“Packaging chemicals may increase heart risk” is not a headline that would instil a reader with any sense of confidence in the food industry. That, however, was the rather shocking news that was reported in the national press this week along side the various tales of financial meltdown.
A report published this week by the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter revealed the findings of a survey that was carried out on 1400 people in the United States. It measured the levels of a chemical called Bisphenol in their urine. Bisphenol is commonly used in the manufacture of plastic packaging and tin linings that are used to contain food. The survey found that the people who had the highest concentration of the chemical in their urine were twice as likely to have heart disease or diabetes and also more likely to be overweight or obese.
What the headlines failed to note, however, was that the actual report made no link between the chemical and the subjects’ conditions. Although it might yet be discovered that the chemicals in packaging do cause certain reactions in the body, the more likely reason seems to be that people who eat more packaged, processed food are more likely to be unhealthy. This is due to the amount and the contents of the food itself, not the packaging in which it arrives.
Although it is easy to jump on the bandwagon that all chemicals are ‘bad’ and no chemicals are ‘good’ one has to remember that medicines are chemicals and insecticides, which prevent crop devastation, as well as the packaging in which food is wrapped.
Although the media might be happy to suggest that food packaging can cause us to become obese or diabetic, it seems far more likely that it is the food itself which is going to have this effect on our bodies not the wrapping in which the food arrives.