Plastic vs Glass Food Containers: Which is Best? - Gear Heads

We've all been here before, a bunch of containers, no matching lids. If your storage containers are in a big jumble, you're not alone. We were living this chaos, too. So we bought every top-rated glass and plastic container set we could find and put them through months of brutal, real-world testing. That's right, and today we're not just telling you which one's best. We're going to take you on the journey of how we found out, breaking down the science, the tests, and the features that actually mattered. We're going to settle the glass versus plastic debate once and for all. Lisa, let's start with the big question. Given what we know now, should people even be using plastic containers? It's a personal choice, but the science points toward caution. When they're heated, plastics can shed microscopic particles into your food. And it's not just the physical plastic. There's the issue of chemical leaching. We all know about BPA, but many BPA-free plastics use alternatives like BPS and BPF. Right. These are what scientists call regrettable substitutions. Because they have a similar chemical structure, and early research is suggesting that they pose similar hormonal disruption risks. So we all know plastic is incredibly useful. It's lightweight. It doesn't break. The safety of it is really conditional on you never heating it. That's right. We don't put it in the microwave. We don't put it in the dishwasher. We don't put hot leftovers right into plastic. I caught my husband ladling hot soup into a plastic container. I'm like, oh, stop, stop, stop, stop. I've actually seen that, like, bubble and melt it. I think 10 years ago, I probably still ate the food that was inside it, but now I certainly would not. Yeah. Also, acidic foods can eat into the plastic a little bit if you're storing them for a while. You know, tomato sauce. That's one reason that plastic discolors with tomato sauce, especially if you heated that up in the microwave and you never get that orange color out. That's damage, and that has made an interchange between your sauce and your container that you didn't want to have happen. That wasn't the seasoning you were looking for. This is where glass really separates itself. The number one advantage is safety and peace of mind. Absolutely. Glass is inert. It doesn't leach chemicals or shed nanoplastics, period. And that inert nature leads to its second advantage, incredible versatility. From the fridge to the oven to the microwave to the table, it's a one-dish workflow. Amazing for something like mac and cheese. You can meal prep and then have the most delicious thing ready and so few dishes. Yeah, you can serve right from it, and then you can put the top on and put it in the fridge. Eat right from it. I do that sometimes. Yeah, that's right. Plus, you know, it's also naturally stained and odor-resistant. You know that tomato sauce that would permanently stain plastic? With a glass container, that washes right out. Now, glass is not perfect. It's heavy. It can shatter. Those are real cons. But for the core of your kitchen, for storing, reheating, and meal prepping at home, we think the pros heavily outweigh the cons. We put blue-tinted water in every single one of the containers, and we gave them a really hard shake. And we wanted to see if the liquids inside were going to come out, whether the seal would hold. And being leak-proof is really important. You don't want to... You want to know that everything is sealed inside, that if it tips over in your fridge, you're not going to have a big, you know, mess. Or your backpack. Or your backpack, yeah. Or your expensive purse or something. So we wanted to know that everything, once you put in and seal, is going to stay in. And this was the quickest way to find out. Let's go. And we shook it all around, so let's do it. Don't throw it! I mean, I'm literally... I've got my thumbs on the lid, holding it on, and it's still pouring out. What a mess. This is what happened. Some of them were really perfectly dry and intact and didn't let anything leak, and some made a gigantic blue mess. And, you know, we had expensive sets fail and affordable sets succeed, but they all were based on one thing, which is the gasket under the lid. Now, if you look in this one, which totally failed, you can see that there's no gasket. It's just a plain plastic lid that cups down over the glass container. And it kind of serves a purpose of maybe a piece of cling wrap. But, you know, it's not as good a seal. Maybe not even as airtight. Yeah, I know. I've seen cling wrap do a little better. So we really learned that the leak-proof ones, like that one, had really excellent gaskets. They were high quality, they were silicone, and they went all the way around. And that silicone gasket is what's sealing the lid to the glass, so you're getting a plastic lid, a glass container, or in some cases, a glass lid with a glass container. But to make that seal, they put a silicone gasket because that's a little bit squishy, and you can really squish it down and close off that gap. And between that and these latches, nothing was getting out. Right, and the channel design that it sits in is critical to narrow channels, trap moisture, and food gunk, and can become a mold factory. We prioritized sets with wide, easy-to-clean channels. We also preferred fixed gaskets, one less thing to keep track of. Absolutely. They are such a pain when they come out