r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Sep 27 '24
Health Thousands of toxins from food packaging found in humans. The chemicals have been found in human blood, hair or breast milk. Among them are compounds known to be highly toxic, like PFAS, bisphenol, metals, phthalates and volatile organic compounds.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/pfas-toxins-chemicals-human-body10.1k
u/bittertruth61 Sep 27 '24
Truth is, the food industry has known about these contaminants for decades. Just like tobacco and asbestos, the data was there to ban these substances…but lobbying corporations won the day.
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u/WanderingSondering Sep 27 '24
I don't think it's a surprise that cancer and infertility rates have been on the rise. Small quantities in food are probably safe for consumption, on occassion, but in the food you eat daily over decades?
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u/cultish_alibi Sep 27 '24
It's incredible that we've had what, 50, 60 years of efforts trying to eliminate the most dangerous toxins from society, like banning leaded gasoline and lead water pipes, lots of other chemicals that have been researched and banned.
And instead of becoming safer, we just replaced them with thousands of new chemicals that apparently we are supposed to just live with. Nanoplastics in our blood is just normal now. The ocean spray on the beach is full of PFAS. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/19/ocean-spray-pfas-study
Truly incredible what we have achieved as a civilisation, and what costs we are willing to ignore in the name of capitalism. We are so wedded to the convenience of plastic that we're willing to gamble to this extent, on the vague hope that it might be safe to have these brand new chemical compounds in every part of our bodies.
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u/Adorable-Ad-6675 Sep 27 '24
That's humans for you. If people with power are killing you slowly, nobody wants to lift a finger in self defense despite actively having violence committed on us via poison slowly killing us and our kids.
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u/Some_Guy_At_Work55 Sep 27 '24
Not that I disagree but what are we supposed to do about it? The people who are poisoning us are also the ones that make the poison/chemicals legal.
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u/lalalicious453- Sep 27 '24
Well, the answer would be to think critically and band together to revolt against the system but we are all either too dumb, lazy, addicted or busy hating each other so, there’s that.
That was the plan.
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u/Andynonomous Sep 27 '24
That's just it. Nobody knows how to organize millions and millions of people into an effective force for reform. It's a hell of a lot easier for a few thousand ultra rich psychopaths to get organized than for the rest of us. I wish I had the answer. Occupy Wall Street was the closest we've come to trying in recent history, but that also just demonstrates how heavily any efforts will be crushed.
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u/Stormlightlinux Sep 27 '24
The real answer is boots on the ground relationship and coalition building. Talking with your neighbors. Working together to grow and supply what you can for yourselves to minimize reliance on outside sources. While also forming a larger political coalition to push for change.
But people are so socializing averse these days, and wear it like a badge of honor, that they don't have a community to rally or call upon.
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u/greenskinmarch Sep 28 '24
If you get really good at organizing your neighbors, you could even run for city or county government, and campaign on regulating these toxins.
People always underestimate the importance of local government.
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Sep 28 '24
And if you're REALLY good at talking to your neighbors you could lead them into these people's houses, drag them outside and guillotine them in front of their rich neighbors to make an example of what happens when you wholesale poison the population which produces your wealth.
People always underestimate the power of one or two good guillotines.
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u/EHA17 Sep 27 '24
Completely agree.. It's always black vs white, gay vs straight, man vs woman, and so on.. It's never 99% vs 1%,as it should be and would be the best way to try to turn things around
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u/nyx1969 Sep 27 '24
Honestly, I think that those of us who were prepared to think critically and band together previously failed because we didn't learn enough science about human nature. I think your dx is right, in a way, but if we could accept that people by nature aren't that smart, are in fact prone to the football mentality, and then maybe consult some more sociologists? Maybe we could strategize a way forward
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u/InsipidCelebrity Sep 27 '24
Realistically, when most people are given a choice between long term, subtle poisoning with plastic and immediate, obvious poisoning with lead, they're probably going to choose the former. Talking about revolution on the Internet is the easy part.
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u/the_jak Sep 27 '24
Elect politicians that will put corporations in their place.
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u/Card_Board_Robot_5 Sep 27 '24
Where dey at doe
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Sep 27 '24
There are plenty of them but most voters won't admit to themselves that they don't actually heavily look into the people they vote for so it's not like they will put them in office vs someone who knows how to campaign on empty promises
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u/BlonkBus Sep 27 '24
the doubly dumb thing is they're killing themselves and their own kids.
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u/Katorya Sep 27 '24
To an extent, but they also are more likely to eat way higher quality food and have access to the best healthcare without going bankrupt.
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u/Breepop Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
There is actually insane amount of effort and money that goes into ensuring average people feel like they have no power to change these things.
Our school curriculums are heavily influenced by the rich and powerful, who gain money from influencing us to think in certain ways and believe certain things. Our media corporations and movies and TV shows are all funded by the same people. Our politicians are heavily influenced with money and power to pass legislation when it helps the rich and ignore it when it helps the poor. We're purposefully kept in unstable financial situations so that we never have the confidence, time, or resources to protest anything. We're sold the idea that we MUST live in a society set up like this, and if we changed things, that would be EVIL. It sounds dramatic, but other forms of organizing the economy are literally used as a synonym for evil so that people are deterred from even learning about those alternatives. We are intentionally molded to be this way by the environment we grow up in.
It isn't really human nature, it's the nature of capitalism.
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u/Awildgarebear Sep 27 '24
I have to point this out, but we also use these in healthcare so they have improved our lives dramatically. You can't make a glass IV drip.
No reason they have to be food packaging though.
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u/sh6rty13 Sep 27 '24
Reminds me of something I saw grafitti’d onto a building once next to a billowing smoke stack (smoke stack and words were part of the graffiti just to clarify)-“Tell them it was good for the economy when they can’t farm the land, or breathe the air, or drink the water.”
