Side-effects of eating out of plastic box

The adverse effects of plastic on your body are not hidden any longer. Addiction to processed products that require large machines and involve pollution-producing processes has witnessed a dramatic surge over the years. Out of these harmful products, plastic remains to be the worst offender because it is so versatile that it is used almost everywhere. One such harmful product is the plastic container in which you eat your food. The implications of eating from a plastic box are serious and there is much evidence to support it. More than 92 percent of patients who underwent treatment for hair loss at a clinic in Bengaluru were found to have BPA – a chemical used to make plastic – in their blood. And the worst part is that the harmful effects of plastic are not restricted to only to the hair.

Since 1960s, bisphenol (BPA) has been used widely in industrial plastic, but it wasn’t long before scientists discovered the effect of this chemical on human health. Not only is it linked to heart problems, but BPA is also found to be responsible for causing damage to brain and hormone production and triggering severe health conditions such as ADHD and diabetes.

If the label on your plastic container reads “BPA-free”, it still isn’t completely safe. In an attempt to keep the sales of their products unaffected, manufacturers launch deceiving marketing campaigns that will make the consumer have faith in the safety of plastic products and never discuss the use of BPS (bisphenol S), a chemical with equally toxic properties.

Leaching makes use of BPA and BPS a threat to human body. During leaching, bits of plastic can get transported from containers to food, transferring foreign bodies directly to our body.

The texture of plastic is such that it would be a waste of money to store certain products in a plastic container. The porous texture of plastic easily soaks odour and colour of particular food items and taints the container beyond repair.

Use of non-disposable plastic poses serious threat to environment. Plastic takes an imaginable amount of time to decompose in comparison with its alternatives, causing environmental destruction.

Plastic food containers can be major contributors to obesity. A study, which was conducted on mice, showed that BPA has a big role to play in reducing the animals’ sensitivity to insulin. This resulted in the production of fat cells to become more likely.

Several studies have shown a startling connection between use of plastic containers and human fertility. In a research done by scientists at Harvard, one fifth of unexplained infertility problems could be a result of BPA and BPS exposure.

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