Want to cut down on your microplastic intake? Scientists have a new suggestion.
These tiny plastic bits can seem completely unavoidable — breaking down into minuscule particles that get into the body through breathing, skin contact, and of course, eating and drinking.
In fact, research suggests we inadvertently consume about a credit card’s worth a week. All that plastic is building up inside us and causing exerting toxic effects — from damaging the heart, blood vessels and bones, to suppressing our immune systems and messing with our hormones.
While it’s impossible for most of us to completely avoid microplastics, there are a few science-backed habits we can easily adopt.
We already know that heat causes plastic to break down. There are the obvious culprits, like plastic water bottles and kitchen utensils, and the sneakier ones, like tea bags sealed with plastic adhesive.
Now, scientists are warning about another source: instant noodles.
Specifically, researchers studied microplastics coming from the kinds of instant noodles sold right in the bucket so you can avoid dirtying a pot or a bowl.
These disposable cups might look and feel like paper, but research suggests they’re actually lined with an insidious layer of plastic that leaches right into your soup.
Possible danger of souped up containers
Outside Asia, Americans eat more instant noodles than anyone else in the world.
That said, Asia still accounts for 85% of instant noodle sales, according to the study’s authors. That’s why they chose 20 different samples of bucket noodles from four countries in the region: China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.
To mimic making the noodles, they filled the empty, cleaned containers with hot (203 degrees Fahrenheit / 95 degrees Celsius) water, let them sit and then shook and stirred the water.
When they tested the water, they found microplastics in all 20 buckets, averaging about 318 particles per bucket.
The researchers say that if you eat these often, you could easily be ingesting more than 1,000 microplastic particles every single week — pointing out that the meal remains a go-to for overtime office workers and students.
While these microplastics varied a lot in shape, size, and even color, the authors say they were “predominantly” polyethylene (PE) and composites of polyethylene and polypropylene (PP+PE).
Polyethylene is actually the most widely used plastic in the world because of single-use items. Research suggests that once it breaks down into microplastics, PE can end up in our blood, lungs, placenta and brain.
From there it can interact with cell membranes, causing stress, inflammation, and cell death.
Researchers say these plastics are “likely linked” to the packaging the bucket instant noodles come in. “Molten PE film is laminated onto paper substrates,” they write.
They also note that the same thing happens with disposable takeaway coffee cups. According to the study, “approximately 50,000 microplastic particles were detected in every 3–4 takeaway coffee cups.”
Notes on the findings
While the authors say they wanted to simulate how people actually make hot noodles, their process was quite different from what most labels advise.
For starters, they let the hot water sit with tin foil on top for 15 minutes, and then another 20 minutes without it — a grand total of 35 minutes. Usually, the packaging instructions only call for the hot water to sit for three to five minutes before mixing and eating.
It’s still unclear how much this prolonged exposure actually affected the number of microplastics released.
To test it, they “vigorously” shook the bucket and stirred it with a glass rod. But it’s unclear whether this method accurately mimics the physical force of mixing and eating — it’s entirely possible this dislodged more or less microplastics than real life would.
The authors also admitted that despite careful cleaning, some of the particles could’ve come from lab contamination.
This ties into broader concerns from some experts, who argue that microplastic research can sometimes be overblown.
“This is really forcing us to re-evaluate everything we think we know about microplastics in the body. Which, it turns out, is really not very much,” Roger Kuhlman, a chemist formerly at the Dow Chemical Company, told the Guardian.
“Many researchers are making extraordinary claims, but not providing even ordinary evidence,” he added.