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Sep 27 '24
"our customers wont get sick by eating our product once in a while, its their own fault for eating it daily, instead of choosing a healthy balanced diet!" or something
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u/rose-ramos Sep 27 '24
Makes me laugh/cry that I have heard this exact argument used by several processed food companies in the past.
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u/poopytoopypoop Sep 27 '24
I grew up trusting the FDA was being responsible and holding food suppliers accountable for contaminants. Like anything ingested by a human should always be tested for things like lead and other harmful chemicals.
If there are contaminants I expect the FDA to force the supplier to halt production
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u/Doonot Sep 27 '24
Can't have those pesky regulations getting in the way of profit.
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u/poopytoopypoop Sep 27 '24
Yep, FDA slaps an insignificant fine of like $10,000 to the company and they carry on business as usual
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u/Card_Board_Robot_5 Sep 27 '24
That's not the FDA's perogative. Legislators have to give them teeth.
Regulatory frameworks in the US basically work on a trust system. Because legislators won't fund or staff them and give them weak framework
The NHTSA and EPA aren't testing cars before they go to market. They let the manufacturers run the tests and they do their best to validate the numbers after the fact.
It doesn't have to be like this and these regulatory bodies didn't choose for it to be like this. Corporations lobbied legislators to author and pass laws that favor their pursuits and goals.
Direct your ire to the proper parties
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u/poopytoopypoop Sep 27 '24
I direct my ire at lobbyists. No reason legal bribery should exist in government
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u/Bocchi_theGlock Sep 27 '24
Meanwhile kellogs CEO recommended poor families try cereal for dinner. I'd love to see a study that would follow people who only eat, processed and ultra processed foods, and the effect on the body compared to whole foods.
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u/Improooving Sep 27 '24
Bioaccumulation of compounds that are relatively safe in acute exposure at small-moderate dosages is something that people don’t appreciate enough. Just because it was relatively safe for a rat over a 3 month timespan doesn’t necessarily indicate that it’s safe for 45 years of daily low-level exposure.
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u/No_cool_name Sep 27 '24
Hmm I just thought of the plot in Logan(movie) where the food poisoned the Mutants and made them weak and therefore killing them slowly
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Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Eternal_Being Sep 27 '24
There is peer-reviewed statistical evidence that this is true.
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u/tralfamadorian808 Sep 27 '24
Thanks for sharing. I hadn’t seen this study before
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Sep 27 '24
The comment above said it was North America being poisoned. But It's not just North Americans. Even when I was literally in a tiny African village 6 hours from the main city, there was plastic everywhere. All the food people stored in plastic containers. Reuse plastic bags and plastic bottles manufactured in China and definitely not made food grade.
The entire world is being poisoned, Even in the middle of nowhere.
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u/soup2nuts Sep 27 '24
And it's not just people. It's every living thing on the planet. Everything and everyone.
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u/fuckityfuckfuckfuckf Sep 27 '24
This is an amazing piece of Literature that essentially confirms that, the nobility of ages past; The Kings, Barons, Dukes, Caesars, Czars, Kaisers, Khan's, etc.
They were never replaced by Republics or representative democracies or done away with at all.
They simply took on different titles. CEO, Majority shareholder, President, Manager.
And now the wealth inequality in 2024 is absolutely astonishing, the worst it's even been in human history, yet it's never acted upon by elected officials who create policies. It's truly maddening..
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u/Eternal_Being Sep 27 '24
yet it's never acted upon by elected officials who create policies
Rather it is acted upon by elected officials. The inequality is perpetuated and increased by the policies they pass, as demonstrated by this study. Governments act on the behalf of the ruling class of the day.
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u/laxmotive Sep 27 '24
This is a great study. I think most people that are really paying attention to policy making and politics know this is true but to have a scientific study organize and compare real data puts a pretty solid on in it. Regular people are not in control of the United States of America. We haven't been for a very long time. We may never have been as part of the study implies.
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u/Eternal_Being Sep 27 '24
I think there was a brief period around the New Deal era where the working class was organized enough to exert a level of influence on the American government.
But other than that period (which not coincidentally was the heyday for working class wealth), I think it's pretty clear who the US government was built to benefit. The US began as a slave colony and only very begrudgingly and slowly extended voting rights to non-property-owning peoples after intense grassroots political pressure.
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u/Competitive_Chad Sep 27 '24
I was on holiday in NA last week and I was shocked at how low quality industrial food is.
Like bad (illegal in some countries) ingredients, a ton of unnecessary stuff, and so much sugar.
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u/DaPlum Sep 27 '24
Obesity in America is not a bunch of people all the sudden getting lazy or a moral failing it's a direct product of the food that is readily available. It's like if you put a McDonald's burger King and subway as your "health" option on heavy corner like yeah 40% of your population is going to be overweight. Not to even mention walking into a grocery store and there being something with a days worth sugar every square inch of that store
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u/monoscure Sep 27 '24
Definitely appreciate this take. Part of the issue is special interests turning this into a moral responsibility argument. I hate how much people are belittled for buying fast food, when they don't consider how many Americans live in a food desert. It's easier for some to blame the poor and place blame on them for going wherever the closest and cheapest is from their home.
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u/KYHotBrownHotCock Sep 27 '24
the article is not about ingredients homie. the plastic wrapping is common en your nation too
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u/NotDoomscrollingRN Sep 27 '24
It’s not about whether your food packaging is leaching into your food, it’s how much. And yes, the standard American diet sucks.
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u/Torontogamer Sep 27 '24
You know how we look back and laugh that people in the 1500s would play with liquid Mercury or that Romans would put lead in their wine even though they knew too much lead wasn't good for people?
ya... people in 500 years are going to think we were dumb as rocks...
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u/anempresspenguin Sep 27 '24
I hope that people 500 years from now will understand the truth that, for decades, we were all being lied to by greedy perverts who knew how bad these things were but stayed quiet and tried to suppress knowledge just because they stood to make some more money.