and you're trying to get them back in. Tisket a tasket, you better have a gasket. There you go. Time for the moment of truth, the tuna test. We took oily tuna and we put it in all of the containers, glass and plastic, and we shook it all around. We stored it overnight, and then the next day, we took it out and washed the containers with soap and water and dried them, and then we smelled them. And boy, that was not fun with some of these. Here, try this one. Ew, oh my God, I went too hard. That's obviously, that was, I did not, I did not need to go searching for that. I knew that was a bad one. Yeah, that smells like cats. Nothing. So some of these, even though we washed all of them with lots of soap and hot water and dried them, and you know, some of them still retained that smell. And it happened with some that had gaskets that had gaps behind them that really were hard. They might have been attached, but they didn't have any space around them so you could really get in and clean. Fish oil got back there, little fragments. Yeah, the gaskets are always gonna be made from silicone, and silicone is very absorbent. Yes. And then this is a different type of plastic from this. This is a polyethylene, and it's a little bit more porous and really hangs on to smell a little more. This is triton, which is a hard plastic, and it is much more resistant to soaking up odors. And that gasket, although this one doesn't have a gasket, you'd think that that would be why. No, it's the material itself. In this case, the gasket is really easy to clean under and around, so you can really get all that stinky old fish out of there so next time you put your butter cookies in there, they don't taste like fish butter cookies. Ew. Yeah. Meanwhile, the glass containers almost universally odor-free, except for the few that had stinky gaskets. That's my new band name. We downgraded them accordingly. This is a simple thing, but it makes a huge difference in daily use. And we did another test, the tomato sauce test. So we put tomato sauce in each container and shook it all around and stored it overnight again, and then washed them again with hot, soapy water, and then looked for stains and smells. We just, again, wanted to make sure that once you put something in there and you clean it, it's coming out. So try this one. Ooh, okay. I mean, I can see visually that there's tomato sauce all over it. I can also smell it. Like, I didn't even get in there and I just got hit with a waft of, is this Rayo's? Yes. I don't know that anywhere. Yeah, so there's lots of little corners where, and on the edge here, this sort of yellowing, I see it along this ridge. And wow, you can see a very yellowy cast around the corners, in fact. You can smell it from here still. This is not supposed to have yellow on it. It's supposed to be sort of clear with a little green. So yeah, unfortunately, it really got on there and stained and left a little smell. So let's try this one. Tomato? Tomato? Anything? Nothing. Inertness. Yeah, and it looks perfectly clear. I don't see an orangey look to that at all. Now it's glass and we know that's inert. The plastic lid could have picked up something, but actually, again, it's very well-designed. You can get into that gasket and really clean behind it. It's kind of an open C shape. One side is attached, one is open. It works really well to seal the container, but it doesn't hold any kind of smell or food residue. It's very easy to flush that right out. Right, and it's made from triton, that triton type of plastic that is less porous, and so it's gonna absorb less, so. That's just, again, makes a huge difference in your daily use. You're not gonna be wasting extra time going back cleaning these again. You're not gonna worry about carrying over smells or stains that make it look sort of dingy and old if you bring that to somebody and it looks like this old beat-up thing you had in your closet, as opposed to a nice, fresh-looking container. A lot of people ask us if the type of glass matters. Is borosilicate, which is the old Pyrex formula, really that much better? Here's the technical truth. Borosilicate glass is more resistant to thermal shock, so less likely to crack from sudden temperature changes, like putting the glass container into the oven straight from the freezer. That's a no-no. But on the other hand, tempered soda-lime glass, which is the other type of glass that we had in our testing lineup, that's generally tougher against physical impacts, like being dropped. The practical truth that we found after months of testing, you can't put this right from the freezer into the oven either. Let containers get to the fridge temperature before putting it into a fully preheated oven. Yeah, you don't wanna risk that with any glass container. Yeah, I mean, look at these containers. They're almost identical. There really isn't a big difference between the construction or the way they look or anything. They're both glass containers. We found that other factors like the latches and design elements mattered much more than the type of glass, but otherwise, we didn't notice a performance difference between the two types of glass. We also tested plastic durability. Yes, I mean, we know that glass isn't gonna make it if you drop it. Probably not, right? But plastic is gonna be on the go with you, and we wanted to know if it was really durable. So we filled each container with water, and we pushed it off a kitchen counter up to the floor. We