The Science of Food

Probing question: Is plastic dangerous?

Sipping water from a bottle after a workout, microwaving a container of leftovers for lunch, giving the baby a bottle of milk: We use plastic every day, without even thinking about it. But numerous reports have suggested that exposure to bisphenol-A, an organic compound present in many food and beverage containers, could actually be damaging to our health. Is plastic dangerous? [MORE]

Update June 2009 

Study shows BPA may leach from plastic bottles abstract

In a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Harvard School of Public Health researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The study, according to its authors, is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increases the level of urinary BPA.

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth

NORTH CANTON, The New York Times. Ohio June 30, 2008  — A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less.

Amy Wise, of Ohio, said the gallon jug spilled milk everywhere.

Greg Soehnlen, who helps run the company that designed the newfangled jugs, with a pallet at Superior Dairy in Canton, Ohio.

What’s not to like? Plenty, as it turns out [MORE].

What's in those cans beside beer?

When you sip a can of your favorite brew, you are savoring not only fermented grain and hops but just a hint of the same preservative that kept the frog you dissected in 10th-grade biology class lily-pad fresh: formaldehyde. What is formaldehyde doing in beer? [MORE]

This 12 minute streaming video takes you form aluminum sheets all the way though the finished cans and ends being loaded by fork lift on the the trailer.

Today's Packages Make Customers Twist and Shout

Mona Doyle recently filmed people attempting to open bags of pre-cut lettuce. The tape plays like a bit from the television show "America's Funniest Home Videos." Everybody uses force and torque that would otherwise be reserved for the gym. Either the bag opens suddenly and sprays lettuce all over the floor, or defeat is conceded and scissors or knives are employed [LINK].

And, Food and Drug Packaging magazine recently issued their annual packaging report card focusing on what makes packages sell or sit on the shelf. 
"Even as packages get more colorful, functional and convenient, shoppers expectations keep rising, and the bar of packaging excellence gets higher"....."No-drip bottles often drip, while zippers are hard to open and zip close. The news isn’t good for squeeze bottles either. They retain too much product and spray triggers just stop working. Ice cream containers leak and flip-tabs are too hard to grab, not to mention break too often. Packages tip over too easily and the ones that don’t still have problems. Safety closure instructions are too difficult to read or understand. Even toothpaste tubes have their flaws. They split and clog up. And many shoppers are annoyed that too many packages don’t travel well [LINK]".

"Today's packages can be murder to open" published in the March 2006 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette agrees with the previous comments [LINK].