Microplastics gush out of our taps and flake off cookware. They find their way into the yolks of eggs, and deep into meat and vegetables. But if we take certain steps, we can eat less of them.
You can’t see them, but they are there, hundreds of miniscule particles of plastic lurking in your steak. As it cooks in a hot pan, these unwelcome guests liquify, oozing into the meat before solidifying again as it cools down on your plate. And they’re not just in steak. Unwittingly, you are eating them all the time.
These interlopers in our food are microplastics and nanoplastics, particles of less than 5mm or between 1 and 1,000 nanometres respectively. But how do they get into our food? And, in a world infused with bits of plastic, what can we do to reduce exposure in our diets?
If you take a closer look around your kitchen, you’ll start to recognise where microplastics enter our meals: they flake off the spatula you use to cook breakfast, leak from the plastic water bottle you put in your child’s backpack and float in the cup of tea on your desk. They’re also buried deep within the foods we eat, from hamburgers to honey.
Once you start looking for them, the exposure points for microplastics can quickly feel overwhelming. But, importantly, it is also possible to make changes to reduce the amount of microplastics we are exposed to in our kitchens.
Food
Microplastics are in fruit and vegetables, honey, bread, dairy, fish and meat from hamburgers to chicken. They are inside the yolks of eggs (and in the whites too).
One study of 109 countries found the amount of these plastics people typically consumed in 2018 was more than six times what it was in 1990. Microplastics can get into our food when plants take them in by the roots, or animals consume them in feed.
“If you farm on a piece of land that was previously industrial and the soil is contaminated, [there is] potential for those plants to accumulate the contaminants in the soil,” says Sathyanarayana. Once that the crops are harvested, there are many more opportunities for contamination during processing. “Factories use a huge amount of plastic to be effective and to have high throughput for their products.”
For some foods, it is possible to get rid of some of the microplastics before you eat them. One study in Australia found that people were typically consuming 3-4mg of plastic per serving of home-cooked rice, and up to 13mg per serving of pre-cooked rice. The microplastics were just as present in rice that was packaged in paper, as in rice that came in plastic packaging. However, the researchers found that rinsing the rice reduced the microplastics served up by 20-40%. Washing meat and fish, too, can reduce microplastics – but not eliminate them.
For other foods, rinsing is impossible. Salt often contains microplastics due to contamination at mining and processing points. A 2018 study found that 36 out of the 39 salt brands analysed contained microplastics. Sea salt had the highest levels of microplastics, likely due to the high levels of microplastic pollution in the world’s lakes, reservoirs, rivers and oceans.
Both Sathyanarayana and Annelise Adrian, a senior programme officer with the plastics and material science team at World Wildlife Fund, are proponents of switching to fresh, whole foods or, at the very least, avoiding ultra-processed foods whenever possible. “The more ultra-processed a food is, the more likely it is to have high plastic contamination, because there are so many touch points in a factory making that food,” says Sathyanarayana.
Reducing the amount of plastic in the food chain will take more than changes within our individual kitchens. Globally, if the amount of plastic debris polluting the environment was cut by 90%, it could halve the amount of plastics consumed by people in the most affected countries.
Kitchen utensils
Now we’ve got our food out of its packaging or storage container, next comes the preparation.
The starting point for many dishes is the chopping board. One study looked at individual slices made on a chopping board, and estimated that between 100 and 300 microplastic or nanoplastic particles could be generated per millimetre of cut. A 2023 study found that one type of board, made from polyethylene, was estimated to release between 7.4-50.7g (7.4-1.8oz) microplastics a year. Another type, made of polypropylene, would release around 49.5g (1.7oz) per year. For context, 50g (1.7oz) is roughly the weight of a generous serving of breakfast cereal.
“You start looking and it’s like, yes of course, I can see [the grooves] there,” says Snekkevik, who published a 2024 review on sources of microplastics in the kitchen. “So, where did the plastic go? It must have gone somewhere.”
Sometimes, it goes straight into the food chopped on it. In the UAE, researchers reported in 2022 that meat bought at a butcher and at a supermarket contained microplastics originating from plastic chopping boards. These microplastics melted when the meat was cooked, and then solidified again as the meal cooled. Washing meat thoroughly for three minutes reduced but did not eliminate the microplastics inside it, the researchers found. Analysis of one used butcher’s board estimated that 875g (30oz) had been lost from it by the end of its lifetime.
Scratched non-stick cookware can also release an estimated thousands to millions of microplastic particles per use, making them another overlooked source within the kitchen. Even brand-new non-stick cookware used with a soft silicone whisk releases significant numbers of microplastics. Likewise, plastic mixing bowls and blenders release particles with each use. Blending ice around for 30 seconds, for example, releases hundreds of thousands of pieces of microplastic.
Silicone is sometimes suggested as a safer alternative to plastic utensils, but Adrian says there isn’t concrete evidence that it sheds fewer microplastics. “While silicone is technically more stable and withstands higher temperatures than single-use plastics, the issues of leaching and microplastics aren’t fully avoided,” she says. That said, considering its stability, she does use some silicone in her own kitchen.
This great article goes on to explore water, heat, plastic cooking utensils, cleaning up and what you can do to help prevent plastic in your food.