Question from Laura
Debra, I have eliminated foil and saran wrap from my kitchen, however, I have been unable to find a good replacement for those products. What do you recommend for example when baking a chicken or roasting vegetables in the oven to cover baking dishes with when no longer using foil? The foil kept everything so moist. I feel like a heavy corning ware lid wouldn’t keep things as moist.
Similarly, what do you recommend wrapping things in instead of saran wrap. I have thought of wax paper, but to hold that together I would need to use tape and am worried tape has some other chemical in it that is not better. Thanks!
Debra’s Answer
In my kitchen I do use foil (made from recycled aluminum), and unbleached parchment paper.
I don’t use foil to cook food on or wrap food, but I will occasionally place a sheet loosely over food that needs a cover but still needs some air circulation (like when I make roasted beets–yum!)
If I need to wrap something, like a sandwich, I wrap it in unbleached parchment paper. There are ways to wrap things that hold together pretty well. Before there were plastic sandwich bags, we used to wrap sandwiches like this (no, I’m not THAT old…we’ve only had sandwich bags since 1957):
I rarely wrap sandwiches, but this is how I wrap anything.
I’m more inclined to use resuable containers than wrap, or wrap something in a clean cotton towel. But I’m not packing lunches.
