Plastic #3 = a tub of Red Vines

Going back two years ago I was in Costco with a friend buying some bulk food when I saw a bucket of Red Vines. For some reason they appealed to me at that moment and I bought the tub of sugar. What I didn't expect was a plastic taste on the bottom third of the licorice. Even more upsetting was a news report a week later on a local tv station warning against plastic #3 seeping chemicals into food.

More recently plastics #5 and #7 have been in the news this past year over baby bottles. That caught most mothers by alarm and kind of propelled the belief or truth about plastics being unsafe. One thing I read that the chemicals in plastics can do is seep into the body causing some people to have diabetes as well many other crazy problems. Kind of ironic that I told my mother her half melted bottle of sugar free maple syrup from the microwave was now more problematic for her diabetes than the sugar would have been. On the bottom of her plastic bottle was the #5, the same given in the baby bottle stories.

I was at Costco again last week eating an fatty oil soaked pizza you can buy at their "cafe". But while in the store shopping for things like a box of Dentyne peppermint gum, Korean pears and hot apple cider powder mix, I noticed the Red Vines stacked 4 feet high. I went and looked at the tub and sure enough the bottom still had a #3 on it. This plastic is more often found in building materials but there are also food distributors who use it too. I've come to realize in the past two years that if your going to eat or drink from plastic you should limit it to the #1 and #2 plastics. They are stronger and seep less chemicals.

A friend of mine from England who I converse with regularly through email recently told that switching from chemical based "toiletries" to organic has solved long occurring problems with nasal and ear infections. These have been common problems for this person for years. Maybe just allowing the body to act like its built rather than being inhibited by the chemicals. (Read the fourth paragraph of the link below under "Dioxins" where it mentions "immune system suppression") Which makes me think the anti-smoking commercials that talk about the poisons in cigarets could just as easily target things we take for granted in our every day lives, like the asphalt we drive on every day.

Believe it or not even with all the news coverage two years ago about the #3 plastic I couldn't find anything on the net until I relied on a some what trusted source, Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinyl_chloride

Actually you can pay to read about the #5 plastic leaking chemicals into our bodies.