Title: Why & How to Get Plastic-Free Kitchens

Bridget Bergen: It's the Bryan Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Bridget Bergen filling in for Brian today. For our last segment, we're heading to the heart of every home, the kitchen, at least in my home. Plastics are practically unavoidable in household products, from food containers, spatulas, to the pans we cook with, but as the health effects of ingesting microplastics are still being studied, more people are rethinking what they cook with. Last year, a viral article in the Atlantic warned that black plastic spatulas could be leaching toxic flame retardant chemicals into food. Since then, the editors at the Strategist, the product recommendation site from New York magazine, have been testing alternative kitchen products. Their series, Plastic-Free Kitchen Week, is full of guides for replacing the plastic items currently in your kitchen.

With us is Emma Wartzman, senior kitchen and dining writer at the Strategist. Emma, welcome to the show.

Emma Wartzman: Thanks so much for having me.

Bridget Bergen: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you swapped out plastic kitchenware for other products or are you looking to swap out your cookware? Is there a particular plastic product you don't think you can do without? Maybe you joined the crowd who ditched their black plastic spatulas, or do you like your plastic utensils just fine? Tell us what questions you have for Emma Wartzman. You can call or text us the numbers 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Emma, for listeners who haven't read the series, what is Plastic-Free Kitchen Week all about?

Emma Wartzman: Plastic-Free Kitchen Week is all about doing your very best to go plastic-free in the kitchen. I think it is a very overwhelming task to undertake. Really, the goal of this week was to provide alternatives for everything we possibly could, which is to say not everything, because certain items, it's very, very difficult to completely find alternatives that are plastic-free.

We did our best and we have tons of stuff that when you swap it out, I think you'll find is just as good, if not actually better than the plastic version of said item.

Bridget Bergen: Now, you mentioned that it's maybe not possible to have a 100% free plastic kitchen, that there's some items that are really hard to swap. Can you tell us what some of those things are, and why it's so challenging at this point to get all the plastic out of the kitchen?

Emma Wartzman: For sure. I think a few things stand out and we've seen our own readers respond the same way when we ask them what they're looking to swap out. Coffee makers is a big one when it comes to electric drip automatic coffee machines. There's many alternatives if you're open to the possibility of brewing your coffee in a different way, but if you are the type of person who just wants to set it the night before, wake up, press a button, and have a big pot of coffee waiting for you, it's just going to be tough.

I have a colleague who did a deep dive on this subject as one of the stories for the week, and he found several very close alternatives. One coffee machine that is mostly made from wood and stainless, but the water tank is still plastic. I believe the company that made it tried to originally make it from glass and it just did not work. That's an example of something where it's just not quite possible to manufacture certain things, so that they're durable and not breakable without making them, at least parts of them, from plastic. A lot of those small appliances. I think blenders is a tough one. Immersion blender, same thing.

Bridget Bergen: Let's just talk for a minute about that viral article in the Atlantic that really freaked everybody out, throw out your black plastic spatula. What can you tell us about it, and was that part of what prompted you to do this plastic-free series?

Emma Wartzman: It was. It sort of is. I mark that as around the time that I feel like the chatter about ditching plastic really started to come up in my own life. What's funny about that article is, in fact, it turned out that there were two math errors, not in the article itself, but in the study that the article was referencing. The amount of plastic that it said you were ingesting specifically from this type of black plastic, which, as you mentioned, is a flame retardant, which sounds very scary, was not quite as bad as people had originally or as the article had originally cleared and people had originally thought.

That said, my colleague at New York who wrote this response, how are we all feeling about this now down the line after the study was corrected and all that. He spoke to the writer of the article again, he spoke to some other scientists. The conclusion is that it's maybe not necessarily that much worse than all the other types of plastic in your kitchen, but it's certainly not good for you. I think that that's where we've landed on the black spatula debate, which is-- I think it's one of the easier things to get rid of, and so it's like, why not?

Bridget Bergen: Sure. Let's talk a little bit about you experimented with a lot of products for Plastic-Free Kitchen Week. Talk us through some of what the best plastic-free swaps were that you found worked. Did anything surprise you?

Emma Wartzman: For sure, I would say the easiest, like I just said, sort of pivoting off of the black plastic spatula specific panic, I think cooking utensils incredibly easy to swap out any plastic that you have with those. Silicone is supposedly safer. It's more heat resistant, which means that it's just less likely to break down when you're stirring things in a pot. Then also, if anything does happen to leach out, I talked to a chemicals engineer who told me that it is less harmful to the body than plastic is over time.

It's why certain implants are made from silicone. It's just a little bit of a safer alternative. Silicone spatulas, for sure are a favorite and very easy to swap out. I think they're better, and wood and stainless steel for the rest of your cooking utensils should be totally fine. There's just no reason to have any plastic when it comes to spoons, ladles, all that type of stuff.

I think storage containers are pretty easy to swap out. I know people are very attached to the type of storage containers that they like to use, but I have been on a mission in my own kitchen. That was a big area where I was super reliant on plastic. Specifically deli containers, the cylindrical containers that you get from takeout spots. I would buy them in bulk and use them for everything. I have been slowly swapping those out, and I actually find that it is quite easy to do.

Then, the other one that I was very skeptical of, so I guess you could say this surprised me, is I spent many months testing ceramic nonstick skillets as opposed to the more traditionally coated nonstick skillets. I found that a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them are just as good as their counterparts.

