Toxic food packaging chemicals found in humans

Nearly everything you can buy at the grocery store is sealed in some sort of packaging. That plastic, metal, or cardboard container is made of a myriad of chemicals , and according to new research, some of them are potentially hazardous and could be migrating from that packaging into humans. Two studies published recently by researchers at the Food Packaging Forum detail the extent to which chemicals in food packaging can be detected in humans. The research group found over 3,600 food contact chemicals—ones that food can absorb from its container—in human blood samples from several large biomonitoring programs. The second study found that those 3,600 food contact chemicals include close to 200 potential mammary carcinogens, and 76 of them were detected in human samples. Of those 76 chemicals, 40 have already been classified as hazardous by various regulatory agencies. ( J. Expo. Sci. Environ. Epidemiol. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41370-024-00718-2 ;