{"id":519,"date":"2010-06-21T14:24:30","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T04:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/?p=519"},"modified":"2010-07-02T13:04:13","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T03:04:13","slug":"safety-of-plastic-food-packaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/?p=519","title":{"rendered":"Safety of plastic food packaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONDAY 21st JUNE<\/strong><\/p>\n

My intention is not to scare you into thinking you shouldn’t eat anything that comes in plastic packaging but simply to raise your awareness as to the many forms it comes in and reasons why to minimize your intake where possible.<\/p>\n

Soft drinks come in plastic lined cans, mineral water comes in plastic bottles, babies are given milk in plastic bottles; cheese, meat, fruit and vegetables are sealed in plastic wrap, fast foods are served in plastic containers, the metal lids of jars are coated with plastic, and takeaway hot drinks often still come in polystyrene cups… think about it.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Food Science Australia (part of the CSIRO) explains that we have no way of knowing that packaging is perfectly safe. The Australian standard for food-grade plastic states that food manufactures must use plastics that are safe for their purpose. Therefore, says Food Standards Australia New Zealand, all plastic packaging properly used for it’s intended purpose should<\/em> be quite <\/em>safe. Interesting use of words there.<\/p>\n

The point is you are never going to know if the plastic your food is wrapped, stored, served and packaged in is suitable. Because almost all plastics migrate into food and some of these migrating substances could disrupt our hormones or cause cancer, the standard requires that any potentially harmful ones are at low levels. Take into consideration the variety of ways they can enter your system and think again whether this amounts to ‘low levels’.<\/p>\n

There are three monomers (the building blocks of plastic) for which the Code sets maximum migration levels because of their potential toxicity. They are vinyl chloride, acrylonitrile <\/em>and vinylidene chloride.<\/em> The different kinds of plastic are identified by the numbers shown in the recycling triangle.<\/p>\n

Here’s a brief comment on the safety of each type as given by The Green Guide, produced by The Green Guide Institute:<\/p>\n

1. Polyethylene terephthalate<\/strong> (PETE or PET). No known<\/em> hazards. eg Glad oven bags<\/p>\n

2. High density polyethylene<\/strong> (HDPE). No known <\/em>hazards. eg Glad Go-Between bags<\/p>\n

3. Polyvinyl chloride<\/strong> (PVC). PVC cling wrap was originally used for wrapping food but was found to leach out into cheese and was suspected of interfering with our hormones. It is now used to wrap newspapers and can be identified by it’s green tinge. Interestingly, <\/em>during the manufacture or burning of PVC, dioxin is produced, dioxin being one of THE most toxic man-made chemicals in existence.<\/p>\n

4. Low Density Polyethylene<\/strong> (LDPE). No known <\/em>hazards. eg Glad Wrap, Glad Snaplock bags, Glad ice cube bags.<\/p>\n

5. Polypropylene<\/strong> (PP). No known<\/em> hazards. eg Clear plastic takeaway containers. Gladware.<\/p>\n

6. Polystyrene<\/strong> (PS or Styrophoam). Made from styrene, suspected of causing cancer and also contains p-nonylphenol. Both chemicals are suspected of disrupting hormones.\u00a0 The
\nGreen Guide advises against consuming fatty foods and alcoholic beverages in polystyrene containers because the styrene can leach into these foods<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

7. Polycarbonate<\/strong> (PC) and other resins. Large 20 litre bottles are made from PC because it is incredibly strong. A key building block of PC is bisphenol A (BPA) which is a fairly toxic substance. Dietary intake is estimated to be 4000 times less than the permitted level so it’s use is considered to pose no risk to human health.<\/p>\n

It appears<\/em> that the different types of plastics are reasonably ‘safe’ if used for their intended purposes but are we just ingesting too much plastic altogether?<\/p>\n

I’ll leave you to consider it.<\/p>\n

All of this serves as yet another reminder to get down to your local weekly growers market and buy some of that beautifully grown, wild and free produce that jumps off the tables into your loving arms and nourishes your body and your spirit with it’s goodness.<\/p>\n

See you there!<\/p>\n

Sister Rasela<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONDAY 21st JUNE My intention is not to scare you into thinking you shouldn’t eat anything that comes in plastic packaging but simply to raise your awareness as to the many forms it comes in and reasons why to minimize your intake where possible. Soft drinks come in plastic lined cans, mineral water comes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio-show-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belly.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}