Bridget Bergen: We've got a bunch of people asking questions about new products that they want to try. Let's try Neta in Westchester. Neta, you're on WNYC.

Neta: Hi, I'm just wondering, you were just mentioning about nonstick skillets to make omelets and such. I threw out my Teflon skillets and I don't know what to use instead. You mentioned some ceramics are better, but which one?

Emma Wartzman: Hi. Thanks for your question. I have four that I wrote about that I found really worked well. I would say honestly, the biggest difference is not in performance, but it's in design of the pan and price point. you'd have to look them up and look for those small details, see what you like. I really like the ceramic clad nonstick frying pan from Made in. I like Caraway's fry pan. I think it's super solid. Those two are definitely on the more expensive side.

I should add that this is not a pan that is meant to last forever, so when you're deciding on the price point you want to spend, keep that in mind. None of them are going to last like as long as a cast iron or stainless steel pan. I like Green Pan's Valencia Pro line specifically. I found was very good. Then, one that surprised me that I will asterisk note, I've been testing for less time, so it's possible it doesn't have quite the longevity, but it's certainly the cheapest one. Kind of random, but Quince, the online store that sells a bunch of stuff, not just kitchen stuff. I found their ceramic nonstick frying pan to be, honestly, excellent so far and I've been using it pretty much every single morning for the last month.

Bridget Bergen: Interesting. Let's go to Nora in White Plains. Nora, you're in WNYC.

Nora: Thank you. Hi. I am one person, so I make a big pot of vegetarian chili and then freeze it. I try to store in the refrigerator in glass jars as much as possible rather than plastic. I didn't hear what the guest said she swapped her deli containers out for. But in the freezer, you can't freeze in glass. What are the safer alternatives for freezer containers?

Bridget Bergen: Thanks for your question, Nora. Any suggestions there, Emma, on food containers that freeze well?

Emma Wartzman: Yes. Specifically for chili and soup, which a lot of people also seem to store that in deli containers, I haven't used these myself, but my colleague loves them. They're called Souper Cubes and you can find knockoffs of them too. But the original design is Souper Cubes. They're silicone cubes that you buy in different sizes. You can freeze in 2 cup portions, 1 cup portions, half cup portions, and then tablespoon portions for tiny amounts of ingredients. But for you, the bigger ones would make sense for soup and then you just pop them right out.

the lid on those is plastic, but it's not meant to touch the food. That is the best alternative that I found soups and sauces, and stuff specifically for the freezer.

Bridget Bergen: Emma, a couple people have texted in with a question about glass jars and reports that potentially glass jars and containers may not be as safe as what they thought. I know it's a little bit off from specifically what you were testing for, but have you seen any of those reports? Any thoughts on that?

Emma Wartzman: I am sorry to say that I have not seen any reports that glass is bad. I can't imagine why. I mean, honestly, my instinct would be to buy from reputable companies. That's the best advice I can give on that line. I want to think that if a company is producing glass in a safe way, if you trust them, that you'll be okay. But I can't say for sure, I'm sorry.

Bridget Bergen: One of the pieces in this series profiles Chef Edward Lee in his effort to run a fully plastic-free restaurant kitchen. Can you just briefly tell us about the project and what home cooks can learn from it?

Emma Wartzman: Yes, for sure. Chef Edward Lee started a project. It's an untraditional setup. He has a nonprofit, he runs a nonprofit that backed this project. It's meant to be an experiment that lasts five years, but it is a fully functioning Korean fine dining restaurant in Washington, D.C. It's called Chia.

The goal of this was to make it, like you just said, a plastic-free kitchen. They call it a 100 plastic-free kitchen. There is, admittedly, Edward told me, some pieces of plastic. Again, the appliances can be tough. He mentioned blenders was a really tough one to swap out. Then in terms of big appliances, like your refrigerators and stuff, those are also going to have plastic parts in them. There's nothing to do about that. But they're very, very close to running a 100% plastic-free restaurant kitchen, which is kind of a crazy feat.

The goal is for other chefs at some point to be able to take what they want from it. And then home cooks to be able to take from what they want from it as well. They love stainless steel storage containers, which I know some people don't like because you can't see inside of them. But I would just say labeling makes a huge difference, and can be great. He loves a cast iron skillet as a swap for any nonstick.

He told me that that was the biggest thing that he sees in just his friends houses and stuff. Everyone has nonstick skillets, and it's true that really, I think you can do 99% of your cooking on cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and then maybe get a ceramic nonstick for those particular things like scrambled eggs or omelets that really benefit from a super extra sleek surface.

He only uses wood cutting boards in the restaurant. Another big one. I think people can be kind of scared that cutting raw meat on a wood cutting board is bad, or that it's going to stain or warp or whatever, but really, they're super durable. They're more durable than plastic, and you can use raw meat on them, have a dedicated one if you want to, clean it well and call it a day.

Bridget Bergen: Those are great swaps. We're gonna leave it there for now. Emma Wartzman, senior kitchen and dining writer at the Strategist. Emma, thanks for joining us.

Emma Wartzman: Thank you so much for having me.

Bridget Bergen: The Brian Lehrer Show's producers are Lisa Allison, Mary Croak, Amina Serna, Carl Boiserand and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Our interns this summer, our Vito Emanuel and Adelina Romero. Megan Ryan is the head of Live radio. Juliana Fonda and Milton Ruiz are at the studio controls. That's it for the Brian Lehrer Show. Stay tuned for All Of It.

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