07/14/03’s illustrious band:

Cooking with Plastics

Brought to you by a booklet by the same name sent to Media Headquarters by the American Plastics Council.

Cooking with Plastics. What does that make you think of off the top of your head? If I picked up a book titled Cooking with Turkey, I’d look for turkey recipes inside. If I picked up a book titled Cooking with Spinach, I’d expect to find creative ways of working spinach into my meals. So when I opened Cooking with Plastics for the first time, naturally I expected to read about how I could incorporate nice, tasty petrochemical products into my diet. It might be culinarily unorthodox, but surely the American Plastics Council would not steer me wrong.

Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t judge the book by its cover. What the APC really wanted to bring me was “A menu for storing, cooking and serving great food” in plastic containers. I was a little disappointed, to tell you the truth. I already know how to burp my Tupperware; I was looking for a high-tech way to kick my diet into the 21st century. Instead I was treated to lessons like “Seal in freshness, flavor and nutrients with plastic wrap, containers and bags” and “You also can use plastic bags and wrap to batch and store soups, stews, casseroles and other dishes.” You don’t say!

There’s plenty of clever self-promotion between the lines of Cooking with Plastics, too. Tips include putting just about every food item you buy into plastic containers for storage and throwing out old ones after a while -- which means you need to buy more of them.

Your child’s school lunch is an especially important place to display your plastic prowess. There’s a whole section on how to make a wrap sandwich (with a tortilla, not to be confused with plastic wrap) and store it in plastic, how to put fruit and veggie chunks or pasta salad into plastic containers and how to pour soup into a plastic thermos. If you don’t plasticize your child’s entire meal, you’re a bad parent. Believe it! The American Plastics Council says so!

The Microwave Magic chapter is my favorite. This is where the actual cooking with plastics takes place. Here you’ll learn that microwaves heat food unevenly, but you can improve the odds by cutting the food up and stirring it (in its plastic container) during cooking. But don’t heat food in packaging cartons or restaurant takeout boxes; put it in plastic instead. When you’re done, store the leftovers in plastic bowls. And don’t forget to put fresh produce into plastic bags to keep it fresher longer.

Not that I’m knocking plastics. I use far more than my share of single-serving plastic bowls and baggies, and I take my trash out in big plastic baggies. I collect my cats’ litter box waste in plastic receptacles, which I then stash in plastic bags for disposal in the plastic garbage can. My CD case? Plastic. My toothbrush? Plastic. My phone? Plastic. My favorite pens? Plastic. My cheap windbreaker? Plastic. My reading glasses and sunglasses? Plastic (but they’re not called reading plastics or sun plastics). My money? Plastic. Until a couple years ago, even my car was plastic (I drove a Saturn). I think the APC is wasting its time trying to sell me plastics. Numerous other industries have been too successful already.

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