A panel of top pediatricians is urging parents to cut out as many chemicals from their child’s packed lunch as possible.
Cans, plastic containers, and processed meats are just a few of the culprits they singled out as classic carriers of toxins that can get into a child’s blood system and affect their hormones – potentially impacting development.
Things like BPA (which makes plastic hard) and nitrates (which make food last longer) have been part of everyday life for decades, and the traces are often so scant that they are ‘generally recognized as safe’.
But the new policy statement, which will be published in the August edition of the journal Pediatrics, warns we now have significant evidence about the dangers of even tiny amounts of these toxins – and yet, the authors believe many parents remain blasé about the risks.
They also warn that low-income communities and ethnic minorities tend to be exposed to higher concentrations of these chemicals – a disparity that is not widely addressed in mainstream medicine.
Risky? Cans, plastic containers, and processed meats are just a few of the culprits that the American Academy of Pediatrics singled out as classic carriers of toxins that can get into a child’s blood system and affect their hormones – potentially impacting development
Our current guidelines on chemicals in food are laid out in the 1958 Amendment to the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).
It allows for about 1,000 chemicals to slip into our food and containers, because they are deemed GRAS (or, ‘generally recognized as safe’).
But, the authors say that ‘accumulating evidence from nonhuman laboratory and human epidemiological studies’ is showing that the threshold may not be low enough – particularly to protect children from the damage.
The report comes on the heels of a spate of studies warning about the extent to which we are exposed to these chemicals.
Most of them have focused on pregnant women’s exposure, and how that affects their unborn babies.
Dr Janice Juraska of the University of Illinois last month told Daily Mail Online she was ‘shocked’ by her latest study, published on July 16, showing that women who eat food from plastic containers are more likely to have kids with slower reactions. The difference, she said, was stark.
A week later, a study by the University of California, San Francisco found most pregnant women have high levels of at least 50 chemicals – such as BPA, triclosan and parabens – in their blood.
With each report, chemists and endocrinologists warn that exposure to these chemicals in the womb could be life-changing for these women’s kids.
But this new advisory from the American Academy of Pediatrics reminds the public that kids of all ages are still going through a crucial phase of development, and they caution that evidence suggests our kids would be better off in the long run if we reduced their exposure to these chemicals as much as possible.
WHAT ARE THE CHEMICALS TO LOOK OUT FOR?
- Phthalates, chemicals used to make plastic flexible and fragrances last longer
- BPA, chemicals used to make plastic containers harder
- PFCs, used in greaseproof paper and cardboard
- Perchlorate, used in plastic food packaging
- Nitrates, used to preserve food and maintain its color, particularly in processed meats
HOW CAN YOU AVOID THEM?
The authors concede that avoiding these chemicals can be hard – particularly for low-income families.
Toxin-free materials, like steel containers or reusable glass bottles, tend to be more expensive. Fresh, organic food free of preservatives is also pricey, since low-income areas tend to have fewer fresh food markets per square mile.
For those communities, they urge pediatricians to ‘advocate for modernization of the FFDCA’, to force all sectors of food and product manufacturing to lower their levels of these chemicals.
For those that can, they recommend taking these steps:
- ‘Prioritize consumption of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables when possible, and support that effort by developing a list of low-cost sources for fresh fruits and vegetables.
- ‘Avoid processed meats, especially maternal consumption during pregnancy.
- ‘Avoid microwaving food or beverages (including infant formula and pumped human milk) in plastic, if possible.
- ‘Avoid placing plastics in the dishwasher.
- ‘Use alternatives to plastic, such as glass or stainless steel, when possible.
- ‘Look at the recycling code on the bottom of products to find the plastic type, and avoid plastics with recycling codes 3 (phthalates), 6 (styrene), and 7 (bisphenols) unless plastics are labeled as ‘biobased’ or ‘greenware,’ indicating that they are made from corn and do not contain bisphenols.
- ‘Encourage hand-washing before handling foods and/or drinks, and wash all fruits and vegetables that cannot be peeled.’