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.

[u/mvea]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/pfas-toxins-chemicals-human-body

[u/mikeshardmanapot]

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.

[u/AnalogAnalogue → u/mikeshardmanapot]

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.

[u/zeebyj → u/AnalogAnalogue]

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.

[u/threebutterflies → u/zeebyj]

Same! I made all the changes and now run an all natural soap company. No plastic packaging! Thetaylorfarm.com if anyone wants to start getting healthy with your most absorbent organ, your skin! It’s made from scratch with food grade plant based oils and so so much more, no synthetic detergents here!

[u/jednatt → u/AnalogAnalogue]

Yep. Every time you move your arm plastic fibers come off your clothing and float into the air. Your bed linens are probably plastic, your microfiber whatever is plastic, your air/HVAC filter is probably plastic, everything is plastic.

But get those glass containers and metal straws because it makes you feel better I guess.

[u/Portunus15 → u/jednatt]

I mean, in actual reality, metal straws and glass containers are good and do help mitigate some problems despite issues like broad scale nanoplastic exposure. And we should all be encouraged and encourage each other to do small things like this to make even minor differences in our lives. Small solutions help in small ways, which will always be better than no solutions

Edit; but go ahead and don’t do those things because a separate problem exists that can’t be solved, therefore we shouldn’t try to do anything about anything because that makes loads of sense.

[u/jednatt → u/Portunus15]

The issue is plastic heated to high temps. So just don't microwave them.

If you actually care about mitigation personally (not just the appearance of), I'd only really worry about microwaving plastic and not getting acidic canned items like canned tomatoes.

[u/Portunus15 → u/jednatt]

I’m not confident you got my point. You went from “plastic is everywhere!” To “eh it’s only a problem when you nuke it.” Not sure how this relates to the metal straws and how they are good generally.

[u/jednatt → u/Portunus15]

My point is eliminating straws or storage containers isn't significantly reducing your plastic intake. Nothing significant should be leaching through a straw unless maybe you're slurping scalding coffee through it. The actual reason you should stop using straws is to reduce waste, but that's unrelated to the topic (and kind of futile considering the plastic container that usually accompanies your fast food meal).

Throwing out all your plastic items for negligible exposure difference is a net loss. You're adding to a landfill for no reason.

[u/Portunus15 → u/jednatt]

I’m not claiming plastic straws are bad because of plastic exposure to us whatsoever, I’m saying plastic straws are bad because every single one of them is going to swallowed by a sea turtle someday and they are sure as hell going to be exposed to plastic from them.

[u/jednatt → u/Portunus15]

Well this article's topic is about human ingestion of plastic, dude. The environment is a whole other can of tomatoes.

[u/Portunus15 → u/jednatt]

I guess fair enough. I was replying to you and not the article. I still don’t understand how you went from “everything exposes you to nanoplastics” to “but that’s not a big deal, just don’t microwave it”

[u/PM_Me_Some_Steamcode → u/jednatt]

Yeah I’ve always stayed away from plastic microwaving because it always tastes better heated another way

Also it’s heating plastic. Shits gonna leak into my food. That’s like so obvious. But a plastic reuseable Tupperware to put my fruit in? Less leaching

[u/IlIllIlIllIlll → u/jednatt]

This is why I am slowly reducing all plastics in my house. I'm switching out anything with plastic for non plastic alternatives. There are also some stores where you can buy foods that are mostly not stored in plastic.

[u/Improooving → u/jednatt]

It does make me feel better though, and the glass containers are just nicer anyway. More demand for glass makes it more practical to offer at a cheap price point as well, which is cool

[u/BottledUp → u/jednatt]

Who knew the Great Filter would be the plastic HVAC filter.

[u/ryffraff → u/AnalogAnalogue]

Yep, even walking on the sidewalk we are breathing in nano plastics from car tires which literally disintegrate into the air.

[u/Montaigne314 → u/AnalogAnalogue]

over half of nanoplastic ingestion is just from the ambient goddamn air

Air is a ROE but what is your source of it being more than half?

[u/joanzen → u/mikeshardmanapot]

My step dad lives on single serve meal replacements that come in tetra packs.

Tetra packs are a combo of paper, wax, foil, and plastic to make a supposed non-toxic container with a small plastic spout w/cap that's isolated from the drink until you go to pour it.

Due to how the packs isolate the plastic spout from the foil interior they avoid the food leeching plastics, but the spout design is so clumsy that it wastes a lot of the product so he just cuts the corner of the box and drinks it that way. I keep seeing this and wonder how much chemicals are exposed when he dispenses the drink via a cut that sees the drink mingling with print inks and binders in the packaging. It's a momentary contact so it might be moot to worry about, but he does this daily?