Sometimes after a long day at work, the last thing anyone feels like doing is cooking dinner. Eating out or ordering take out is just so easy, especially with modern technology! But before you open that food delivery app, you might want to keep reading. Some recent studies have shown a link between eating out and phthalate exposure.

What Are Phthalates Again?

Phthalates are endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which means they mess with your hormones. These sneaky chemicals can change the way hormones messaging and how the body reacts to them. Endocrine disrupting chemicals have been linked to serious health effects like cancer, developmental abnormalities and fertility issues. And you don't have to be exposed to a ton of phthalates to have negative impacts. In fact, studies show that low level exposure can impact your health (1).

How They Get into Food

Phthalates are used to make plastic flexible and durable. There are a ton of different steps in food processing and distribution that relies on plastic to get the job done. Food handling gloves, plastic packaging material, plastic parts in machinery, and flexible plastic tubing are all used when creating processed food. Phthalates can easily leach from plastic into food during any of these steps. The more processed a food product is, the higher the chance that its come into contact with phthalates.

Why does this matter? Well, two major studies recently looked at phthalate exposure associated with eating out and found concerning results. Both studies found a higher rate of exposure to two phthalates called DINP (Diisononyl phthalate), and DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate) in people who had recently dined out. The first study found that people who dined out had phthalate levels that were approximately 35% higher than those who ate at home (2). Adolescents were especially susceptible to high phthalate levels because they were the most likely age group to eat out.

The second study had similar findings, as well as observing fatty fast food items like burgers or french fries could elevate phthalate levels even more (3). Both studies found that eating food that had been cooked at home significantly reduced phthalate exposure.

What to do Instead

The good news is that the body metabolizes phthalates very quickly and they'll leave your body within 24 hours. So the cheeseburger you had after that big night out over the weekend probably isn't still impacting your phthalate levels. And there's currently a petition going to stop fast food workers from using vinyl gloves, which could contain phthalates. If you find yourself ordering food more than you're cooking it, now might be a good time to swing by the grocery story. But if you just can't break that delivery habit, try ordering foods that are less fatty, and less processed like salads.

Weekly meal prep is a super easy way to regularly start cooking. Preparing weekly dinner on Sunday means you'll always have something ready when you come home from work! Shopping for groceries on Sunday is also an easy way to make sure there are ingredients already on hand when you make dinner during the week. We have some easy recipes on our site! Check out veggie grilling recipes and recipe ideas using beans.

References:

1. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b00034
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412017314666
3. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510803