1 for safe
"Is it safe to reheat my restaurant take-out foods in the microwave right in their Styrofoam containers?
Sandra McCurdy, University of Idaho extension food safety specialist, considers it safe. However, she notes that some scientists are concerned about degradation products from the polystyrene (Styrofoam) migrating into foods?especially high-fat foods like cheese?during microwaving.
Plasticizers?the chemicals added to plastics to make them more pliable?have been able to mimic or block the action of natural hormones in animal studies, McCurdy says. But there is no compelling evidence that these chemicals act as endocrine disrupters in humans.
"The Food and Drug Administration must approve the food-contact materials used as packages and containers, and it has deemed polystyrene plastic as safe," McCurdy says. Nevertheless, if you are concerned, you can 1) use glass or ceramic containers to microwave foods, 2) cover foods with paper towels rather than plastic wrap when microwaving, 3) rewrap plastic-wrapped cheeses with foil or wax paper and 4) throw out old plastic containers that show signs of breakdown, such as cracking or deformation.
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1 for unsafe
"The amounts of dioxins and dioxinlike chemicals that may leach out are infinitesimal ? on the order of "trillionths of a gram," according to Fujimoto. While the FDA and other critics of Fujimoto's claim dismiss such small amounts as inconsequential, Fujimoto says that the body does not excrete these toxins and "because you have thousands of them, they all accumulate in the body and they have a synergistic, a cumulative type of effect." It is true that dioxins are chemically very stable and have long half-lives (on the order of eight years). But Fujimoto presents no data showing that they accumulate in the body or whether and how much they might interact synergistically. "
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