AboutElyse Grau Expertise I can answer questions about vegetarian foods, cooking and nutrition.
Experience I have a degree in Food Science, with some background in nutrition. I am also an experienced cook, having worked in restaurants for 15 years and cooking at home as a hobby for 30 years. I have been a vegetarian for 25 years.`
Publications Creswell Chronicle
Education/Credentials BS Food Science California State University 1986
I'm wondering if you can point me in the right direction? I can't tell if I am living under the influence of a former roommate who was vegan, or if there are real concerns about my things being shared with a meat eater.
Based on my time when I still ate meat and lived with a vegan, I learned not to use her pans, pots, tupperware... Now, I am a veg myself and facing the same conversation with a new roommate! I understand why I don't want the meat-eater using my cooking tools - meat grease is hard to clean off and I see its residue. I don't mind us sharing plates, silverware, because the meat isn't raw and those clean much easier. But tupperware...!? I am wondering if cleanliness is an issue here. My friend was against sharing her vegan tupperware with meat eaters because plastic is porous. I see the logic in this, but I am wondering if there is a real concern. I haven't eaten meat in almost 8 years, so if there is beef or pork meat, fat, anything, I tend to get sick now. (For example, getting and egg and cheese at McDonalds, they just took the sausage patty off and I was ill for a few hours!) Will the meat taint my tupperware?
Rather than seem neurotic and bring this up, I'd rather read up on it, but google searches are hard to nail down on such a random and specific topic. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Answer Nicole:
I think it's a matter of personal preference and tolerance. I too, am a vegetarian living (and cooking for) a meat eater. I don't like to use the same utensils to stir or serve his food and mine, but once I've washed it it's no big deal. Scratched plastic can harbor bacteria from foods. This would be more of a concern for me than the mere fact that meat once touched it. In other words, if the tupperware were unsafe, it would be just as unsafe if used only for meat. Anything that has touched raw meat needs to be washed in hot soapy water, and sometimes disinfected (like cutting boards), but as I say, even if it is only used for meat this is true.
Your concern seems to be mostly a psychological thing, you have to do what makes you comfortable.
