Spatulas, cooking spoons, slotted spoon – you probably have a lot of these things in your drawer, made of heat-resistant plastic. They are safe for the capricious coating of non-stick cookware, but they are hazardous to health.
Once upon a time, every kitchen had stainless steel utensils. Then there were Teflon pans, and the metal spatulas were retired and replaced with plastic. As it turns out, this is the real problem.
German scientists from the Federal University of Risk Assessment in Germany, compiling the next report on food safety, issued a stern warning: the use of plastic utensils should be abandoned. The fact is that when heated, the plastic begins to release toxic oligomers. These substances enter food, and then into our body. For the process of toxin release to begin, the temperature is quite low, about 70 degrees. But we often mix boiling food.
“Many plastic kitchen utensils are made from synthetic materials that allow spoons, spatulas and spatulas to withstand high temperatures. These materials contain many harmful toxins, ”the scientists said in a report.
These substances affect health in many ways. Animal studies have shown that exposure to “plastic” toxins increases the risk of tumors in the liver, pancreas, and fertility. By the way, experts associate the increase in the amount of plastic in cooking with the development of male infertility. Particles of plastic are found even in the blood of babies, and this is really scary.
Scientists believe that a dose of no more than 90 micrograms of oligomers per day is ingested into the body as safe for health, if we are talking about a person weighing 60 kg. However, a study of 33 different kitchen utensils found that a third of them emit oligomers well above the acceptable limit. If you use them to cook several dishes, the daily limit is guaranteed to be exceeded.
But when cold, plastic utensils are completely safe – you can mix salad or remove cookies from a baking sheet with such spoons and spatulas.
For everything else, experts advise using wooden utensils. If it is made in compliance with all safety requirements, it will not harm health. And wooden spoons are also safe for dishes.