Dairy Reporter Gets the Inside Scoop on Toxic-Free Food Contact

Last week, Defend Our Health’s research analyst, Roopa Krithivasan, appeared on Dairy Reporter’s podcast Dairy Dialog to discuss Toxic-Free Food Contact, a new web-based resource that provides guidance to the food and beverage industry on how to identify safer and more sustainable food packaging, processing equipment and food service ware.

The easy-to-use resource is, “Relevant to anyone, anywhere in the food supply chain,” Krithivasan tells podcast host Jim Cornall. “Whether you’re a restaurant, a food brand, a processor, or if you’re a dairy or other farm.”

She discusses how toxic chemicals like phthalates and PFAS can be present in packaging and processing equipment and can migrate into food products, including dairy. For example, plastic and rubber tubing used to transfer milk can contain toxic chemicals, ultimately ending up in various dairy products.  

According to Krithivasan, articles containing these chemicals are: “Used despite the fact that there are many readily available alternatives. If we switch to those, we would be limiting consumers’ exposure to toxic chemicals.”

Toxic-Free Food Contact offers leaders in the food and beverage industry an evolving list of suppliers who carry safer alternatives to articles involved in food processing and packaging. Krithivasan hopes the resource will help to spread this “untold story” of toxics in packaging and processing equipment to market leaders far and wide to encourage them to make positive changes.

Listen to the full interview on the Dairy Dialog here and don’t forget to check out Toxic-Free Food Contact, even if you’re only a consumer!

“It’s better for consumers to be armed with as much information as possible!” Krithivasan notes.