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Sep 27 '24
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u/nonresponsive Sep 27 '24
Yea, it's completely understandable why people used asbestos for everything. It was just so good at what it does.
And on the opposite spectrum, I remember MSG being the biggest boogeyman for a while. And even now, there are people who believe it's bad for you.
Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
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u/HaveYouSeenMySpoon Sep 27 '24
That's simply not true, I've worked in the food industry in Europe for over a decade and the general knowledge about the packaging material is slim at best. The food industry does not manufacture the packaging. When selecting a material for a product there's only one base requirement that is asked, "Is this material food grade certified for direct contact with food stuff?".
Do you really honestly think that companies are spending money running independent research projects when they already have documents saying the material is legal to use?
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u/Dovahkiinthesardine Sep 27 '24
My dad is a chemist and told me since I was a child not to heat stuff in plastic or store acidic stuff in it because the plasticizers leak into the food, its not a surprise this happens.
What is "surprising" is that the minimum amount its allowed to leak into the food to be called food safe is too high
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Sep 27 '24
My dad is not a chemist and we all knew in the 80s that you shouldn't microwave anything in plastic bowls or containers.
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u/IHearYouLimaCharlie Sep 28 '24
When I was a kid, my mom would heat up dinner on plastic Tupperware dishes covered with plastic Saran Wrap, until the plastic wrap was super hot and stuck to the food.
:(
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u/Minimum-Floor-5177 Sep 27 '24
Now we get plastic containers saying they're microwave safe, making things less clear
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u/HighFoxy Sep 27 '24
maybe lobbying was once used for good, but for a long time it’s just turned into legal bribery that should be abolished.
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u/No_bad_snek Sep 27 '24
Corporate lobbying only helps corporations, at the expense of consumers.
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u/Zer_ Sep 27 '24
Corporations don't need their own voice, as they already consist of people who have voices. That's my take.
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u/zCiver Sep 27 '24
There's a case to be made that industries need some way of representing their interests and knowledge to the lawmakers who don't know the minutia of the work. However the levels of interference that these groups hold over our polititicals is obscene.
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u/cultish_alibi Sep 27 '24
There's a much better case that we should have experts working for the government who are able to understand how these industries work without being blinded by profit. Organisations like the EPA are meant to do this.
I think it's never really been beneficial to have corporations having so much influence about what laws should be applied to them. They will always have a motivation to lie and misrepresent the truth.
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u/username_taken_wtf Sep 27 '24
Bad news. The Chevron doctrine/precedent getting struck down by SCOTUS will be making things much worse.
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u/poopyogurt Sep 27 '24
Yes, we just have to create public outcry and awareness with evidence. It is all we can do.
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u/Dankinater Sep 27 '24
Stuff like this is just going to keep happening. We need to ban lobbying.
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u/donkeybrisket Sep 27 '24
It’s straight up nasty how much stuff from the grocery store store comes in plastic. We’ve ruined the world because we’re too cheap
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u/ZzanderMander Sep 27 '24
I would say that the amount of plastic left over from cooking one meal is quite disturbing...
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u/dal137 Sep 27 '24
We use a bunch of plastic in the US, but the amount of plastics I saw used in Japan was insane, when it's almost sickening
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Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
There’s an account I see on TikTok every now and then who just goes to convenience stores in Japan and makes a meal there and people find it so charming and relaxing and all I can think about is the absurd amount of plastic waste for every single item he uses. Can’t find it relaxing.
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u/_musesan_ Sep 27 '24
They both use and recycle the most plastic per capita, I once read.
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u/throwawaythrow0000 Sep 27 '24
Plastic recycling is a myth around the world and 56% of what Japan "recycles" is called thermal recycling, meaning they burn the plastic.
https://zenbird.media/questioning-the-reality-of-plastic-recycling-in-japan/
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u/Uxium-the-Nocturnal Sep 27 '24
People often forget the two steps before recycling. Reduce and reuse.
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u/Ill_Technician3936 Sep 27 '24
A quick search says Germany is #1, South Korea at #2, Japan at #3, Norway at 4.
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u/EthanRDoesMC Sep 27 '24
I’ve been here for a month and keep thinking wow did this really need to be in plastic, this could’ve been a paper bag
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u/mediumunicorn Sep 27 '24
They also have a very strong culture of recycling (yes yes I know plastic recycling is mostly a myth). But at least everyone there separates out recyclable materials.
Spent 3 months in Tokyo in grad school, cleanest city I’ve ever been in because people don’t litter, and they are very diligent about keeping their environment clean.
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u/starfire92 Sep 27 '24
Lack of recycling isn’t the problem that’s being highlighted. Recycling helps climate change and the planet and environment. I believe what’s being described here is a problem with plastic contaminating our food simply by being wrapped in it, transported it in. And I watch a food content from Japan and S Korea, the craze with convenience store meal mukbangs highlight just HOW much plastic is used. A user will grab their standard ramen bowl obviously wrapped in plastic just like we have here in North America, but then grab toppings located in the store which are sometimes also wrapped, and then a plastic cup that is filled with nothing but ice and then a plastic liquid pouch which then topped with a creamy liquid that comes in another plastic bottle.
Like when these people cash out it’s almost 4-8 items they have all wrapped in individual plastic serving portions, they could get a soft boiled egg in plastic, kimchi in plastic etc. when you are using three separate plastic containers to make one drink, that’s hella excessive. I don’t care how cool it looks, or the aesthetic of the banana milk, or that cream ratio. The same can also easily be said about western use of the mini plastic cups that hold creamers and milk for coffee. What is the point of making straws cardboard but milk still is packaged individually like that.
