Experts say even if it claims to be “microwave-safe.”
I’m not sure food blogs are the best choice for this. The article goes on to talk about BPA and phthlates, but neither of those exist in pure HDPE or PP.
BPA is found in polycarbonate plastics (
acrylic) (Edit: brain lapse, acrylic is PMMA) and epoxy resins. Phthalates are in PVC (vinyl). Using the word ‘plastic’ as amonomermononym (Edit: lol wrong mono) is dangerous for many reasons, and causation vs correlation is one reason why.I mean, definitely go with glass if you have the choice, sure, but let’s also actually try to be accurate if we invoke the scientific method.
I would also love for there to be really robust testing of food containers of all varieties direct at the manufacturers, with heavy fines involved if they’re using additives but claiming it’s a food-safe plastic.
Here’s the study in question. Can’t speak to the authenticity of it but off the top I don’t see anything shady
It doesn’t look shady, but I can only access the abstract which just says “plastics” and doesn’t specify that part further, unfortunately.
One of the biggest travesties today is that so many scientific studies are locked behind pay walls.
For me, it has a picture where it specifies a “polypropylene container”.
There’s also this bit from near the end of the abstract:
Additionally, the polyethylene-based food pouch released more particles than polypropylene-based plastic containers. Exposure modeling results suggested that the highest estimated daily intake was 20.3 ng/kg·day for infants drinking microwaved water and 22.1 ng/kg·day for toddlers consuming microwaved dairy products from polypropylene containers.
So, they’re, at least, discussing polypropylene and polyethylene.
From the method section of the paper:
Materials and Property Characterization. From a popular US chain store, two brands of baby food containers made of polypropylene and one brand of reusable food pouch with- out material information on the label were purchased. The selection of polypropylene containers was based on its widespread use in baby food packaging. These choices aimed to showcase diverse types of baby food packaging. The food containers and the food pouch were analyzed for their semicrystalline structure and thermal stability by DSC using a Q200 differential scanning calorimeter (TA Instruments, New Castle, DE). Briefly, a small sample weighing between 3 and 8 mg was taken from each container or pouch, placed in a DSC aluminum pan/lid assem- bly, and crimped with a press. The samples were heated and cooled at a rate of 10 °C/min under a nitrogen atmosphere, resulting in calori- metric curves that indicate the heat transfer to and from the polymer sample during the thermal cycle, which was used to monitor phase transitions. H u s s a i n e t a l . i n E n v i r o n . S c i . T e c h n o l . 5 7 ( 2 0 2 3 ) 5 Transmission wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) of the reusable food pouch was performed at the 12-ID-B beamline at the Advanced Pho- ton Source (Argonne National Laboratory), using incident X-rays with energy 13.30 keV and a Pilatus 300k 2D detector mounted 0.4 m from the sample. WAXD patterns of the two plastic containers were acquired in reflection geometry with a Bruker-AXS D8 Discover equipped with a Cu Kα lab source (λ = 1.5406 A) and a Vantec 500 area detector. In all cases, the acquired 2D patterns were radially averaged to produce 1D intensity (I) vs scattering vector (q) plots
two brands of baby food containers made of polypropylene and one brand of reusable food pouch
These choices aimed to showcase diverse types of baby food packaging
3 brands, two of the same overall declared material, and no reference to manufacturer formulation safety data. If this is an American paper, the FDA requires substances that come into contact with food to be vetted, so the information should exist somewhere if these are legally sold. Which is obviously not guaranteed. This is not giving me much hope for this study.
BPA is found in polycarbonate plastics (acrylic) […]
Polycarbonate (BPA monomer) is a very different polymer to acrylic/PMMA (methyl methacrylate monomer).
Oops, my mistake. I’ve been looking at too many acrylics and polycarbonates for use in a non-food setting. Thanks for the correction!
Love all the edits. Thanks for the informative comment.
I try to keep it honest and accurate, I would hate to spread more misinformation accidentally. If only my long-covid memory were a little more cooperative!
Bon Appetit has been in publication since 1956. It’s unfair to call it a food blog. (I can’t speak to the specifics of plastics that you referred to, just the fact of dismissing the magazine).
Fair, I was too casual in my assessment of Bon Appetit. I have nothing against food blogs though, for what it’s worth.
I should probably have said: “I don’t think that Condé Nast food and entertainment magazines containing Amazon affiliate links are necessarily a great source for the latest accurate and objective health and science information.” I would read a recipe on their site though.
I don’t know, Ars Technica has had some of the best coverage of the recent AI boom over the past handful of years. Extremely realistic, accurate and at times demonstrates a knowledge that shows the writers have actually put in some hours using and understanding some of the AI tools they write about
I don’t think that’s the point. Bon Appétit specializes in food and its preparation, not science. It’s difficult to know if what your source is saying is legitimate if you don’t have the education needed to truly understand what they’re talking about.
Bon Appetit is and has always been racists, classicist trash. I oppose them on ethical grounds, they’re not a journalism publication, they’ve always been a trashcan level magazine.
