Fast forward to the 1950s, and plastic was suddenly everywhere.
But somebody discovered that camphor was a good plasticizer (meaning good at making plastic softer, flexible, and easier to work with), and suddenly you could have cheaper plastic balls on your pool table instead of expensive ivory ones.īut camphor smells really strongly, limiting widespread use, and was replaced by phthalates in the 1930s. Back then, plastic was too hard to mold into useful objects, and had limited applications. But how did we get from zero phthalates at the turn of the 20th century to having phthalates everywhere you look?Ī quick history lesson: let’s travel back in time to 1872, before we lived in a world littered with plastic. In one study of pregnant women, phthalates were present in 85-100% of urine samples and air samples from their houses. They can also offgas from flooring and furniture (potentially linked to allergy and asthma). They can leach into your packaged foods, which are the main source of high molecular-weight phthalates (more on those later). It’s surprisingly easy to get high doses of phthalates from food, especially in the US. Phthalates are definitely a cause for concern, especially for infants and expecting females, but threshold doses aren’t known.
IS MAC AND CHEESE BAD FOR YOU PLUS
The ABSOLUTE MINIMUM you need to know, in 50 words or less:īoxed mac and cheese is high in phthalates because of plastic involved in processing, plus fat content. You’re not going to get a simple “yes” or “no” answer here, because it doesn’t exist. This handy rhyming scheme may help: “THAL - EIGHT isn’t your PAL - MATE!”Īlright mate, let’s dig into the evidence, going beyond the simple sound bites you'll see in news coverage. Or starting at square one, you may simply be wondering how phthalate is pronounced.
You may have even started eying your own pantry suspiciously. These unnecessary – yet potentially harmful - dyes are not in Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in other countries, including the UK, because they were removed due to consumer outcry.Īfter last week’s report on high levels of phthalates in boxed mac and cheese, people started paying more attention to the myriad of research on phthalates and testosterone reduction, birth abnormalities, and the like. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in the US contains the artificial food dyes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. It’s so hearty, satisfying, and chock-full of dangerous chemicals. Mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food.
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