superkuh parent
Before food was packaged in plastic a lot of it wasn't packaged properly, went bad, and caused sickness and death. Plastic food packaging has saved innumberable lives and continues to do so. And that's not even considering the prevention of food waste.
The widespread use of plastic food packaging is relatively new.
By relatively new I mean within my lifetime.
There were not "innumerable" deaths in the US due to "improper food packaging" leading to sickness and death in my youth.
The only plastic products I recall from my youth were plastic bread bags for sliced bread, and plastic milk bottles. Everything else was glass, metal, or paper. I am pretty sure I did not see or touch a plastic soft drink bottle until my teens. If you wanted a lot of soda you got "The Boss" from Pepsi, which was a half gallon glass bottle.