Are you concerned about toxic chemicals in plastic food packaging?

[Greg Bernhardt]

I've had silicone cooking tools for a few years now. I also just got rid of my last plastic plates. Bought a nice set of porcelain plates from Target.

 

[nsaspook]

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it doesn’t matter​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352402811X

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]​

The evil ZERO strikes again.

The journal Chemosphere?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosphere_(journal)

In July 2023, the journal was put "on hold" in the Web of Science Master Journal List, because "[c]oncerns have been raised about the quality of the content published in this journal."[1] By May 2024, the journal had marked more than 60 papers with expressions of concern, typically citing "unusual changes" of authorship prior to publication and "potential undisclosed conflicts of interest" by reviewers and handling editors.[2] In December 2024 the journal got delisted by Clarivate.[3]

I'm very concerned about toxic chemicals in food and the environment in general but take care about the sources of these 'scare' stories in the media.

 

[Pythagorean]

I avoid plastic as much as possible and try to stick to whole foods, but it's inevitable. Microwaving plastic containers also seems sketchy to me (not anything magical about microwaves - mostly just that heated plastic off gasses at higher volumes and its in contact with the food). I also hate seeing the end of a cheap plastic spatula shred into my food. Unmarked plastics where you don't even know what kind it is or who manufactured it (often found in dollar stores) makes me nervous too. I know the evidence is complicated, but with something like stainless steel there's a lot less uncertainty.

How many different ways are there to make plastics how many different recipes? Some of them are bound to have contaminants, or more commonly lead to manufacturing mistakes, etc. Potential dangers with plastic aren't just limited to being biochemical or environmental. I remember finding a sharp sliver of the lid of my salad container in my salad or seeing them break off when opening a container.

They're just generally not a standardized material, they're an ongoing exploration in materials science, and you don't know what you're going to get when you go to the market. Especially when the plastic isn't labelled or marked and its an imported good.

That being said, the effort to go no-plastic would be tremendous for me. I do appreciate individually wrapped packages in some situations (like on the road), because I can be sure that food doesn't get contaminated or compromised (e.g. getting wet or pilfered by insects and vermin). I get get a lot of use out of disposable plastic containers before disposing them. Sandwich baggies are great storage containers for small items. These were all very convenient when raising children and packing school lunches and trying to anticipate their appetite in general when not at home. As a, more or less, independent adult, it's a lot easier to reduce plastic use (but still very difficult to eliminate).

 

[Laroxe]

This is one of those issues that is unfortunately riddled with accurate information and realistic anxieties, the world of plastics is complex, we know that some have known toxicity and some can be reactive. We are amassing a large amount of information about potential risks, while at the same time, we have virtually no information about the health effects of plastics in relation to food safety. Can we reliably estimate the harm caused by exposure to plastics, how many people have died because of acute exposure? I would guess none, I think the number with chronic exposure wouldn't be much higher. Of course, we do have at least some data that could help in assessments of safety, there continue to be communities that have little or no access to plastics. Now, while the millions of deaths that occur annually from gastrointestinal infections can be associated with a wide range of risks, I think the safety of food packaging will have a role in this. I think an important issue in these debates is in the recognition we cannot live without risk, in this, all solutions cause new problems.

In issues like this there are strong bias's at work, including in the sciences that support the widespread view that what is natural is good, while manufactured is bad. I suspect that this has a huge influence in all sorts of areas in the food sciences. People are happy to splash all sorts of highly toxic chemicals around in kitchens and on food preparation areas, occasionally adding aerosolised chemicals into this mix. We used these because we know that they kill most cells exposed to them. We have also, since we largely solved the problem of getting adequate nutrition, shifted our beliefs about what has value, foods with high nutritional density are now bad, while foods described as natural or whole are the ones approved of. Something people rarely consider is that plants don't want to be eaten and have had millions of years in which to perfect avast array of poisons with which to kill their predators. We have only really used plastics for around 120 years and with no real intention to poison each other, and yet this is what we worry about.

