PASS THE PLASTIC

All of us are ingesting microplastics. Could dietary fibre help us get it out?

- by IAN TAYLOR Ian is a freelance science writer and the former deputy editor of BBC Science Focus.

It's a difficult truth to swallow, but research shows that, every year, we consume between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles with our food. It's enough to give you a kind of cognitive indigestion. How, in this age of food safety and nutrition, can we be pigging out on plastics when unappetising studies show they're probably harming our short- and long-term health?

One 2024 study looked at the plastics found in a range of 16 sources of protein in US diets. It found that from those foods alone, the average meal contained between 74–220 microplastic particles. That’s not counting the flecks that come from our drinks bottles or food containers. It doesn’t account for the plastics that break off our cookware and end up on our plates, either.

Microplastics have also been found in drinking water, salt, rice, honey and powdered supplements. They leech from teabags and chip off plastic chopping boards. Even fruit and vegetables contain microplastics absorbed through their roots from contaminated soil and water.