Vintage Tupperware

[rebeccmeister]

Busy day. I gave a talk at lab meeting at noon, so I spent the morning scrambling to pull together data and analyses from multiple ongoing projects. We had an extended lab meeting so that a visiting scientist could also tell us about her work studying lipid biosynthesis in parasitoids. Parasitoids are insects that lay their eggs inside of other insects, eventually killing their hosts. Apparently there are multiple cases where different parasitoid species have completely shut off the biochemical pathways for lipid biosynthesis. This is pretty crazy if you consider that the pathways for lipid biosynthesis are broadly conserved across animals. Investigations as to why and how are ongoing.

After that, Monday cricket care duties, with help from a new undergrad, which basically means everything takes the same amount of time or slightly longer while I explain everything.

I have a late-night timepoint tonight, and then I'll sleep on the lab couch so I can remove food from more crickets tomorrow morning at 8 am, for the 11 am timepoint tomorrow.

At least I got the full 5 long-winged crickets with pink flight muscle, unlike on Friday when only 3 out of 14 crickets still had pink flight muscle.

So anyway, that's why I'm on eBay, doing a search for "vintage Tupperware." Apparently one of the containers that I have is actually an "ice cream keeper." We've been using it for various cheeses, but I don't like doing that because the plastic sides aren't completely smooth, so cheese gets smeared in the cracks and the whole thing gets moldy quickly. Maybe it's for people who still buy ice cream in those box cartons, so the leftover ice cream doesn't get horribly freezer-burned?

It does sound like the Tupperware cheese-keepers will hold a full 2-pound block of Tillamook, but then we would want something else for the other miscellaneous cheeses. Fridge space is at a premium in this house.

And maybe I should consider getting more of the 16-ounce square containers for freezer storage. scrottie and I both hate it when sacks of food slip out and fall onto the floor.

And on the third hand, too.much.stuff.

Comments

[threemeninaboat]

Vintage Tupperware is mostly BPA, if you have endocrine issues you may want to store your food in something else.

[bluepapercup]

We've switched over entirely to glasslock style stuff like this.

[rebeccmeister]

This is a good point, and one I'll mention to scrottie. Thanks!

[randomdreams]

Why lipogenesis, do you suppose? Does that take longer to kill the host? Are they inhibiting enzymes so they can get the lipid precursors? (As in, acetyl-CoA, if their fat biochemistry is like ours?)

[rebeccmeister]

Just realized I hadn't responded to this question. Apparently a lot of parasitoids convince their host insect to ramp up lipid production, so the thinking is they don't have to make their own lipids because they can acquire everything they need directly from the host. And if you don't need to synthesize lipids, you can spare the expense of all the enzymatic machinery for lipid biosynthesis.