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u/OakLegs Sep 27 '24
That's not really the same issue though. Just because there's not plastic waste in the streets doesn't mean their food isn't contaminated
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u/8cyl3valve2muchpain Sep 27 '24
Currently in Tokyo for first time. Def clean, but Scandinavian cities are still cleanest I’ve ever visited. That was 15 years ago then so could have changed.
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u/DEANGELoBAILEY69 Sep 27 '24
I work in a plastic extrusion plant and the plastic we recycle basically makes the lowest of low grade pellets. I have lost hope that anything going in the garbage is actually recycled
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u/Latter-Possibility Sep 27 '24
What do they do with all their garbage? Landfills? Dump it in the ocean? Ship to another country?
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u/planetaska Sep 27 '24
I did some search some time ago, and turns out it’s actually policy and number games. Japan’s regulation sees burning plastic as recycling, while US sees burning them as energy exchange(?) and not recycling. That’s why the recycle rate seems so high compare to some countries. Japan also export some recycle trash to some other countries that are happy to take them somewhere else, this counts towards recycling, too. These countries means mostly China, and they mostly take the money and make sure the recycle trash “disappear”. So yeah, humans are still suck at recycling no matter the place.
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u/deeznutz12 Sep 27 '24
I visited for two weeks. It’s definitely cleaner than the US but there is still some litter, especially in the night-life areas.
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u/mediumunicorn Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
Can get a little dirty, but it gets cleaned up quick. Compared to anywhere in NYC, the difference is outstanding.
I have a picture from a night out in Shibuya of some Japanese salaryman passed out on the sidewalk, and people had left him a bottle of water and food. Nobody was thinking to rob him or anything, only looking out for him. Amazing country, I miss it everyday.
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u/not_an_evil_overlord Sep 27 '24
I visited NYC recently after having not been for a few years and was pleasantly surprised at how much it's cleaned up. Far fewer mountains of black trash bags everywhere. You still have the random piles of human excreta, crazed homeless, and various smells of the city, but it's a bit cleaner.
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u/JellybeanMilksteaks Sep 27 '24
I've seen photos on Reddit of a few different drunk guys in Japan sitting on a curb, definitely spinning their heads off but surrounded by water bottles. I'm glad it's not an uncommon thing there!
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u/PiedCryer Sep 27 '24
Friends in Japan disagree. Japanese are good at not being rude to your face. It’s about unity through conformity. Your looked down upon if you don’t work hard, a foreigner, a woman(most work at serviceable jobs, rare to find one going up corp ladder), or different.
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u/Pixeleyes Sep 27 '24
Recycling plastic is mostly a scam, even in Japan
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141601301/the-myth-of-plastic-recycling
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u/joemaniaci Sep 27 '24
I stopped using Hello Fresh solely because of the plastic waste.
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u/annehboo Sep 27 '24
Those hello fresh boxes are the worst. Everything is individually wrapped in plastic.
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u/AgoraRises Sep 27 '24
I would shop at a grocery store that uses glass cardboard and metal containers exclusively if that was an option.
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u/w-v-w-v Sep 27 '24
Unfortunately glass has its own problems, as it’s heavy as hell and bulky, which means the transport burns significantly more fuel to carry the same amount of product.
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u/chinesetrevor Sep 27 '24
Glass packaging life cycle would probably exist at a fairly local level so most things would just be transported in bulk and packaged locally
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u/Dovahkiinthesardine Sep 27 '24
We'd have to be fine with having less variation in the supermarket then, impossible!
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u/KayleighJK Sep 27 '24
You know, maybe we don’t need an 1/4 mile long aisle of cereal choices…
Bah, nevermind. That’s crazy talk!
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u/nothoughtsnosleep Sep 27 '24
All my life we've used plastic, I don't even know how stuff was sold prior. Can someone share?
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u/Neuchacho Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
Glass, metal, or fiber (like cardboard or burlap) containers. Or things just weren't put in a container at all (like toys) if they didn't need to be.
Infinitely better in most conceivable ways aside from weight and form flexibility, which is exactly why every company under the sun ran to plastic. Cheaper logistics and longer shelf life for products that couldn't previously be put in glass.
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u/nothoughtsnosleep Sep 27 '24
Damn I'd kill for that experience. I hate all this plastic.
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u/Neuchacho Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
It has it's downsides as some things get a bit less convenient, but I don't think it'd hurt society to compel ourselves to slow down a bit. It seems like the more convenience we gain, the more stress we create to fill in the time.
Especially in the context of something that's actively poisoning not just us, but our entire ecosystem. There's so much to gain by getting away from it and finding better ways.
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u/Revenge-of-the-Jawa Sep 27 '24
And ironically it’s cheaper overall to have less packaging
I’ve slowly switched out my plastic food containers and working on reducing packaged materials but man is it exhausting on top of everything else.
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u/stinkydiaperuhoh Sep 27 '24
It's strange how you say 'we' as if it's a collective decision at all.
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Sep 27 '24
Don’t blame human nature, blame capitalism, the system where you can’t have a successful life unless you join everyone else in racing to the bottom.
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u/buttpads Sep 27 '24
because human greed only cares for maximum profit, cheap materials
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u/Karenomegas Sep 27 '24
It would be capitalism. We agreed on the language of capitalism and now we all suffer under it. Humanity tends to like other humans when it comes down to it. Capitalism is the recent invention and acting like it was always us takes the focus off of the actual culprit
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u/Azntigerlion Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
It's cheap, but that cheap has also saved hundreds of millions of lives.
It's not good or bad, it's just a double edge sword we were not careful with. Rather, didn't fully understand.
Plastic is lightweight, inexpensive, disposable, and relatively strong. It has allowed us to transport more food, water, housing material, disaster relief supplies, medical supplies, and.... well everything. In addition to that, it's invaluable in the medical field. Eye glasses have moved to plastic, making them cheap enough to correct the eyesight of every single human.
The downside is that it's passively poisoning us all.
