Help Pls - #5 Polypropylene (PP) food container froze - chemical leaching?

[Jennifer J]

Hi, Everyone.

(Excuse the paragraphs were there's a space between the lines. I can't figure out why it's doing that or how to correct it.)

Does anyone know about the safety of freezing #5 Polypropylene (PP) food containers and whether any chemicals would leach into the food from it being at a freezing temperature? If it does leach, how bad would it be for me to eat the food anyways just this one time (approximately 90 ounces of food)?

I bought some greek yogurt last night. My little fridge was having a hard time keeping it cold enough. I turned it up and stayed up very late waiting cause I wanted to adjust it once cold enough so it wouldn't freeze. It's hard to know how much to adjust it, I woke up this morning it was frozen.

I had this happen with other kinds of containers. I called those container's company and they said I need to throw it away cause the lining will wasn't made for that cold of a temperature and the chemicals would leach into the food.

I'm not concerned about the yogurt being safe from being frozen, I'm concerned about it being safe from the container chemicals leaching into my yogurt from being frozen.

I phoned the yogurt company. They only had a script, really didn't know the answer about freezing, and had no one else to transfer me too that would have more knowledge.

I've googled many different ways and can't find anything specific enough by a source that would be more reputable about the safety of this.

I would just throw it away except for the cost, I'm out of bread and I now have nothing to eat... I've already had to throw out $8 worth of food last week and this would be another $13. This is bad.

Does anyone have any knowledge about the safety of freezing #5 Polypropylene (PP) food containers and whether any chemicals would leach into the food from it being at a freezing temperature? And if it does leach, how bad would it be for me to eat the food anyways just this time - about 90 ounces of food?

Thank you. I hope somebody knows more about this. Fingers crossed.

 

[Kati]

Hi Jennifer, I may be wrong but the problem with plastic containers leeching would occur more when they are heated (like microwaved) and not so much when frozen. I do not think there is any problem comsuming the food. It sounds like it only froze overnight, and was not frozen for months.

Also I watched some youtube video of savvy people freezing their milk in plastic containers for months at a time.

Best wishes.

 

[Hutan]

Hi @Jennifer J

Check out this site. It says that #5 polypropylene is one of the safer plastics.
http://www.healthychild.org/know-your-plastics/
They also note that it is used for ice cream containers - so millions of people are eating dairy food frozen in polypropylene every day.

Thinking of you.

 

[TigerLilea]

The problem with leaching is when the plastic is heated. I don't think freezing plastic would cause that to happen.

 

[HowToEscape?]

Freezing would tend to stop leaching, if it were an issue to begin with. Not only does molecular activity slow down in the cold, but the food becomes solid, and stuff tends not to dissolve into a solid.

While I'm not a chemist, my understanding is that polypropylene doesn't have that issue at food serving temps, and it doesn't have plasticizers to leach out. What you don't want to do is take something fatty, toss it in a random bit of plasticware such as a cold take-out container which was not meant to be heated, and then reheat in the microwave.

Plastic is not all the same stuff and doesn't all behave the same way. Use it as intended and you'll be OK. If it's not marked safe to heat up, don't, if it's made to be used once, don't keep it for years, etc. If it's heavily scratched or seems degraded, throw it out (but that's obvious, right?)

 

[hixxy]

Let the food cool before putting it in the container and decant it from the container before heating and you should be okay.

 

[kangaSue]

I agree with the consensus, heating or exposure to high ambient temperatures are the greater concern for leaching.

If you're worried about this sort of chemical exposure, there is a more entrenched source that you need be concerned about, propylene glycol (PG) or polyethylene glycol (PEG) exposure as this can be found in a wide variety of foods, medicine, cosmetics and personal care products and can have a cumulative effect that results in mystery allergies or even anaphylaxis in the worst case scenario.

A personal experience, I was advised by an Optometrist that I have an allergy in my eyes. Changing the brand of lubricating drops I was using which contained both polyethylene and propylene glycol to one with hypromellose not only fixed the stinging and dry eyes problem but also fixed my issue of vomiting after every time I ate which has been going on for two years and just put down to being a progression of my chronic GI problems.

 

[Jennifer J]

Thank you, @Kati, @Hutan, @TigerLilea, @HowToEscape?, @hixxy and @kangaSue.

Excuse my late thank yous and replies to posts. I'm a little behind. I really appreciate your replies. They were helpful.

Check out this site. It says that #5 polypropylene is one of the safer plastics.
http://www.healthychild.org/know-your-plastics/
They also note that it is used for ice cream containers - so millions of people are eating dairy food frozen in polypropylene every day.

Thank you, @Hutan. That was good to know!

A personal experience, I was advised by an Optometrist that I have an allergy in my eyes. Changing the brand of lubricating drops I was using which contained both polyethylene and propylene glycol to one with hypromellose not only fixed the stinging and dry eyes problem but also fixed my issue of vomiting after every time I ate which has been going on for two years and just put down to being a progression of my chronic GI problems.

@kangaSue, sorry you went through that for two years! Sounds awful. Who would have thought the ingredients in eye drops would have caused that. It's so hard sometimes to know and figure out what is a progression of our conditions or is caused by something else. Thankfully you had to make a change in your eye drops and inadvertently discovered it.