Do you store your food in plastic containers? Do you ever put plastic in the microwave? If so, think twice about it.
In the Your Plate, Your Fate series, you’ll learn about the dozens of chemicals found in our foods that mimic the hormone estrogen. These gender benders cause early sexual development in children, reproductive difficulties for adults, and they promote the growth and spread of cancer. And they’re quite common in plastic.
Researchers at Tufts Medical School were using plastic test tubes to store a line of estrogen sensitive breast cancer cells. That is, until they noticed the cells were multiplying wildly. Turns out the supposedly “inert” plastic test tubes were leaching a chemical that behaves just like estrogen.
When researchers at Dartmouth heated plastic wrap and vegetable oil in a microwave, they found the oil had “500,000 times the minimum amount of xenoestrogens needed to stimulate breast cancer cells…” Read that again if it didn’t sink in the first time.
The solution is simple. Use glass or ceramic to store your food. Never eat or drink anything that came into contact with hot plastic. Stay away from plastic water bottles (remember – they could have been heated in transit!). And avoid canned food, if possible. The inside of the cans are coated with plastic and the acid in the food breaks it down.
In the Your Plate, Your Fate series you’ll learn about the many other uninvited dinner guests that could be making you sick including:
- The cookware that leaches known cancer-causers into your meals – and it’s found in more than 80% of all cookware sold!
- The household staple that sucks up to 97% of the nutrients out of your food and a safe, time-saving alternative to choose
- The only two brands of canned foods that don’t contain BPA – a powerful xenoestrogen associated with prostate cancer, breast cancer and even fertility problems
- The family heirlooms that could be exposing you to dangerous levels of lead – a deadly metal that is high enough in 40% of Americans to significantly increase stroke and heart attack risk.
References
1. How to Avoid Xenoestrogens by Elizabeth Smith, M.D.
