Paper Plates That Win 'Good Housekeeping' Seal

May 14 -- Your picnic guests are happily piling their paper plates high with potato salad, hot dogs, barbecued chicken and corn on the cob when a minor dining crisis strikes.

The plates that your guests are using start to drip and droop, and all that backyard barbecue food threatens to soak right through the plates, onto their laps, and light-colored summer clothing.

The only way to avoid this scenario is to find out ahead of time which type of plates will work best for your barbecue. Ellen Levine, editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping magazine, appeared on Good Morning America to help test paper plates commonly used in picnics and barbecues, and to announce the magazine's own paper plate test results.

A Battery of Barbecue-Like Testing

To make sure people get their money's worth, the Good Housekeeping Institute (GHI) tested 15 brands and styles for strength, soak-through resistance and microwave durability.

Strength Test: To test for strength, GHI poured water through a funnel onto a plate until it seeped off the edge to determine how much water the plate would hold. Best performer: Dixie Ultra Strong Deep Dish

Soak-Through Resistance: To test the soak-through resistance, GHI put the plate on a paper towel, poured 1/4 cup of water and a 1/4 cup of oil on the plate and checked the towel for seepage after one hour. Best Performers: Hefty ElegantWare and Dixie Ultra Strong.

Microwave Performance Test: For the microwave performance test, GHI microwaved a hamburger, beans and an ear of corn for two minutes. The plate was taken out to determine if it was cool, if it had degraded, or if moisture had seeped into the towel or plate. Best performer:Dixie Rinse & ReUse

Different Plates, Different Strengths

"If you want to pile on the works, Dixie UltraStrong Deep Dish Plates at 17 cents per plate is worth the splurge," Levine said.

Dixie UltraStrong, which cost 7 cents per plate cannot hold as much weight, but they are just as leak-proof.

Hefty ElegantWare, at 8 cents a plate, performs well, but is not quite as good in the microwave, she said.