The Perils of Plastic:

Open the refrigerator in a typical American home and you’ll find milk, orange juice and plenty of plastic. Every day, we reach for individually wrapped cheese slices, dip spoons into plastic yogurt cups and offer babies sips of milk from plastic bottles.

If used with common sense, plastics and food can be a safe combination, experts say. But certain types of plastic are made with chemicals that may cause health problems if they leach into food. For example, meat defrosting in the microwave could pick up chemicals from a styrofoam tray that starts to melt from the high heat.

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