filled each container with water and froze it overnight, and then dropped it off of a cinder block about two and a half feet off the floor. And we really looked at what happened. Some of them made it just fine, and some of them had impact problems. Disaster. So it broke, it shattered. Sometimes the lid popped right off, and sometimes it landed on a corner. That little corner just dropped right out, and here's the gasket sticking out. There's a little hole. It's not good. The ones that were good, yeah. Nothing broke open these containers. They were frozen and dropped, nothing broke. They were full of water and dropped, nothing spilled. This is a testing copy right here. Yeah. Looks brand new. This is a testament to a good latch, a good lid, a good gasket, and good resilient material that can survive an impact. So based on all our data, here's your ultimate checklist. Hannah, what's the number one thing to look for? A secure, fixed gasket with a wide channel. That's your foundation for leak-proofing and easy cleaning. Second, you want smooth, sturdy latches. They should click shut with a gentle push, not a struggle. Also, flat lids. This was non-negotiable for stacking and saving space. One feature that really surprised us is nesting. Now, we all want nesting containers because they'll take up less space. There's a big problem with it, though, in practice. Yeah, it sounds cozy and efficient, but the reality is when you nestle everything together, if you need, say, one of the middle sizes, you're taking that all apart, and it just was not actually easier or more practical or more efficient in reality. Another feature that was really important, especially for glass containers, was a wide rim so that we could really grip it, which is really important when you're taking this out of the oven because you can bake in these. So having something to grab with the bottle holders, it's super important. So, for example, like, we're coming screaming hot out of an oven. Lisa's all comfortable over there, and I'm, like, desperately gripping onto this tiny, tiny rim right here. Yeah, even if you have it between two pot holders, you're dependent on it not sliding out. This has a nice little overhang that really keeps it secure. And finally, we liked tough, thick material, whether it's glass or plastic. You really want to avoid anything that, like, flexes or feels flimsy. Like, look at that thing. Yeah. One of these full of, what was it? Was it beef stew? It was literally, like, so full it was flexing outwards, which, first of all, that thing gets knocked in the refrigerator. It's gonna spray food everywhere. Yeah, and on the other hand, the Rubbermaid, which is both the plastic and the glass, really nice, thick glass, sturdy, and in the case of the plastic one, it's not flexing. It's nice and firm. It's not going anywhere. Bottom line, avoid anything that feels too flimsy. It does not bode well for durability or leaking. So, after months and months, hundreds of tests and a lot of mac and cheese, what's the final verdict, Hannah? The verdict? For 90% of home kitchen storage needs for storing, reheating, for meal prepping, the winner is clearly glass. It's the safest and most versatile material. And our top-rated glass set, the one that aced every single test, was the Rubbermaid Brilliance Glass Set. It was leak-proof, it was oven-safe, and it was incredibly user-friendly. But plastic still has a role. Our top plastic pick was also from Rubbermaid. The Brilliance Plastic Set won that testing independent of this testing, but it's actually no surprise because a lot of the factors are the same, right? The latches, the design, they share a lot of things here. So, it's not really a surprise. And another thing they share, the Brilliance line lids are interchangeable between glass and plastic. So, you can build a hybrid system that gives you the best of both worlds. You get the safety of glass at home and the lightweight convenience of plastic on the go with less searching for matching lids. Yeah, less rummaging around. Yeah, and we're all for that. All for less rummaging. So, did you go 100% glass at home? Yeah, you finally got to me. You've been talking about how bad plastic is. And every time I get near my plastic containers, couldn't stand it, finally sprung for one of these sets. And I love it. We use it all the time. And the other thing I really love is that they are clear. So, both plastic and glass here, you can see what's in them because I find that with my family, if they can't see the food, it doesn't exist until it comes out on its own. It's hard to remember it. Yeah, it's hard to remember it. Although I've gotten used to carrying these, even though, you know, this size is a great size for lunches and stuff. It's not bad. You know, it's not that heavy and it's so secure. You know, it's not going anywhere. That's the thing. You don't have to bring a whole bulky lunch bag. You can, because it's secure, you can just slip this in. Yeah. So, bottom line, plastic containers are light and good for traveling, but for most things, glass is best. For more information about all the gear we talked about today, check out the links below or head to the ATK app. So, what's your kitchen strategy? Are you going full glass or sticking with a hybrid system? Let us know in the comments below. And if this guide helped you, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content from your favorite neighborhood product testers. See you next time.