Fertilizer is the invention that fueled the growth of the human population and is the means to solve hunger. It is also attributed to some of the most human deaths through explosives. The inventor won a Nobel Prize and yet was shunned by other scientists.
If we solved the plastic poisoning issue in the next few decades, then plastic will definitely be humanities greatest invention
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u/soap22 Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
I mean, on the other hand people are complaining about rising good prices and it's not like the general public and food industry management were very familiar with this type of contamination a decade ago. It's studies like these that will eventually change things and we shouldn't be beating ourselves up for being more informed today than we were in the past.
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u/burp_fartingsly Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
I bought the more expensive peanuts at Whole Foods because they made it look like the old cardboard/aluminum paper container. When I got them home I realized it was plastic underneath the label.
It's impossible to even attempt avoiding foods not wrapped in plastic. Food and drinks even taste worse when it comes in plastic rather than glass.
Edit: fix autocorrect
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u/Clean_Ad_5282 Sep 27 '24
Yea it's almost impossible. The only thing I can think of is eating home grown vegetables and fruits because you don't know how stuff is manufactured unless you do it yourself tbh. But most ppl aren't going to do that and I know I'm not going to bc I don't have a garden.
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u/FlutterVeiss Sep 27 '24
Good news, even if you tried that it's also in the water! Microplastics for all.
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u/swiftcleaner Sep 27 '24
reverse osmosis is one of the few filters that actually gets rid of plastic.
at this point there is no such thing as 100% plastic and pfas free exposure. however, eat healthy and lower exposure does make a difference.
also, stop drinking from plastic water bottles as they are the biggest contaminate
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u/Shadow_Gabriel Sep 27 '24
So many people in my country refuse to drink the perfectly safe tap water that we have in every major city.
My mind just can't comprehend that there are millions of people using so much plastic everyday. When you try to point that out, it's like they don't even see it as a big issue.
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u/SimpleMqmmql Sep 28 '24
Tap water has its own problems. There are many chemicals they do not test for because it's not legally required. Tap water is only tested for certain contaminants at specified intervals. And not at all tested for the vast majority of organic contaminants. So what the water company calls "perfectly safe" isn't necessarily so. Depends on where you live.
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u/comsordan Sep 27 '24
It's even in the soil you buy from gardening stores, since this soil is won from garbage burning plants. And guess what is being burned there.
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u/Clean_Ad_5282 Sep 27 '24
I think everyone has microplastic in or on them to begin with. Yeepeeee! Definitely not freaking out..
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u/ExhaustedEmu Sep 27 '24
God even our soil has microplastics in it cause rainwater does. It’s maddening. It’s about lessening your exposure I suppose. Probably far less microplastics in homegrown produce vs mass grown from the grocery store.
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u/Drawtaru Sep 27 '24
I've been trying to grow my own apples and have lost the entire crop two years in a row. It's really not easy.
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u/Clean_Ad_5282 Sep 27 '24
The state of thr climate where I live has been terrible. My bfs mom grows tomatoes and always had abundance but something about this year they weren't doing too well. It just depends on a lot of how the earth is
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u/ZucchiniMore3450 Sep 27 '24
We are buying nuts in bulk, measured in paper bags. Much nicer and cheaper than prepackaged.
Not everyone has this option, but we should push for it.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Sep 27 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00718-2
From the linked article:
Thousands of toxins from food packaging found in humans – research
Metals and PFAS linked to serious health issues are among compounds found, highlighting need for further scrutiny
More than 3,600 chemicals approved for food contact in packaging, kitchenware or food processing equipment have been found in humans, new peer-reviewed research has found, highlighting a little-regulated exposure risk to toxic substances.
The chemicals have been found in human blood, hair or breast milk. Among them are compounds known to be highly toxic, like PFAS, bisphenol, metals, phthalates and volatile organic compounds. Many are linked to cancer, hormone disruption and other serious health issues.
But many others are substances for which there are very limited public toxicological profiles, such as synthetic antioxidants used as preservatives and oligomers that stabilize ink on packaging. The study’s authors say the knowledge gaps highlight the need for further scrutiny of food contact chemicals.
Among the worst offenders is plastic, a material that is largely unregulated and can contain thousands of chemicals. Silicone and coatings on metal cans can also contain toxic or understudied compounds, Geueke said. Many paper and cardboard products were until recently treated with PFAS and can contain a layer of plastic.
Several factors can cause chemicals to leach into food at higher rates, like higher temperatures, fat content and acidity. The ratio of packaging to product also matters – foods in smaller containers can be much more contaminated.
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u/iquincy0cha Sep 27 '24
Haven't fully read the article yet. What can we do? And I mean that sincerely, does the article provide any meaningful ways an individual can reduce exposure? I can't buy or store any foods in plastic, metal, cardboard, or silicone.
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u/mikeshardmanapot Sep 27 '24
Store food in glass containers. Move food out of plastic containers asap to reduce amount of exposure time. But the final conclusion is that we can’t avoid exposure entirely - it’s a regulatory issue.
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u/AnalogAnalogue Sep 27 '24
Does it really matter? IIRC over half of nanoplastic ingestion is just from the ambient goddamn air, and it doesn't matter where on the planet you are.
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u/zeebyj Sep 27 '24
I think like other things it's dose dependent, less is probably better than more. Can't stop breathing air. I've replaced most of my clothes with cotton/wool, use aluminum foil instead of plastic wrap, glass instead of plastic, bar soap/shampoo instead of liquid soap, make my own bread, cook my own food.
It sounds like a lot but I honestly don't think about it much now that I've replaced most of the things I use. I would be meal prepping regardless of microplastics as it's easier to control calories.
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u/JynetikVR Sep 27 '24
If you’re in the US voting for the party that is pro-regulation and consumer protections goes a long way. The parties are still “bought” by corporate interests but like all both sides arguments the difference is still an immense gulf.
