Eating out exposes you to toxic chemicals in plastic: Study

Before you head out to dinner this weekend you might want to consider a home-cooked meal instead. Eating out is known to increase one’s intake of unhealthy sugar and fats, but a new study suggests that there’s another reason to be eating at home more. 

The study published in Environment International journal found that eating at restaurants and fast-food chains may increase exposure to potentially harmful chemicals found in plastic. 

The research shows people who eat out are absorbing more phthalates (also known as plasticisers), which are used to make plastic more flexible and durable. Consumption of these chemicals have been linked to a long list of health problems including infertility, birth problems and breast cancer. 

The study found participants who had eaten out the day before had nearly 35% higher levels of phthalates in their bodies than those who ate at home.

Phthalates can be found in products like perfume, hair spray and shampoo, and in food packaging.

According to the study two thirds of the U.S population eat at least some food outside the home daily. Certain foods, such as ready-made sandwiches and burgers, were linked to higher phthalate levels, but only when purchased at a restaurant or fast-food outlet.

“The main idea is that food that is made in restaurants and cafeterias may be coming into contact with materials containing phthalates in part because some portion of the food is made in decentralised locations,” a leading author of the study, Assistant Professor Ami Zota of George Washington University, told CNN.

“Most of the phthalates that are of most concern from a health perspective are plasticisers; they’re added to make plastics soft,” she added. “They’re added to food packaging, they can be in food handling gloves, and they can be found in food tubing.”

The study was based on data collected between 2005 and 2014 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, administered every two years by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It included 10,253 people who were asked about their dining habits over the past 24 hours and who provided urine samples to evaluate phthalate levels in the body.

The good news, however, is that phthalates linger in the body for only about a day, which means changing your eating habits and consuming more home-cooked meals could have almost immediate health benefits. 

What do you think? Should we eat out less?

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