Abstract
The use of plastics in the manufacturing of food products is of concern as microplastics (MPs, 1 µm to 5 mm) find their way into food which poses risks to human health. This study is the first to report detection of MPs in selected staple food products in the Philippines, specifically sea salt, white and brown sugar, fish sauce, and rice. Raman microspectroscopy was used to identify the MPs and pigment additives. The mean MP concentration was 471 MPs kg−1 with 71% identified as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for salt, 20 MPs kg−1 with 67% polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for white sugar, 67 MPs kg−1 with 77% polypropylene (PP) for brown sugar, 3 MPs L−1 for fish sauce, and 5 MPs kg−1 with 100% PET for cooked rice. For sea salt, the highest MP contamination found was PVC that is likely from the processing of this product. This implies the need for careful use of PVC materials in their manufacture. For sugar, rice, and fish sauce, the likely contamination is from plastic packaging. The present findings provide estimation of human consumption of MPs from food items and insights on the use of plastic materials in the manufacturing processes.
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Data availability
The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information files. Should any raw data files be needed in another format they are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- PVC:
-
Poly(vinyl chloride)
- PP:
-
Poly(propylene)
- PE:
-
Poly(ethylene)
- PET:
-
Poly(ethylene terephthalate)
- PTFE:
-
Poly(tetrafluoroethylene)
- PAN:
-
Poly(acrylonitrile)
- PS:
-
Poly(styrene)
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Acknowledgements
EQE acknowledges funding support from the Department of Science and Technology-National Academy of Science and Technology (DOST-NAST). We also acknowledge the Ateneo de Manila University Research Council (URC) and the Ateneo Research Institute of Science & Engineering (ARISE) for the support and the CHED-PCARI IIID 2017-058 for the Raman facility.
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Financial support was provided by the Republic of the Philippines Department of Science and Technology-National Academy of Science and Technology (DOST-NAST) and the University Research Council (URC) of Ateneo de Manila University.
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EQE: Supervision, Conceptualization, Resources, Funding acquisition, Writing—review & editing. JLRP: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Writing—original draft. RSB: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Writing—original draft. GBP: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing—original draft. HAMC: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing —original draft. SRJ: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing—original draft. ASOC: Investigation, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Writing—original draft. RSR: Investigation, Resources, Writing—review & editing. EPE: Conceptualization, Methodology, Analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing—review & editing.
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Espiritu, E.Q., Pauco, J.L.R., Bareo, R.S. et al. Microplastics contamination in selected staple consumer food products. J Food Sci Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-024-05978-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-024-05978-2