I really think the best we can do is reduce the risks that occur as a result of exposure to all sorts of chemicals in our environment to individuals with a huge variation in sensitivity to their effects. It actually very difficult to get clear generalisable figures, we even produce our own poisons. This doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to these issues, but we need to put the potential threat into context. I suspect that the best evidence we have so far would clearly show that significantly more people have died from the effects of drinking water than from the effects of plastics in widespread use. The phrase widespread use is important because it suggests a natural experiment in which obvious toxicity would quickly become visible.

 

[Fra]

Also a global perspective to all details...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c05191

Climate change is also a significant threat to humans and things aren't going well.

Simlarly with electric cars. They are great but one needs to look at the the complete life cycle, including manufacturing and digging up minerals required for battery production to assess the overall benfits fairly, and how energy charging batteries are produced. Commercial forces that see a market opportunity generall present only the positive sides of things.

/Fredrik

 

[pinball1970]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165993624005971

This reviews papers regarding micro plastics and cell/tissue pathologies.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

I don't know much about microplastics but it seems they should be filter-out-able.
A home water purification system should take out most environmentally (water supply) problems.

I think I read that microplastics can be readily found in sink mount RO filtered water since the membranes themselves are plastic. I don't think microplastics are avoidable.

Since plastics, and by extensions microplastics, have been around widely since the 1960's I'd imagine we would have seen something in the data by now since the children born in that timeframe should be pushing into their 60's now.

Life expectancy has increased every decade since then. Not so good things have increased as well, like early onsent cancer incidence. Too many variables to pin that one on microplastics though. I had stage one early onset colorectal cancer that was removed via colonoscopy. Was it microplastics, some other enviromental factor, or did I just lose (slash win I guess in a way for that many oncogene mutations to build up?) the genetic lottery? That was slightly over three years ago now. I just think if there was a definite smoking gun from microplastics we would have saw it in the data by now.

 

[LightningInAJar]

My wife and I have been slowly trying to phase out plastic from our lives and well it's mostly impossible, but we've been making a large effort with food packaging, containers, and beverages. We've been switching to glass and aluminum containers/bottles. Between the microplastics, toxins, and not to mention trash, we hope to make a small difference in our bodies and environment. Anyone else?

This thread was prompted by my reading of this article this morning:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/24/health/breast-cancer-food-storage-chemicals/index.html

Also was learning about the oil industry's lies about recycling plastic on NPR today. 99% of plastic is not recycled.

I recently listened to a Q&A with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She said there might of been a study suggesting that oats may contain ingredients that help remove forever materials from the body. I was going to read more into it myself, but if true that seems interesting.

 

[gleem]

I recently listened to a Q&A with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She said there might of been a study suggesting that oats may contain ingredients that help remove forever materials from the body. I was going to read more into it myself, but if true that seems interesting.

It is the soluble fiber beta-glucan in oats that reduces the body burden of PFASs in mice. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39647509/

 

[Cepacia]

What are the "toxic" chemicals here?

 

[Cepacia]

What are the "toxic" chemicals of concern here?
Plastic recycling is so limited, black plastic isn't much of an issue.

 

[Cepacia]

It is the soluble fiber beta-glucan in oats that reduces the body burden of PFASs in mice. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39647509/

Think we should read the entire report rather than abstract. the study was confounded by greater exposure/ dosage of the glucan group that required authors to adjust stats ("relative to overall exposure") - and that a significant difference, esp. in that context, may not mean a clinically important difference.
Does anyone have the entire report?

 

[Tom.G]

A quick read of the Sciencedirect article seems to be a synopsis of the 76 listed references.

I doubt there are many here willing to wade through that pile of paper!

The reference to the National Institutes of Health grant (R21 ES032882, JJS) leads to only two seemingly unrelated titles.

Let us know what you find.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Cepacia]

Thanks Tom - the limited PFAS/oat fiber (is that the on you meant?) article viewed sci direct is an exp report rather than synopsis. It did have one ref relevant reporting 4-8% decrease with elevated fiber intake. Wonder at the practical significance of that.

 

[Cepacia]

One could add plastic cooking utensils, e.g., black plastic spatulas.


https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-plastic-spatula-flame-retardants/680452/

One might need a subscription to read the entire article.
ion of flame retardents

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it doesn’t matter​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352402811X

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]​

The evil ZERO strikes again.

Maybe sloppy science strikes again.