Have you ever eat food wrapped in Newspaper????

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Department of General Medicine

Newspapers are essential to the public as a source of news, information and for future reference. However, newspapers can be a health  threat  to people eating foods wrapped in them. It is common practice to find many food vendors wrapping foodstuffs using newspapers and recycled paper  writen with black carbon ink.

Wrapping fried food in newspapers is a very harmful practice and its utilization is injurious to health, even if the food has been prepared hygienically. The reason is simple; the hot oil present in the food facilitates the leakage of chemicals from ink into the food. The newspaper ink consists of many hazardous chemicals which can trigger serious health issues.

Newspapers are usually manufactured by a system called offset-web printing, which needs a certain consistency of the ink (it require to be very thick) and a certain means of drying. For the former, mineral oils (petroleum-based) and solvents such as benzene,methanol and toluene are used; and for the latter, heavy metal (Cobalt)-based drying agents are used. None of these should be used in food wrapping ,as they are also categorized as injurious and can be perilous for consumers’ health.

Chemicals in the ink might  carry cancer-causing elements. Solvents are used to dissolve the ink on newspaper. The solvent used to dissolve ink on the paper is potentially carcinogenic.Printing inks also contain binders,pigments,additives,colorants and photo-initiators( substnce used for speeding up the drying process ), which have harmful effects.

Mineral oil-based printing inks for newspapers contains mineral oil which composed of various types of hydrocarbon molecules that can exist as Mineral Oil Aromatic Hydrocarbons (MOAH) and Mineral Oil Saturated Hydrocarbons (MOSH). These hydrocarbons usually change into gases by evaporation that eventually pierces food items.

Also, newspapers and cardboard boxes used for wrapped foods are made of recycled paper that may be contaminated with  dangerous chemicals like diisobutyl phthalate and di-n-butyl phthalate which can cause digestive problems and also cause severe toxicity.

Recycled paper also contains printing ink residues trapped from previous prints. These trapped residues carry hormone disruptors like benzophenones and mineral oils. They can interfere with reproductive cycle, mostly  in women.

Chemicals such as additives,monomers, processing aids or reaction by-products,can spread into foods and this chemical diffusion is increase by hot temperature, As a result, humans consuming wrapped or processed foods are chronically exposed to synthetic chemicals at short levels throughout their lives. The practice of wrapping foodstuffs in newspapers is common with roadside food sellers dealing in deep-fried snacks. While there are some people who use newspapers cuttings as drug pouches or envelopes. Avoiding the consumption of foods wrapped in Newspapers is a practice for good healthy life. For Good hygiene  operation to wrap food items in butter paper or tissue paper instead of newspapers.

Reference:

• Eating food wrapped in newspapers can cause cancer!;From the Health site.
• Healthy eating : Watch out for poisonous packaging; Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 25th, 2014.
• Newspapers not to wrap food ; from the Nation,the star online.
• Food packaging chemicals may be harmful to human health over long term ; BMJ-British Medical Journal.
• Don't wrap fast food in newspapers ;The Times Of India.