Plastic food storage issues... again.

Although I try to limit the number of processed products we buy, there are still a number of basic canned or bottled staples in our pantry. So I was suitably horrified when about 18 months ago, Australian consumer watchdog, CHOICE magazine, included a report on an investigation they had done into plasticisers used in lining the metal lids of glass jars leaching into foods, particularly fatty foods.

Essentially, PVC is used to line the inside of the metal lids of glass jars, in order to form an airtight seal. PVC contains chemicals known as plasticisers, and these dissolve readily into fats and oils. The use of PVC in children's toys has now been banned in many countries because of the potential health impacts on the children if they suck the PVC, so it is definitely something I don't want in my food!

Many plasticisers are endocrine disruptors, e.g. they mimic oestrogen in the body, and they have been implicated as one of the causes for the fall in the average age of puberty onset in girls over the last 40 years. As the mother of three little girls, this makes me doubly paranoid. The good news is that PVC is banned from being used for products certified organic in Australia, but that is not the case for imported products.

You might also want to be aware of that fact when you reuse bottles for home preserving.



This month CHOICE have gone even further and looked at the safety of common plastics used to wrap and store commercial products, including meats, cheeses and vegetables covered in plastic wrap, and plastic polycarbonate bottles containing bisphenol A (BPA, the same issue concerning plastic drink bottles & baby bottles which has been in the news). It seems that while plastic wrap containing PVC has been phased out for health reasons in wraps sold for domestic use, it is still the main type of wrap used commercially. Have you noticed that the wrap on meat trays and vegetables is much thicker than the stuff you can buy for home use? That's why.


I have been gradually transferring the storage of all our foods from plastic containers to glass over the past two years, as I find suitable jars at the local op shops or on sale elsewhere, but it's a big job. And, although I avoid plastic-wrapped vegetables and fruit and we don't buy much meat from the supermarket (only kangaroo and free-range chicken), other organic meats we buy all come vacuum-packed in plastic! Another good reason to limit eating meat I suppose.

Anyway CHOICE recommends that the best way to avoid plasticisers is to:

a) Check the bottle before you buy a product. Do not buy it if the fat content is more than 4%, i.e. more than 4g per 100g, AND it is runny enough to slop against the lid. Hard-set products like mayonnaise which have a gap between the product and the lid should be fine.

b) Avoid purchasing food in plastic containers with the identifying numbers '3' (PVC) or '7' (other plastics including polycarbonate) stamped on them inside the little triangular recycling symbol.


I highly recommend reading both the articles I linked to above, and the latter includes a short video on how to test if the plastic wrap around any foods you might buy contains PVC - something I did to check the vacuum-packaging on our meat which appeared to be OK (thank goodness), but I have yet to check on the chicken or kangaroo we buy from the supermarket. Food for thought.


Cheers,