Toxic Glue in Your Food - What You Should Know About Food Packaging Labels

Beth Terry has been trying to live a plastic-free lifefor years now, and just when she gets used to her latest lifestyle adaptation—a hidden source of plastic waste or toxin she didn't know about—a new one pops up.

One of her most recent finds came from a studyshowing that chemicals from adhesive labels on food packaging can leach through plastic packaging and into the food inside.

Check out her full post to learn how she stumbled into this topic and what she plans to do from now on because of it.

In a nutshell, Beth explains, the researchers were studying whether "the chemicals from the adhesives could migrate through the packaging into the food." What they found:

Of the 11 compounds they studied, four migrated into the food. And of those four, the chemical 2,4,7,9-Tetramethyldec-5-yne-4,7-diol is highly toxic to humans.

She adds that the material most likely to allow chemicals to pass through to the food contents is polyethylene plastic—aka, the major component of soda, juice, and water bottles, plastic bags and several types of flexible plastic food wrapping, and some prepared or frozen food trays. (It's also supposed to be one of the "safer" plastics because it does not contain BPA.)

The industry response? The Telegraph reports a spokeswoman saying only, "Our own research has found that although several chemical substances are present in adhesives, the potential for them to migrate into food is very low."

That doesn't sound very convincing.

What to do?
As if chemicals leaching into food from plastic packaging—or the effects on the environment and wildlife or the ongoing Gulf disaster—aren't enough reasons to give up plastic, add one more to the list.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/toxic-glue-in-your-food-what-you-should-know-about-food-packaging-labels.html