Is It Safe to Heat Food in Plastic?

By Florence Williams

To get behind the hype, Good Housekeeping tested 31 containers, lids, bags, wraps, and liners. What we found was reassuring — but to really protect your family, there's more you need to know. See all 31 products we tested for this story.

My kitchen is probably similar to yours — filled with products that help me get dinner on the table fast. I have cans of beans and tomato paste on my pantry shelves. In the fridge, there's usually a collection of leftovers — last night's lasagna, some barbecued chicken the kids didn't finish — in dishes covered with plastic wrap, ready to eat after a zap in the microwave. I sometimes buy food and drinks in plastic containers, I've been known to chop on a plastic cutting board, and I carry water around in a plastic bottle. So I've grown increasingly alarmed over news stories on plastics in recent months. First, reports quoted scientists and environmental groups saying that the same containers and wraps that have made life so convenient may contain chemicals that can pose dangers to health: bisphenol A (BPA), which, among its many roles, is used to make a type of hard plastic, and certain phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates), a wide range of chemicals that, among their many uses, soften plastic.

Quickly, as the media coverage intensified, manufacturers and retailers took up the charge: Last spring, just when I was packing my kids' lunches with Nalgene water bottles, the company announced it was phasing out bottles made with BPA. Many retailers have decided to stop selling toys and other kids' products with BPA and phthalates, and a growing list of companies, including P&G and Nike, have been taking phthalates out of everything from beauty products to sneakers.

Lawmakers have jumped into action, too. California, Washington State, and Vermont, for example, have limited the allowable amount of phthalates in children's products, and Congress added a partial phthalate ban to its new consumer-protection law, passed in August. But while legislators have been scurrying to pass protective laws, the federal agencies entrusted with overseeing our health have been slow to respond — and maddeningly vague when they do. In 2007, an expert panel was commissioned by the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which evaluates chemicals for safety. The panel issued the reassuring statement that it had "minimal concern" about most human health effects from BPA, though it acknowledged "some concern for neural and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants, and children at current human exposure." But after it was reported that a consulting group used by the panel had ties to the industry, NTP scientists revised these findings, raising the level of concern.

It's enough to make a mom toss up her hands — and toss out all the plastic in the house.