The Food Court

Hey, come on over here and have a big slice of polymer pizza. It's not as strange as it sounds. That's right, we eat polymers, an awful lot of them as it turns out. French fries are loaded with a polymer called starch, which your body digests into sugar to use as fuel.

And burgers are full of proteins, which your body uses to build and repair itself.

The pepperoni and the cheese on this pizza are also loaded with proteins. And popcorn is formed from starch, while a hot dog is yet another source of protein. (Of course, buttery popcorn and hot dogs also contain a lot of fat. Fat molecules are big, but they're not polymers.)

Learn more about what foods are good for energy and a healthy body in Paul Lemur's Health Game


Fast food often comes in boxes made of polystyrene foam. Sometimes the food in the containers tastes about like Styrofoam® too.

Napkins are made of paper, which is made from wood pulp, and that wood pulp has an awful lot of the polymer cellulose. The paper plates and cups the food comes in are also cellulose. The cup lids are made of polystyrene, but in plastic form instead of foam.

The trays are made of polyethylene. Most of the prizes in the kids' meals are made from polystyrene and polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride.

In the old days, before we had non-dairy frozen deserts, us old folks had to eat something called ice cream. It was gooey because of a naturally occuring polymer called xanthan gum.

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Polymer ice cream....  mmmmm