It’s true: Chemicals in common food plastics mimic estrogens in your body, potentially causing fertility problems in men, heart problems in women, and developmental problems in children. And if you think a “BPA free” label fixes the problem, think again. We get the latest research from Dr. Scott Belcher of North Carolina State University.
The plastics that come into contact with your foods are probably messing with your hormones in ways that could negatively affect your health or even more so the health of your kids even your future kids or potentially your lack thereof plastics are messing with your hormones this is a fact of modern life and if you think you can avoid this problem by only buying
Packages that say bpa-free on them hoo boy you’d better think again honestly you might not be able to avoid this problem at all but there are some things you can do to maybe limit your exposure and you can certainly use your power as a consumer to nudge industry away from plastics that are hurting our health to say nothing about the environment field trip to
Raleigh north carolina and the campus of nc state university where dr. scott belcher leads a research lab focused on endocrine disruptors the endocrine system is the glands in your body that produce hormones your adrenaline’s your estrogens your testosterone is that kind of stuff disruptors can either amplify or suppress the effects of those hormones and estrogen
Is a big one when we’re talking about food plastics what’s really important is during childhood development as well as the ability to actually reproduce it’s been shown that endocrine disruptors are associated with more than 50% decrease in the quality of male sperm and the sperm counts and there may be important impacts on reproduction and fertility in western
Civilization as we go on where there’s more and more chemicals coming into our food stuffs and our and our other products i’m gonna level with you and say this is something i avoided learning about for a long time not only because i do love my plastic wrapping but also because it just sounds like some kind of 4chan fever dream there’s a chemical in the food and
It’s turning all the alpha males into betas but you know there is a real thing here dr. belcher was among the researchers who rang the alarm bells about bisphenol a up until a few years ago bpa was ubiquitous in the kitchen plastic cutting boards resealable containers water bottles and cans specifically the plastic lining that’s on the inside of all cans which by
The way was a good innovation when i was kid it was like oh my gosh that can has a dent in it you know you’re gonna get botulism and die immediately well we haven’t heard much about botulism because these epoxy linings seal these cans so well we’ve lost kind of this potential health impact associated with our canned foods the things that they do though is release
Quite a bit of bpa into the media tomatoes have been kind of the the main poster child because they’re acidic and they’re gonna be in that solution probably degrading that can quicker as someone who believes that canned tomatoes are far superior to fresh most places most of the year this breaks my heart to hear but regulators and industry they read dr. belcher’s
Research and they were like omg we didn’t know will replace bpa with something maybe instead we’ll use bps and that fixed it right things like bisphenol us and all of the based on their chemical structure they behaved almost exactly like and in sometimes more so for the endocrine disruptor effects just like bpa what kind of effects are we talking about here well
There’s the diminished sperm counts and you might be thinking to yourself oh that doesn’t apply to me i mean it doesn’t apply to me because that particular ship has sailed if you take my meaning but maybe you’re like i’m a lady why do i care well some of the work that we’ve done with bisphenol a shows that females are especially sensitive to changes in how their
Hearts function that it can cause arrhythmias and is potentially with women much more sensitive and you know who’s probably even more sensitive to endocrine disrupters little kids so that’s where we’re really concerned even during gestation of the infant in utero it’s been shown that many of these chemicals cross the placenta the fetus and the developing embryo
Are bathed in these chemicals and researchers believe that exposure could result in birth defects and brain development issues and premature puberty some cancers also diabetes and obesity now i’m sure there’s already some guy downstairs in the comments who’s writing just used carton tomatoes dude what do you think this is just a regular cardboard box with tomatoes
Inside it that wouldn’t work the tomatoes would soak right through this container has to be lined with something on the inside probably some kind of plastic probably polyethylene maybe under the brain tetrapack and that very well may be an endocrine disruptor most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals as these researchers found in 2011 a bpa-free label
Just doesn’t tell you that much of value i asked dr. belcher many times in many different ways if there’s any safe food plastic and he wouldn’t say not because he was dodging the question but because he doesn’t know and if that guy doesn’t know we don’t know so what does he do to keep his family safe for the kitchen we really try to avoid plastic hugh’s glass you
Know don’t microwave your plastic what we showed very early on in our lab is that actually he increases the release of bisphenol a into water or the food media yep this is why some people think sous-vide is an inherently unhealthy way to cook even if the fancy vacuum packed bag you get says bpa free on it remember most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals
We try to use as much glass as possible i know it’s you know in in our modern life it’s impossible to avoid it and we don’t even really know if limiting your plastic exposure in these ways will positively affect your health because endocrine disruptors do what they do in your body in very small quantities and if you’re alive here in the 21st century they’re going
To get into your body there in the environment but maybe they won’t be one day if you and i stop using so much damn plastic for everything if we use the power of our pocketbooks to shift industry away from materials that are hurting us and our planet and that friends is the best i’ve got for you at the end of this one i mean it is glass even better for the planet
Because it’s way heavier so it takes away more fuel to transport and i don’t even know
Transcribed from video
Food Plastics = Estrogens in Your Body By Adam Ragusea
