There is a saying, ?We are what we eat.? If we consume healthy food, our body will then be healthy. If we were to eat junk food, our body will become unhealthy. However, what would be happened if we were to consume plastic? Even though no sane person would consume plastic, are you sure there are no plastic inside your body?  Please think about it again.

 

Nowadays, people are demanding to plastic.  It is not because its price is cheap but it is merely because of its usefulness in our daily activities.  We can use plastic for packaging, covering, and distributing food and water.  Without realizing it, we often use plastic for wrapping hot food.  Certain chemicals in plastics, such as Bisphenol-A (BPA) that is often added to plastics to make them more durable.  It will be released in a certain temperature and leach into food and enter the body.  BPA can disrupt hormones and imitate the effect of estrogen in the body, leading to weight gain and hormone imbalance.

 

Below are five ways of plastics that can damage the body, cited from Functional Medicine University.

1)   Plastic damages the chemistry of fatty acids that affect the brain health including memory and recall.

2)   Plastic also creates zinc deficiency in which leads to indigestion, depression, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and accelerated aging.

3)   Pancreas damage caused by plastic, leads to diabetes, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome X.

4)   Plastic lowering sulfation that makes the body unable to effectively detoxify like it should be. This would then lead to a whole host of health challenges.

5)   Lastly, plastic damaging hormone function, especially thyroid and testosterone.

 

It is therefore, please be wise when using plastics for packaging our food.  In addition to health problem, plastics can harm the environment.  Plastics take a really long time to break down.  Here are top 5 facts about plastic bags, cited from The World Counts.

1)   Five trillion plastic bags are used per year, where that is 160,000 a second.

2)   Less than 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled, and the rest are simply thrown away.

3)   Ten percent of 100 million tons of plastic every year ends up in the oceans.

4)   Plastic is broken down into tiny pieces in the ocean, which are then eaten by fishes.

5)   Hundreds of species are affected, due to these species consuming plastic.

 

Some suggestions to reduce plastics usage, cited from wellness mama:

1)   Start using a glass or stainless steel water bottle in place of disposable plastic water bottles.

2)   Switch to reusable grocery bags instead of plastic or paper bags

3)   Stop buying processed foods that are packaged in plastics or Styrofoam containers

 

4)   Replace plastic bags and plastic food storage containers with safer reusable options

5)   Buy wooden or metal toys for children instead of plastic

6)   Bring your own glass/metal bottle or thermos when buying drinks away from home

7)   Consider using cloth diapers instead of disposable

8)   Use glass and metal dishes, silverware and bakeware in place of plastic

9)   Recycle whatever you can!

 

 

 

Reference:

-       http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/waste_pollution_facts/plastic_bags_used_per_year

-       https://wellnessmama.com/23757/dangers-of-plastic/

-       https://www.functionalmedicineuniversity.com/public/919.cfm