Here’s the thing. If the plastic is not microwave safe, then it is not any-sort-of-heat safe. The microwave is simply a heating device. The method is different but at the end of day, it vibrates molecules to heat em up.
Most people wouldn’t put plastic on a stovetop or in an oven to begin with. Where else is plastic typically heated with food in it?
Most fast food restaurants and food processing plants. Hot dogs in the plastic casing as they are heated in the factory. Fast food (taco places have meat bags that they heat up before cutting open for use).
Plenty of sit down restaurants too. Your side of veggies or mash potatoes came in a plastic container with butter and salt added, and is then microwaved. Nicer places will often finish some of those sides on a grill or stovetop, but you already got plastic’d
When you put hot food in it.
Maybe in a sous vide? But a separate issue will be already-quite-hot food being put into plastic. Think they let your takeout noodles/soup cool before putting it in a plastic container?
Baby bottles. We use a bottle warmer that heats the bottle with steam, but yeah, I’d say breast milk/formula counts. That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever seen bottles not rated as being safe for bottle warmers? And you’d never put a bottle in a microwave (process is too harsh on breast milk and consequently ruins much of its nutritional value, not sure about formula).
Don’t bother. The people who believe this shit, want to
I’ve switched to mostly glass, metal, and wood kitchenware, but even those have plastic lids. I try to get paper milk jugs, which I thought were lined with wax, but apparently are plastic? It’s almost impossible to get away from this shit.
If it makes you feel any better the milk, and all the foods you eat, already contain micro-plastics 👍
gee thanks I do feel better
Paper stuff that is meant to hold liquids will always be just a plastic bag with carton structure. Wax would be fine if you were filling and storing the liquid in your own home. But wax lined paper would never survive the shortest of transportation. Completely non-feasible for industrial scale agriculture. Soft drinks in cans also have plastic linings, metals are more resistant but would also eventually corrode in the midterm.
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the wax was a sealant to make it easy to ship and prevent rotting. “one bad apple spoils the bunch” literally, so coat em in wax so the mould doesn’t spread as much.
Why? Like, is this equivilant to ‘smoking cigarettes will kill you?’ Or more, ‘going within ten metres of a running automobile will kill you?’ Because stress and anxiety will kill you dead too. So…
I suspect the next generation will be horrified that people ever cooked in plastic. Or ate or drank out of plastic. They’ll think of it the same way we think of lead pipes now.
The evidence of terrible health effects of plastic seems to be adding up very fast. Pthalates, PFAS, and microplastics all seem to be implicated in the increasing rates of ill health, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
I never put this kind of plastic on the microwave. But I also worry about paper plates, which have some kind of polyethylene coating that is really really hard to find any info about online. Ive fucking eaten cheese that has been boiled on a “paper” plate, only to find that those plates were coated in some kind of polymer.
By the way, the insides of aluminum cans are coated in plastic.
Sweet dreams!
There is plastic in everything you consume now. You can’t get away from it unless you retreat to the wilderness.
Uh, they found a plastic bag in the Mariana Trench. No place is free of it, anymore.
Nope, plastic there as well
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Doubt that’s the case anymore. I’m in the flexible packaging industry and we had to go PFAS free reeeeeal quick. .
PFAS based processing aids allowed us to run higher quality product at higher production rates with longer machine uptime.
All for the low low cost of microplastics everywhere all the time.
And in those PFAS? Microplastics.
I’d like to know if sous vide is safe though, please? I’ve been doing that for years…
This article focuses on microwaving, but the news about sous vide isn’t great:
“This study proved that the sous vide method causes polymer degradation at high temperatures and longer time periods”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36398752/
We all are, my friend. We all are.
Don’t eat at Olive Garden or really any fast casual. They all hold items in plastic in hot water.
While I cannot read the article, the abstract does not describe an issue of microplastics transferring from the sous vide container to the fish, rather the effect of the high temps over longer time on the microplastics already present in the fish.
I expected this and I’m still mad
Edit: SOMEONE TELL GUGA
Get thee some silicone bags, completely reusable and plastic free.
Wasn’t aware of this, thanks
But all my foods have microplastics in it
Can’t wait for the “low microplastics” stamp on all my food in a couple years
“Less than lethal” amount
I just bought some new plastic food storage containers that I like.
Be sure to microwave everything you eat in it, according to the article. (I may have misunderstood the point of the article)
I use plastic bowls in microwaves all the time. In fact every single day. At this rate I’m going to turn into a auton from doctor who 🤣.
Sorry but pizza rolls in a microwave are just too damn good! Fuck the oven!
Are you insane? Pizza rolls are a million times better out of the oven. No contest.
Air fryer all day
Which is actually just a fucking small convection oven.
Yes, a smaller, more efficient, and faster one.
Correct. They are amazing.
What’s your point? It’s still not a microwave.
This guy pizza rolls. Quick, what’s the best brand?
Experts say this. Experts say that. Blah blah…
