What are polycarbonates? A polycarbonate is a high-strength plastic compound made from a monomer known as bisphenol-A (BPA). Bisphenol-A has been used for many years in making food contact plastic products. Examples of such polycarbonate food containers include infant feeding bottles, reheating and microwave containers and other children's food products.
Recently, there has been a lot of media speculation about the safety of polycarbonate containers in storing food products. Some of these concerns have stemmed from questions raised by some scientists about the effect of heat on the substance.
There have been suggestions that some amount of Bisphenol-A migrates out of the poly water or food containers and into the foods that are stored in them, and that this is potentially harmful, especially in babies and very young children.
While there is consensus that some migration out of the containers into food occurs during heating, many government regulatory agencies have come out to say that the levels of migration are too small to cause any long-term deleterious effects.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada, the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency and the counterpart agencies in Europe and Japan have all come out to issue guidelines on use of polycarbonate containers. The US Food and Drug Administration has come out to say that foods stored with polycarbonate containers are safe at low migration levels of Bisphenol-A, and certain cautionary guidelines have been issued.
The way to go is to follow the guidelines that have been set out by the food and drug regulatory agency in your country. As to the question of how safe these compounds are, it can safely be said that the foods used in the containers are safe if used according to the guidelines set out by the regulatory agencies.
When purchasing items made with bisphenol-A, it is essential to find out if the product you are buying was subjected to the migration test by its manufacturer as required by regulatory agencies.
In more developed countries where controls are enforced stringently, this may not be necessary as products that do not meet the standards never find their way to the market. But if you find yourself in countries where standards enforcement is an issue, it is pertinent to carry out such due diligence.
All in all, poly containers can be very useful around the home and can be found all over the web at cheap prices if you do your research. Go start looking at some packaging and storage websites today and you'll find them in no time.
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