If you consume protein, you could be swallowing hundreds of small pieces of plastic every year, research finds.
A new study by researchers from the non-profit Ocean Conservancy and the University of Toronto found that microplastics — tiny particles ranging from a micrometer (thousandth of a millimeter) to half a centimeter in size — were found in nearly 90 percent of protein food samples tested.
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Researchers analyzed more than a dozen different types of common proteins that can be found on the average American’s plate, including seafood, pork, beef, chicken, tofu and various plant-based meat alternatives. According to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution, they estimated that an American adult may consume an average of at least 11,000 microplastic pieces per year.
“There’s no way to hide from plastic if you’re eating,” said George Leonard, one of the study’s authors and the Ocean Conservancy’s chief scientist. “If your desire is ‘I want to choose something that doesn’t have plastic in it,’ you really can’t.”
Leonard said the study’s findings provide further evidence of the ubiquity of tiny plastic particles, which have been discovered everywhere from snow in Antarctica to inside the human body, and how they can find their way into the food we eat and the water we drink. Research has documented the presence of microplastics in fruits and vegetables, as well as other food products such as salt, sugar, rice and milk.
“People shouldn’t panic about the concentration of plastic in their food, with a ‘not yet’ warning,” he said. “We need to do a lot more science.”
The potential effects of microplastics on human health are still being understood. A recent report from the World Health Organization detailed the possible health risks of microplastic pollution, including exposure to nanoplastics, even particles smaller than a micrometer. However, WHO stated that there is not enough research linking these particles to adverse health effects in humans and emphasized that more research is urgently needed.
“While we still have no idea what the consequences of this are for human health, if there are any, we need to take it seriously because this is a problem that will not go away on its own and is only increasing.” “The more plastic we use and throw away, the worse it gets,” Leonard said.
It has long been known that microplastics can be found in the digestive tracts of fish and shellfish, but new research sheds light on the possible presence of plastic fragments in typically eaten parts of seafood, such as fish fillets, as well as in popular parts of seafood. Land-based proteins such as beef, chicken and pork.
Researchers also observed that some highly processed protein products, such as breaded shrimp, fish sticks and chicken nuggets, contained “significantly more” microplastic particles per gram than some minimally processed samples, including packaged wild Alaskan pollock and raw chicken breast . This suggests that food processing may be a source of contamination, the study authors wrote.
But Leonard and other experts cautioned against using the findings to draw definitive conclusions about how microplastics might contaminate food and the amount of plastic that might be hidden in proteins.
The study had a limited sample size, and the researchers noted high variability in microplastic concentrations in the samples. The researchers also counted only microplastic particles with a size greater than or equal to 45 micrometers.
“This just underscores that we need to do more research,” said Bianca Datta, a food scientist and director of scientific partnerships at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes meat alternatives. Datta, who was not involved in the new research, added that more studies are needed to better understand how a protein source may affect the amount of microplastic contamination as well as the potential effects of food processing.
The fact that microplastics have been discovered in many common food sources should also motivate efforts to solve the problem of plastic pollution, experts said.
Paul Anastas, director of Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, who was not part of the latest study, said microplastics will continue to be ubiquitous as long as people continue to use plastics designed to last.
“We designed these materials to last for centuries, if not millennia, which should be considered a design flaw,” Anastas said. “We know how to design polymers that break down into smaller particles, but not into smaller particles, that are harmless to the environment.”
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