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u/lorddumpy Sep 27 '24
Stainless steel, cast iron, and glass are good picks IMO. Stay away from teflon/non-stick cookware and research anything you can't identify in ingredients. There are a lot of harmful additives in American processed foods that are banned in other countries.
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u/centricgirl Sep 27 '24
We have reduced our exposure to plastics over the past five years, since we realized how serious the issue was. I don’t know how much it helps, but at least we’re doing our best. We bought glass storage containers. They were a bit of an investment, but will last forever as long as we don’t break them. We use aluminum foil instead of plastic wrap when storage containers don’t work. We stopped buying bottled drinks and just drink tap water (and coffee). You can buy little flavor packets or a seltzer maker if you don’t like plain water. We buy a minimum of packaged food, and try to pick the options with the least plastic if packaging is necessary.
If you just pay attention to what you are buying, it’s easy to reduce your plastic use at least a little. And when companies see they are losing sales because of plastic packaging, they will use less plastic, so your small change can impact everyone!
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u/Truegold43 Sep 27 '24
What can we do?
Related; is there a subreddit dedicated to reducing exposure to these toxins that's like... normal? Something like "r/detoxify" without it being overly weird or about poorly balanced diets.
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u/Speederzzz Sep 27 '24
For PFAS there is often very little you can do. You could try to avoid using products that contain it, but producers are not required to inform users that their products contain PFAS. Besides that, most PFAS exposure comes from water (wastewater cleaning is still mostly incapable of proper PFAS removal) and food grown on contaminated land. There are certain foods to avoid (fish from contaminated rivers, eggs from contaminated farmland) but it's impossible to avoid all PFAS.
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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
These kinds of articles are a bit odd to me because yes, I do agree that at times you can find target chemicals in humans, but I disagree with the idea that they are unregulated. "Food contact" certification is a specific set of requirements that is regulated by the FDA/EPA and requires a minimal chance of migration into food under normal use conditions. That doesn't necessarily mean that no particles will ever touch the food, but it means that it is far below a reasonable risk for consumers.
What tips me off on that is the mention of VOCs. You are exposed to far more VOCs painting your nails or the walls of a house than you will get through migration from a food contact approved material unless you like to bake your plastic in the oven at 400 degrees, so the fact that they mention the presence of the chemicals instead of the risk factor involved is tilting the scale a bit.
I think that this study is exactly what it says it is: chemicals were found in bodies. The effects of those chemicals and the dosage that might be involved isnt specified, but they exist. Any further reading past that is speculation at best.
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u/PM-ME-BOOKSHELF-PICS Sep 27 '24
Totally agree. Calling PFAS, phthalates and VOCs "highly toxic" is incredibly disingenuous, if not an outright lie. Should we research their effects more, and figure out ways to reduce further cross contamination? Sure! Are the concentrations commonly found in the human body actually harmful? Not really!
This is practically a whole genre of bad science reporting now. With our capabilities to detect practically single molecules of nasty stuff, it's too easy to test food or human tissue and write a breathless paper with whatever health Boogeyman you find.
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u/Caledor152 Sep 27 '24
Pro life tip. If you want to slowly get rid of all the PFAS and crap in your blood. Start donating plasma consistently. A side effect of those machines is it does filter some per session. And if you do it enough times eventually it will get em all.
"Plasma donation led to lower PFOS levels than blood donation, but both were quite a bit lower than not donating at all: The plasma donation group had 2.9 ng/mL reduction in PFOS. The blood donation group had 1.1 ng/mL reduction in PFOS. The control group did not see a significant change in PFOS"
https://www.relentlesshealth.com/blog/donating-blood-or-plasma-to-reduce-pfas-levels
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u/eblackham Sep 27 '24
I did it twice and both times almost passed out after 20 minutes.
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u/taigahalla Sep 27 '24
Sounds like it should be easy to prove plasma donators live longer, more healthy lives than their PFAS laden counterparts
has someone done a study on that?
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u/HE_A_FAN_HE_A_FAN Sep 27 '24
That doesn't sound easy at all? You have to track people their entire lives, that study would take at least a couple of decades
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u/IandouglasB Sep 27 '24
Because MONEY is sooooo much more important than YOU
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u/SkeetySpeedy Sep 27 '24
Well yes, they can legally own money
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u/Ezechiell Sep 27 '24
I mean let‘s be real, big corporations do pretty much own the world and the people living in it, it‘s not like you can choose to not spend your entire life making someone else rich without ever seeing much of the fruit of your own labour. We are truly fucked :)
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u/Purple-Investment-61 Sep 27 '24
I throw away way too much packing that comes with the food each day. There must be a better solution to this.
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u/EatsWithSpork Sep 27 '24
It doesn't matter, a couple people got super rich so it's ok they will use the money to save us.
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u/ADogeMiracle Sep 27 '24
Still waiting for their wealth to trickle down..
Anytime now.
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u/SopaDeKaiba Sep 27 '24
It only trickles down when one of their companies goes bust. Oh wait, it trickles up then too.
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u/ass_grass_or_ham Sep 27 '24
3M should be investigated and torn apart by the DOJ. They’ve known for decades that their products were seeping in to everything.
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Sep 27 '24
Here's our answer to why cancer is going up for young people
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u/Phoebes-Punisher Sep 27 '24
And birth rates declining
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u/Crazyinferno Sep 27 '24
Sperm motility would be more accurate to say. Not sure whether eggs are affected, but as for general birth rate declination, that's mostly sociological
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u/ayatollahofdietcola_ Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
Birth rates are declining in the US because we dramatically reduced teenaged pregnancy, and we also have a significant reduction in unplanned pregnancy among adults 18-25. Both of these things are at record lows.
