Rebuild from Depression Blog

I love storing food in glass. Glass does not absorb flavors and smells as does plastic and it is cheaper than stainless steel. In the pantry we store in jars ranging in size from gallon jars (recycled pickle jars) down to half-pint jelly jars. For leftovers, we make use of the same jars, particularly gallons and half-gallons for soups and sauces, but generally I prefer containers I can stack so I can more easily seen everything in my refrigerator. I have tried some expensive glass storage containers with glass lids. They can be very heavy once they are packed with food and the price is unreasonable to start with.

This summer I found a great deal at Costco on this collection of nine storage containers -- "Glasslock" containers from Snapware (see the items at the Snapware website). The lids are plastic with silicon seals which can be removed and cleaned. The set includes square and rectangular containers. The squares have blue seals, the rectangles green seals. The color difference would keep you from going bananas in trying to figure out whether the smallest seal goes on a rectangle or square.

While the containers retail anywhere from $7 to $13 each depending on size and vendor, I paid just under $30 for all nine at Costco. (It was such a great deal I am posting this find on Pennywise Platter, a blog carnival worth reading.) I have used these containers for about three months and just bought a new box, knowing that Costco deals don't last forever. We will add some of the new containers to the rotation and store some in the pantry.

All Costco locations have some of their own inventory so this product may very well be missing in the Costco nearest you, but give it a look. Check in the kitchen section near the cookware and dinnerware.

Why glass
In an early version of the book Rebuild from Depression, there was actually a Part III. Part I is the memoir, Part II the nutrients and food science, Part III was establishing structures that reduce our need for nutrients. Basically, stress and toxic exposure eat up our nutrient stores. Reducing both is a good idea for a whole lot of reasons, though depression is one of them.

Whether plastic is toxic is controversial though now even the government acknowledges that a common chemical used in plastic, BPA, is unsafe (though it also says that levels in plastic are too low to cause concern). I really don't see waiting for the other shoe to drop. We use very little plastic in our kitchen and have been phasing it out for years. It helps that plastic is an inferior choice in food storage anyway with its ability to retain the flavor of last month's dinner.