Vintage Tupperware: Is is Safe and Should we use it?

Do you remember Tupperware home parties!?

I always loved Tupperware parties. Of course I was a kid then, but my mom would bring me along to parties she attended and she hosted a couple. While out antiquing this week, I bought this cool Tupperware Beverage Buddy to store my smoothies in (I typically make enough for 2 days). I'm sure the plasto-phobes will reproach me, but I feel like living dangerously today!

After all, we GenXers survived life in the 70's. But honestly, our generation was not very informed about the harmful effects of products we trusted back then. Thanks to Google we are pretty woke these days to the dangers of industrial chemicals, especially the ones used to make plastic products.

 

According to The Green Guide, a website devoted to greener living and owned by the National Geographic Society, the safest plastics for repeated use in storing food are made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE, or plastic #2), low-density polyethylene (LDPE, or plastic #4) and polypropylene (PP, or plastic #5). Most Tupperware products are made of LDPE or PP, and as such are considered safe for repeated use storing food items and cycling through the dishwasher. However, I would not ever heat up a Tupperware products in the microwave.

According to a statement made by Tupperware on their website in 2010, they state the following:

While the vast majority of Tupperware products are considered safe, for example, some of its food storage containers use polycarbonate (plastic #7), which has been shown to leach the harmful hormone-disrupting chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) into food items after repeated uses. Consumers concerned about such risks might want to avoid the following polycarbonate-based Tupperware products: the Rock 'N Serve microwave line, the Meals-in-Minutes Microsteamer, the "Elegant" Serving Line, the TupperCare baby bottle, the Pizza Keep' N Heat container, and the Table Collection (the last three are no longer made but might still be kicking around your kitchen).

We are left to assume that some of their Tupperware products before 2010 may have contained BPA. 

It's understandable to worry. It is our nature. Especially when it comes to chemicals in products we use. But are we over-worrying ourselves? Maybe just a little. It is sensible to limit plastics, recycle more, and use more glass where we are able. However, it's equally important to maintain a healthy balance of logic and perspective. For instance, there is a thought trend favoring the use of degradable plastic vs recyclable plastic, even though these degradable plastics leach into our soil and water.; this is probably doing more damage to us than that Tupperware item we store our food in.

 

That said, worrying also poses a threat to our health, maybe even more-so than all the things we worry about in products and environment. The chemical imbalance that stress and worrying cause to our bodies are accelerators of disease; the chemical cortisol acts like a foot on the gas pedal of stress.

 

All things in moderation. We should also try worrying less and living more. As the French say, “la vie il faut la vivre," or life is for living.