreds of yards of plastic tubing that leaches phthalates in the factory. It's essentially impossible to get away from this stuff entirely, although I do think you're doing the right thing to reduce your exposure. They've shown that, for example, if you get an IV, you get a big spike of phthalates in your blood from the medical grade tubing. Now granted, that tubing is brand new and probably leaches more than what's in the tomato sauce factory, but you also don't get an IV every day. If you want to reduce your exposure to these things say, 50%, you can achieve that with some changes like you've made that aren't too onerous. Going much beyond that though as an individual is extremely difficult because these chemicals are in absolutely everything.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  Yes. This is the approach we settled on. Minimize to the best extent possible and don't waste time worrying about things we can't control. Basically just accept that you can't control everything and won't be able to totally eliminate exposure but make the attempt to minimize it as much as possible.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

What does microwave do?

doodlebugging 4y ago
At the time, my wife was fond of heating food in the microwave and I could never get over the fact that the plastic would sometimes get hot enough to soften signalling to me that there were probably chemicals being released as it got hot. I didn't want those chemicals in my food and I was hoping to have kids later so I wanted to try to avoid the possibility that my kids would grow up eating food microwaved in plastic tubs, possibly poisoning them from infancy. And, most importantly from my own personal history, I hated microwaves since the first time I saw one in a convenience store. Popping a plastic-wrapped sandwich into one to have a hot lunch or heating some beanie-weenies or Dinty Moore Stew was just gross but I saw people do that all day long like it was great. When Mom finally convinced Dad to buy one back in the 70's she would use it because it supposedly saved time on things like baking potatoes or cooking meat. If you grew up back then you would have learned quickly that there is a huge textural difference between a potato baked in a microwave and one baked in an oven or in coals on a fire. Microwaved potatoes caused me to hate microwaves since the potato was not fluffy at all. It was very dense and chunky and hard to melt butter throughout the potato. Meat was an even worse indictment of the technology since it would come out red and uncooked looking even if it was scorching hot. It prefer steak medium well to well done or with a good smoke ring so I have to see that color difference for it to be edible. The microwave was a personal decision mostly because I knew that if we got rid of it we would use less plastic since no one would use a plastic container in a conventional oven. Eliminate the microwave and the incentive to keep other plastic kitchen things disappears. That's a win for me.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Huh, I never had a microwave growing up. But I use one fairly regularly now for heating up sauces, reheating leftovers, or frozen foods (either home frozen or store bought). I feel like it’s case of the right tool for the right job.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  What about reheating or defrosting food in non-plastic containers? That's pretty much the only thing I use a microwave for.
  - doodlebugging 4y ago
    Before we got rid of ours this was the only use we had for it, reheating foods that were refrigerated or frozen in glass or ceramic containers that were microwave safe.
SoftTalker 4y ago
It's not the microwaves, it's the tendency for people to use microwaves to heat food in plastic containers. Which is probably a bad thing to do, if you're concerned about the potential for chemicals leaching out of the plastic, and are going to consume the food you just heated.
jchanimal 4y ago
Presumably, encourages cooking in plastic containers and use of plastic wrap for leftovers.
stevenicr 4y ago
best article I've seen was from NYT a few years back... do a startpage.com search for: new york times plastic microwave plastic hormones my view credits are up so I can't find the exact one, I feel it may be well explained in this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-children-health.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-child... maybe I can check bookmarks on my other system and be more sure.

cameldrv 4y ago

And yet, even your tomato sauce in the glass jar went through probably hundreds of yards of plastic tubing that leaches phthalates in the factory. It's essentially impossible to get away from this stuff entirely, although I do think you're doing the right thing to reduce your exposure. They've shown that, for example, if you get an IV, you get a big spike of phthalates in your blood from the medical grade tubing. Now granted, that tubing is brand new and probably leaches more than what's in the tomato sauce factory, but you also don't get an IV every day. If you want to reduce your exposure to these things say, 50%, you can achieve that with some changes like you've made that aren't too onerous. Going much beyond that though as an individual is extremely difficult because these chemicals are in absolutely everything.

doodlebugging 4y ago
Yes. This is the approach we settled on. Minimize to the best extent possible and don't waste time worrying about things we can't control. Basically just accept that you can't control everything and won't be able to totally eliminate exposure but make the attempt to minimize it as much as possible.