By Pamela Ferdinand
In marital therapy speak, ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and plastics are like a co-dependent couple. They need each other more and more for their industries to profit, but it’s difficult to have a healthy relationship with anyone else — like humans or the planet.
Plastics cause pollution, and exposure to the chemicals they contain increases the risk of disability and disease, from hormonal issues to cancer.
Meanwhile, UPFs lead to poorer diet quality and a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease, among other serious conditions.
Together, their lifecycles and shared economic benefits interact to compound those risks and co-produce a range of direct and indirect harms, according to a recent scientific commentary in Globalization and Health in October.
Protecting human health and the environment from these hazardous impacts requires a new approach to research, policy and regulation, the authors conclude.
“We question whether policies on both UPF and plastic chemicals are fit for purpose when production and consumption of these products is adding to the chronic chemical exposures that plausibly contribute to the increasing global burden of non-communicable diseases,” they said.
“What steps are needed to call time on this toxic relationship?”
Tackling plastics and UPFs from multiple angles
The commentary takes a unique multidisciplinary approach to connecting the dots between UPFs and plastics. With co-authors from multiple universities and research institutes, including the Food Packaging Forum, experts Jane Muncke, Stuart Gillespie, and Joe Yates explore the interdependence of ultra-processed foods and plastics industries and the environmental and health hazards of their conjoined products.
The team of researchers also includes Carlos Monteiro, who coined the term “ultra-processed food.” He also developed the NOVA food classification system related to industrial food processing.
According to the report:
- UPFs heavily rely on plastics for production and packaging. Major UPF producers are also major contributors to plastic pollution.
- Chemicals can migrate into food from food processing equipment and packaging, among other ways. In fact, a recent study shows that our bodies absorb 25% of more than 3,600 food-contact chemicals (FCCs) found in plastic packaging, plastic food processing equipment and kitchenware. FCCs, also known as food contact materials, include chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor.
- Many plastic FCCs are not adequately tested, despite scientific evidence that some harm our health, even before birth.
“Given their cheap cost and functional properties, plastics are deeply intertwined with UPFs, enabling these highly profitable business models, from farm to fork,” the authors said.
“If plastics and petrochemical industries need one another, then the food system is their lifebuoy.”
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Joint approach needed to safeguard health
Studying and addressing ultra-processed foods and plastics together may lead to more effective solutions, the researchers said. That means promoting interdisciplinary research, adopting new safety testing approaches, and enforcing industry transparency, among other measures, they said.
Government-led regulations are also needed to limit the power of commercial actors profiting from health-harming and environmentally damaging products (commercial determinants of health), they said.
These could include provisions in food legislation for listing the chemical constituents of packaging and other requirements that allow for the traceability of chemicals in plastic products.
“Consumers do not have the power to solve a problem of this scale, and thus it is the responsibility of policymakers to ensure that transitions away from unhealthy, unsustainable foods are accompanied by structural measures that support demand and access to healthy foods,” the researchers said.
The time is now, they maintain: Final negotiations are underway for the first legally binding global plastics treaty, and concerns are growing about the burgeoning share of UPFs in diets worldwide. But it won’t be easy.
“There is no simple way out of the toxic relationship between plastics and UPFs, but momentum is mounting among groups — including shareholders — seeking accountability from health-harming industries,” the authors said.
“Few challenges offer such significant potential to deliver cross-cutting benefits for people and planet.”
Originally published by U.S. Right to Know.
Pamela Ferdinand is an award-winning journalist and former Massachusetts Institute of Technology Knight Science Journalism fellow who covers the commercial determinants of public health (private sector activities that affect our health).