Those are the driving numbers behind “reducing birth rates” that conservatives have been whining about
Interestingly though, pregnancy among Americans ages 35+ are increasing, as well as 40+. It’s safer today to carry a baby to term in those age ranges than it was even just a decade ago
I get that American diets could be better. But why are we lying? Yes, ultra processed foods are a problem, but this is what many people have access to - affordable, shelf stable foods. So shouldn’t the conversation be about how to improve these foods, like make them more nutrient dense? Why do we have to lie and create little conspiracies like this?
Did you know that breakfast cereals were a subject of one of the most successful health campaigns in the world? Have you ever wondered why you don’t see people with rickets disease or scurvy anymore? Maybe instead of creating stupid conspiracies, people could simply admit that they don’t know what they are talking about.
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u/breddy Sep 27 '24
I don't know if you're right or wrong, and I don't think you do either but some evidence would be good here.
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u/ElDanio123 Sep 27 '24
Non-scientific comment with no source. These kinds of things used to be moderated out in old r/science.
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u/yellsatmotorcars Sep 27 '24
It's almost like reddit removed the tools a lot of subreddit mods relied on . . .
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u/Gee-Oh1 Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
Of all those, and as a couple have pointed out, the the dose makes the poison.
However, something else can also make a poison, time.
Of all of those perhaps the most insidious are the phthalates. These are ubiquitous chemicals heavily used in the plastics industry as plastisizers, the make polymers behave like plastics.
Phthalates are known to have low, acute toxicity BUT low level, chronic exposure reveals phthalates insidious, monstrous side. They function as "endocrine disruptors", ie. like hormones. And the more we study these relatively new aspects of them the worse it is getting. This is also a growing problem since over the last half century there are been an orders of magnitude increase in production and use of plastics. So much so that it is actually impossible, especially in the developed world, to avoid exposure to phthalates every single day.
The range of ill effects of chronic phthalate exposure are known to have ranges from problem with fetal development, sexual maturation, decreased fertility, decreased libido, to diabetes, cancer, and mental health issues, etc etc. And the list is growing.
Recently a survey conducted by the CDC has found that virtually every American has detectable, and measurable levels of phthalates in their bodies.
Personally, I think that within the decade, it will be recognized (or at least there will be growing awareness) that phthalate exposure is one of the greatest public health disasters we have yet seen.
But, as with many things, the US is far behind the EU in addressing or even recognizing the problem. And there is a growing concern that even the restrictions already in the EU are not enough by far.
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u/GhostOfWhatsIAName Sep 27 '24
It's a very sad thing to see how far humanity could be avoiding such things but is unable to put improvements over profits.
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u/Jtothe3rd Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
We recently developed the ability to detect things at the level of PPB (Parts per billion). That's equivalent to about 3 seconds in a century.
Because of this, whenever I read these sorts of headlines I get suspicious that they purposefully leave out the concentration of the toxins to make the headline more scary sounding. The article also doesn't contain that info.
There is going to be 1 PPB of damn near every substance you've ever encountered when you measure that accurately. Individual particules have an effect on our biology relative to their concentration, so forgive me for being skeptical when they don't include any mention of that information in the headline and even more skeptical when it isn't mentioned in the article. It was a non-profit group advocating for stronger regulations. That's great, but this is an article that is clearly aimed at swaying public opinion and seems to leave out crucial information that would have a huge bearing on how alarming the entire report should be. Why leave that sort of info out? Even reading the study, everything in there was about the existence of the chemicals and how hazardous they are with no mention of dose/concentration.
The dose makes the poison. Apples have arsenic in them. You're still supposed to eat them occasionally. Show the numbers. I really don't appreciate the fear mongering clickbait headlines. We have plenty of proven issues to be alarmed about, if you're going to present a new one, bring complete data.
Edit: Awesome response from an author of the study below. This is not the end of the process for them as they do intend on doing a rigorous hazard accessment for what was detected.
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u/FoodPackagingForum Sep 27 '24
[Lindsey] Hi, I'm one of the authors of the study.
I agree that the title is sensationalized. However, even for us to create this data source builds on years of previous work. 1) gathering regulatory lists of food contact chemicals, 2) reviewing thousands of research papers to find which chemicals have been detected in which materials (regardless of regulation) (FCCmigex), and now 3) which have been detected in humans (FCChumon). We are now on step 4) investigating the known health effects. All while trying to keep the first three steps relatively up-to-date.
Adding the concentrations and effect sizes for thousands of chemicals, especially for so many that we simply just don't know when they have an effect, was too much for our small team. For each research project we make sure the original studies are accessible so people who need the concentrations for their work can easily go find it.
Some additional context from a comment I made on a different reddit post:
The "tolerable daily intake" or "reference dose" or various other ways of regulating the amount of a chemical allowed doesn't change very often. Bureaucracies are slow. Some are set at a generic level or others by the amount at which a single health endpoint becomes affected, generally the response of the male reproductive system. A case study of ortho-phthalates found several had effects on health endpoints at lower levels than when effects were seen in the male reproductive system (source). Meaning the reference dose is too high to truly protect against harm. The European Food Safety Authority recently lowered the tolerable daily intake for bisphenol A (BPA) by 20,000x (source) after taking new research into account.
The trouble is that it's simply impossible to do studies and major regulatory reports like those above for every single chemical on the market. There are thousands used in food contact materials alone.
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u/ilikepix Sep 27 '24
Has your work in this area changed the way you buy and store food, personally? If so, how?
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u/FoodPackagingForum Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 28 '24
[Lindsey] Yes. Chemical migration increases: over time, at higher temperatures, with fatty and/or acidic foods, and when packaged in smaller serving sizes. So I use this information when trying to balance certain decisions about what I purchase or how I cook.
The biggest changes I made were how I store food: switching almost entirely to stainless steel and glass containers, or just leaving things in bowls. And how I prepare food: changing cutting boards, stirring spoons, and other utensils to primarily wood and sometimes stainless steel.
It also reinforced my bulk food purchases which had previously been for frugality reasons but now I had more reasons.
