On reading the November edition of Foods Matter, I was rather surprised to see one article passing on a recommendation to make rolling out pastry easier by enclosing the pastry between layers of cling film.
I thought it was well known that, for anyone who wants to be careful about food, it is better to avoid contact between food and new plastic, particularly very flexible plastic like cling film. The article in the same issue by Micki Rose, makes the same point ‘Do not buy or store food in plastic packaging.’
I have been subscribing to Foods Matter for 10 years, and always find something of interest. But I have noticed over the last few years how the scope of the magazine has broadened to cover a very wide spectrum of readers. Those who just have to cope with their diet being gluten free find it difficult at first, but they have no idea how easy their situation is, compared with others who have to avoid very many foods and cope with problems due to chemicals in packaging, storage and cooking utensils.
The point I made at the start is an illustration of this wide spectrum – the cookery course described was aimed just at avoiding gluten, whereas many of your readers will be trying to follow many additional guidelines in their cooking.

Ed. Rather belatedly (after the magazine had already gone to the printers) we did pick up on this and realised that we should have suggested the alternative of greaseproof paper – although, unfortunately, it does not work as well.

Click here for more miscellaneous research on chemical sensitivity

First Published in January 2009

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