Question
Hi, can you tell me if it is safe to grow vegetables to eat in plastic containers.
I am led to believe that petrochemical products leech small amounts of chemicals and estrogen.
Do the plants absorb these as they grow?  

Answer
Hi Dave;
I have heard so may tales about plastic bleeding toxins into foods.
I heard plastic feeding dishes for dogs and cats is also toxic.
My vet said he had never heard anything about that, and he has been in practice for a long time.
I don't see that there is Estrogen in plastic.
Some kinds of plastic ARE toxic, and they would carry a warninng not to use to store foods.
I have grown tomatoes in plastic planters, and we didn't get ill eating them.
I think this is another tale like the tales about Aspertame.
There is some toxin, but it would probably take eating a bushel of these vegetables ecery day for many, many years.
If I made and sole metal and wooden containers, and didn't sell plastic ones, and if I were unscruptulous, I might put out the word that plastic containers were toxic.
I would want them to by MY containers.
Also some people spread rumors about everything causing cancer. They get panicky.
Like the tales that you should NEVER ingest anything wih a raw egg, so eople wn't let teir children lick the beaters when they make a cake, one of the pure joys of childhood.
Any cook who has a brain knows to wash eggs before they break them, because they come for a dirty source. the hen's nest.
If the eggs are fresh, and have NO cracks in the shells, and you wash them before you crack them, then it should for little kids to lick the beaters.
Think of all the years we went out to the hen houses and gathered the eggs, and the kids licked the beaters.
That;s been going on for hundreds of years, without people coming down with Salmonela.
O have large plastic containers tht i havd planted tomatoes right now, and i am sure going to eat those tomatoes.
I think if it does leech anything, it is such a minute amount it would take longer than you will live for it to harm you, uness it is a container that is made of plastic that is NOT meant to hold food stuffs.
You can't use plastic containers that have been used for something harmful to you, like using emptied bleach bottles, or bottles that held a poisonous material.
I also have container planted dwarf fruit trees. We eat the fruit from those trees.
I have no deffinate proof either way.
Charlotte