How to Eat Less Plastic

Our kitchen is full of microplastics that we eat, breathe and drink every day. They are in our vegetables, meat and tap water.

 Here’s the Problem

It is estimated that we ingest about five grams of microplastics per week, roughly equivalent to the mass of a credit card. We are becoming plastic people.

Exposure to chemicals like BPA, phthalates and PFAS (the Forever Chemicals) in microplastics has been shown to increase the risk of everything from infertility, poorer fetal development, inflammation and cancer. While science isn’t yet conclusive about all the impacts, we know the chemicals in microplastics are highly toxic and can’t be good for us. Scientists and physicians are deeply concerned.

If you look around your kitchen, you’ll see where microplastics enter our meals: they flake off the spatula you use to cook, they leach from the plastic water bottle in your kid’s backpack and they float in the cup of tea or coffee on your desk. They’re embedded in the foods we eat from meat to cucumbers.

Five Simple Actions

Here are five simple actions to avoid plastic.

Don’t heat food in plastic.

Plastic sheds into food when it is heated in the microwave. Make your new mantra Don’t drink from plastic, Don’t eat from plastic, Don’t prepare food in plastic.  And don’t put plastic in the dishwasher.

Store food in glass, ceramic and metal food containers.

Plastic containers shed microplastics into our food. Avoid throwing them into the landfill however, by reusing them to store things like screws and paper clips. For food storage, opt for containers like glass jars where you can readily see the contents. Use metal bento boxes for school lunches.

Chop food on a wooden chopping board.

As the knife slices through food and hits a plastic board, microplastics are released into the food.

Avoid bottled water and drinks packaged in plastic.

Even the simple act of screwing a plastic bottle cap on and off dramatically increases the amount of microplastics in the container.  And the bottle itself leaches more plastic into the beverage.  A metal travel mug is a better option than a plastic one. Microplastics are in our tap water.  If possible, install a reverse osmosis filter or an advanced carbon filtration on your system.

Drink loose-leaf tea. 

Many tea bags contain plastic in the bag’s sealant or in the bag itself.  The “silky”      synthetic bags are completely made of plastic. Coffee lovers using single-use coffee pods can switch to other methods of coffee-making like pour-over with a stainless-steel filter.

What to do with a kitchen full of plastic

Avoid the reaction of throwing all your plastic kitchen items into the landfill.  They will be there for hundreds of years, if not forever.  Instead focus on items that show signs of obvious damage like cuts or melting. When it’s time to change an item, choose a plastic-free replacement.

Microplastics are everywhere and we can’t eliminate them from our lives entirely. But we can take simple steps in the kitchen to lower the risks to our health.