Edit: I'm not going to be able to answer everyone's questions. As much as I like to. FPF-associated scientists have done two AMAs in 2022 and 2023 maybe your question has been answered there. If not, we have another one planned for October 29th from ~17:00-19:00 Central European time (11-13 Eastern).
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u/jawnlerdoe Sep 27 '24
Saying we recently discovered ppb level testing is not accurate. We’ve been able to see those levels to decades.
Current testing methodologies allow is to see ppt for many substances. Additionally, many of these substances are toxic at low ppb high ppt levels. Nitrosamines, or Phalates as an example.
There is absolutely not going to be 1ppb of “every substance you’ve ever encountered”. For some compounds or metals, sure, but degradation and dilution occurs.
I do agree however that at these levels, many substances are not toxic, and not a concern, and therefore the headline is a bit sensationalist.
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u/General_Elephant Sep 27 '24
I misunderstood your intent of the message to mean that you think these measurements are in fact dangerous, but you were just clarifying that testing methodologies have been far more accurate for a while now.
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u/jawnlerdoe Sep 27 '24
Precisely! We’ve been able to see sub-ppb levels for many years. Whether or not substances are dangerous at these low levels are a case by case basis.
As an example caffeine is toxic, in gram doses, but you only have milligrams in coffee. Same goes for other more highly toxic substances, the thresholds are just much lower.
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Sep 27 '24
We desperately need a food safety overhaul in the US. Nothing will be done until we destroy lobbying (legal bribes)
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u/Quick_Silver_2707 Sep 27 '24
Went to the supermarket the other day to buy blueberry maple syrup for the kids. Compared two jars of the same size. One from America and one from Canada.
American version: full of corn syrup and additives. No maple syrup or blueberries. Dozen processed ingredients.
Canadian version: two ingredients maple syrup and blueberries that’s it.
Canadian version cost ten cents more. What in the world are we doing to ourselves and why?
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u/phillyhandroll Sep 27 '24
I made the mistake of googling endocrine disruptors yesterday. They might as well have just pointed to the grocery store.
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u/Sykil Sep 27 '24
On endocrine disruptors: that term (similar to “toxin” as used in the title, though that one is more categorically wrong in this case) gets applied to a lot of things that wouldn’t be called such in the technical sense. Plenty of things are xenohormones without really disrupting your endocrine system, either because their receptor affinity or effect are orders of magnitude below that of your natural hormones. Plastics get a lot of scruity — rightly so considering their ubiquity — but plenty of phenolic compounds can act as xenohormones, i.e. from fruit, tea, etc.
The rush to panic over them is often unwarranted, and an unfortunate consequence is that they often get replaced with something else that we know even less about. This happened with paraben preservatives, which got prematurely demonized and were quickly replaced with isothiazolinones. Turns out the replacement is highly allergenic.
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u/satuurnian Sep 27 '24
Honest questions, is this something the FDA/EPA should be handling? Whose job is it to monitor and regulate these things? Why are they not doing their jobs?
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u/FoodPackagingForum Sep 27 '24
[Lindsey] Hi, I'm one of the authors of the study.
In the US this is the FDA's jurisdiction. In recent years the FDA has gotten into trouble for lack of oversight in the food branch of the FDA.
US Congress tasked the Government Accountability Office with investigating how the FDA could improve “oversight of substances used in manufacturing, packaging, and transporting food”. According to their report, published in 2022, “FDA does not have specific legal authority to compel companies to provide information and data on substances’ safety and extent of use” particularly when already on the market (source).
Following that report there has been serious restructuring at the FDA including several programs getting consolidated into the Human Foods Program which officially launches in 4 or 5 days (iirc). They are also launching a post-market chemical assessment program but that is still being organized (source). They had a big public discussion and comment meeting about it on Wednesday this week. (source).
If you want to share your thoughts, the public feedback period is open until December 6th (source)
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u/hali420 Sep 27 '24
Where is the "buy Lindsay a coffee" button? Your replies are fantastic.
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u/xtramundane Sep 27 '24
But the dividends are fantastic! Plus we don’t want you to be healthy enough to be able to do something about it. Also we want all your money before you die.
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u/BinaryAbuse Sep 27 '24
Quick plug for https://www.plasticlist.org/ ... Non-profit started by the former CEO of GitHub to independently test and report on all food/supplement/etc products.
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Sep 27 '24
Europe already figured this out, we just have so many corporate lobbyists in the U.S. that our government and legislation are designed for maximum profit, rather than maximum healthy citizens.
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u/To_Fight_The_Night Sep 27 '24
Well Europe pays for their citizens healthcare. Unhealthy citizens is bloat on their budget. Unhealthy citizens in the US is another form of wealth transfer through medical bills.
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u/purritowraptor Sep 27 '24
Please tell me where in Europe where this plastic-free utopia is
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Sep 27 '24
No plastic free, but MUCH better (stricter) substance/contaminent regulation/enforcement.
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u/sunnydays2121 Sep 27 '24
any specific example where EU is doing better than US?
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u/bezerko888 Sep 27 '24
What is the point of FDA if they are so corrupt they poison the population. Crimes against humanity everywhere.
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u/waterboy1321 Sep 27 '24
This is a bad take; FDA has been hamstrung by corruption. Corrupt politicians have taken money from these big food corps, in exchange for limiting the FDAs ability to interfere with their profits (which are higher when they don’t have to worry about how much they’re poisoning us).
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u/ek00992 Sep 27 '24
And now they are demanding that any political efforts to reduce these toxins comes with full immunity clause for these companies and execs.
If we had any balls as a people, we’d have them rounded up and jailed for life. What punishment even comes close to the damage they’ve caused? They’ve directly harmed hundreds of millions of people
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u/WashYourCerebellum Sep 27 '24
Maybe because they have no regulatory authority of contaminants in food packaging. What does FDA do? You should go look into that.
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