There are always reasons to have plastic food containers in your kitchen. Whether you make your meals a few days beforehand and need to store them or if you have leftovers from a big dinner party, there are several uses for plastic food containers.
When Should You Buy New Plastic Food Containers?
There are several telltale signs that your old plastic food containers need to get thrown in the trash. Many times plastic food containers don’t fare so well in dishwashers and will warp and not retain their shape. When this happens it’s best to trash them and get new ones.
If a container has been stained from food and has become discolored it’s a good idea to replace the container with new food containers. While there’s not an expiration date on a plastic container, those that are older and contain certain chemicals should be avoided as well.
What Can You Do with Plastic Food Containers?
There are several uses for plastic food containers in your kitchen. This biggest use is to store leftover food in these containers. Many times people will buy a large amount of food such as meat, store it in plastic food containers and freeze the food for later use. This is practical and cost effective.
There are times when plastic food containers work out perfect to store food in for breakfast, lunch or dinner away from home. This can be a great way to save cash since you’re eating food from home rather than going out and purchasing a meal from a restaurant.
Which Plastic Food Containers are the Safest?
There has been a lot of research done on plastic containers and which ones are safest to store food. There are usually resin codes that are located on the bottom of the plastic food containers. These are usually a designated number surrounded by a chasing arrow symbol.
Those that have a one are Polyethylene Terephthalate or PET and should be avoided. The resin code two is High Density Polyethylene or HDPE and are suffer. The resin code designated with a number three is Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC and should be avoided.
A resin code of four is Low Density Polyethylene or LDPE and is safer. This is usually found in plastic food containers. Another common plastic food container resin number is five for Polypropylene or PP and is considered one of the safer plastics.
The resin code six is for Polystyrene or PS, and is one to avoid. The final resin code seven is the catch all category which can include Polycarbonate, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, Styrene Acrylonitrile, Acrylic and Polyamide. All except for Polycarbonate, which should be avoided, tend to be safe options.
