I had to go to A Store today. My vegetable peeler finally gave up the ghost. It is an ancient metal one I got at

Goodnight, sweet prince...

a garage sale or Recycle Reuse or something, years ago. It has been so good, I’ve liked it better than any other peeler ever. But its blade has been going downhill for the last couple years, and finally would no longer cut, but merely drag over vegetable skins. Then I tried to sharpen it, and that finished it for good.

So I went in search of a new vegetable peeler. Out of desperation mostly, with Thanksgiving next week, and apples, pears, rutabegas, and potatoes all cooling their heels and keeping their skins. Keeping my eyes open for another old metal one hasn’t turned up anything; I gave in and got a new one that is mostly made of the p-word. That one word they’ve got for us. Plastic.

I don’t go to the big stores very often. Target and Walmart - once in a blue moon. Literally, about once each in the past year and a half. Meijer every 2 or 3 months maybe, at the most. I just don’t usually need what they have. I prefer to give my dollars to smaller local businesses. Since we grow so much of our own food or get it from nearby individuals, we don’t usually shop for local fruits and vegetables or eggs or meat; we’ve mostly phased out tropical fruits except for treats.

Thus, aside from the beliefs I’ve always held, I’ve grown a sensitivity to the overuse of plastic in stores. It just really bothers me to see it in its wasteful pervasiveness. I tried not to stare at the cart of the person in line in front of me, filled with many plastic layers of bags. Are we nuts? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? I feel the impact of all that unnecessary plastic going into the land, floating in the wind along the side of the highway, washing in the waves on the beach. Plastic, lining our lives, leaching toxins into our cells. Yes, I’m one of those people who believes we should be charged for every plastic bag used in the grocery line.

And then, there’s the plastic directly in contact with our food. I haven’t used canned soup since I was in college. I like making homemade soup. It’s easy and it tastes better. But what’s more… I just have no desire to eat something that was encased at a high temperature in a plastic-lined can. Bisphenol A doesn’t belong in my food or in my body. Here’s an interesting reference to the plastic-in-food debate:

“The FDA insists that bisphenol A (BPA), the chemical found in hard clear plastic and the lining of soda and beer cans is perfectly safe. But its counterpart to the north, Health Canada, has just declared that BPA is hazardous to human health….

” FDA is on the hot seat for its defense of this chemical. The scientist who chairs the expert panel that is analyzing the safety of BPA also heads a research center at the University of Michigan. His organization accepted a $5 million gift from a maker of medical devices who has been outspoken in his views that BPA is “perfectly safe.” Congress is investigating whether there is a conflict of interest.”

Here’s the link for the rest of the article:

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/editorial/canada_us_disagree_over_plastic_safety.php

And now, I’m off to make a lovely potato-rutabega-leek-celery soup, whose only contact with plastic will have been the new peeler taking off the veggie skins…