Microwaving with Plastic Wrap WARNING

[Mama Mangia]

Microwaving with Plastic Wrap WARNING


As a seventh grade student, Claire Nelson learned that di(ethylhexyl)adepate (DEHA), considered a carcinogen, is found i plastic wrap. She also learned that the FDA had never studied the effect of microwave cooking on plastic-wrapped food. Claire began to wonder:
"Can cancer-causing particles seep into food covered with household plastic wrap while it is being micro waved?"

Three years later, with encouragement from her high school science teacher, Claire set out to test what the FDA had not. Although she had an idea for studying the effect of microwave radiation on plastic-wrapped food, she did not have the equipment. Eventually, Jon Wilkes at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas, agreed to help her.

The research center, which is affiliated with the FDA, let her use its facilities to perform her experiments, which involved micro waving plastic wrap in virgin olive oil. Claire tested four different plastic wraps and "found not just the carcinogens but also xenoestrogen was migrating into the oil". Xenoestrogens are linked to low sperm counts in men and to breast cancer in women.

Throughout her junior and senior years, Claire made a couple of trips each week to the research center, which was 25 miles from her home, to work on her experiment. An article in Options reported that "her analysis found that DEHA was migrating into the oil at between 200 parts and 500 parts per million. The FDA standard is 0.05 parts per billion." Her summarized results have been published in science journals. Claire Nelson received the American Chemical Society's top science prize for students during her junior year and fourth place at the International Science and Engineering Fair (Fort Worth,Texas) as a senior. "Carcinogens-At 10,000,000 Times FDA Limits"
Options May 2000. Published by People Against Cancer, 515-972-4444.

On Channel 2 (Huntsville, AL) this morning they had a Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle Hospital on the program. He is the manager of the Wellness Program at the hospital. He was talking about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This applies to foods that contain fat.
He said that the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxins
into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Dioxins are
carcinogens and highly toxic to the cells of our bodies. Instead, he
recommends using glass, Corning Ware, or ceramic containers for heating
food. You get the same results without the dioxins. So such things as TV
dinners, instant ramin and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. Just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He said we might remember when some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Pass this on to your friends.... To add to this: Saran wrap placed over
foods as they are nuked, with the high heat, actually drips poisonous toxins into the food. Use paper towel instead.

[ainjel]

I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is not entirely true.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cookplastic.asp

Per the article:

This gist of this latter addition is true in that a student named Claire Nelson did perform the experiment described for a school science fair project back in 1997 (she came up with the idea for the project while she was in seventh grade, but as noted, she didn't actually conduct the experiment until three years later) by working with an FDA-affiliated laboratory. Like the Fujimoto piece, however, the claims made in this version tend towards the alarmist: the results of the experiment described tended to indicate that diethylhexyl adipate (DEHA) and xenoestrogens could migrate from plastic wraps into microwaved food (specifically olive oil, the "food" used in the experiment), but only with some brands of plastic wrap (primarily ones not sold as "microwave-safe") and only when the plastic wrap was in direct contact with the food being heated; moreover, no research has yet demonstrated that DEHA poses a significant cancer risk to humans at the levels noted here (even though they exceed FDA standards) or that xenoestrogens are a direct cause of breast cancer in women or reduced sperm counts in men.

[tinker]

Ah, the trusty internet hoax-buster, Snopes. That's also what I do whenever I encounter or get sent a "health scare" email--look it up at snopes. Or just google it. I remember there is a similar articl/e that is circulating--that freezing using a plastic container causes cancer--also not true.