The old chemist adage goes like this, “Store organics in glass and inorganics in plastic.” Will following this advice make you more healthy? Perhaps, because it applies to your food and drinks.

Organics are materials with carbon bonds and this category would include nearly all foods and other consumables. You may have heard the phrase opposites attract but when it comes to organic chemicals, chemists say “like dissolves like.”

Therefore, most foods really should be stored in glass. Glass will have less interaction with food and beverages. What kind of interactions are we talking about? Here’s an example of what happened when a student put the vitamin riboflavin into plastic flasks. Riboflavin, Vitamin B2, has an orange color that tells the tale. You can see it was highly attracted to the plastic.  Plastic used incorrectly can mess up science experiments.

But what about the other scenario? Will plastic stick to things stored in it? Scientists have been on the job, answering this question. 

There have been numerous damning studies about plastic containers releasing chemicals into foods stored in them. New research goes even further with this—plastics release not only trace chemicals but tiny bits of plastic, microplastic, into food. Yes, storing foods in plastic releases tiny plastic particles into the food. These tiny bits of plastic migrate or as chemists say leach into food stored in the plastics, especially under conditions of light, heat, moisture, and microbial action. These particles can be so small they enter cells.

Foods with a high number of microbes such as raw milk and yogurt are examples of foods high in microplastics when stored in plastic.

Storing food in plastic and food sold in plastic results in billions of plastic particles in the foods. Polyethylene food pouches release more particles than the harder polypropylene containers. However, microwaving any sort of container releases more particles and if the product is milk based, this increases.  When the plastics from the foods are collected and studied for their toxicity, they are lethal to kidney cells. One of the worst things you can do is microwave anything in plastic—even water!  

Setting a plastic bottle in the sun and then drinking from it is a recipe for a high source of microplastics. Unfortunately, even foods considered healthy such as seafoods are high plastic level foods as the ocean is utterly contaminated with plastic.

The big question is, “So what? Are these particles causing any health problems?”

Studies indicate, yes. For one thing, they alter the digestive systems of animals across the globe. Seabirds for example, when exposed to plastic laden foods, had fewer commensal bacteria, which help the birds digest their food and recover the nutrients in the food. Even worse, the birds had more harmful bacteria in their digestive tracts when they had eaten microplastics. 

An additional study did not associate plastics with the fatness of the birds. This is somewhat relevant because microplastics and leached plastics are suspected of contributing to the human obesity epidemic. Microplastics in high fat foods increase our ability to absorb fat by 145%! They give the fat a boost!

Exposure to plastics may change our metabolism and make our fat cells larger and more abundant.  In one study, “The scientists report that chemical cocktails from PVC and PUR products were most likely to promote the creation of fat cells, whereas those from PET, HDPE, and PLA products were inactive.”

Here’s the question: what am I, a chemist, going to do about it? Staring at the bare minimum, I’m going to:

1. Think small when it comes to foods that are used repeatedly and stored in plastic such as condiments. It’s a well-known chemist rule to get the smallest bottle of a chemical you can reasonably use up and not the jumbo economy size. A big bottle sitting on a shelf or in the refrigerator can easily collect contaminants. 

• Stick with stainless water and food bowls for my dog. As an aside, on my last post, people responded with comments about washing a pet bowl to keep pink slime away.  Bacteria love plastic. Another reason to avoid it for food storage and serving.

• Remove plastic wrap before heating food.  This means I’m going to avoid using a plastic roasting bag for the Thanksgiving Turkey.

• Not microwave in plastic. 
• Store in glass as much as I can.

• Use metal and/or glass for making my coffee and no plastic cups. No Styrofoam! Paper is much safer for to go cups, as long as it doesn’t include a plastic lining.

• Avoid high fat foods and milk products stored in plastic. Maybe I’ll go back to making my own yogurt. 

• Retire my bedside plastic water glass. 

Synthetic plastics have been around since 1907. The first plastic bottle was used in 1973. There’s a lot that can be said for their affordability and flexibility. When it comes to food storage and preparations, other options are better.

This post is a response to a question asked by a reader. Thanks for asking!