Is Melamine Dinnerware Safe?
Posted on: August 10, 2013
Although melamine dinnerware seems incredibly convenient—with it’s bright colors and nearly unbreakable design, why risk your or your children’s health?
Melamine resin is a tough plastic that can be found in children’s dinner sets, many picnic sets and those noodle soup bowls you see on high rotation in food courts.
On its own, the compound melamine is toxic to human health. Ingested at high concentrations, it can damage the kidneys, as was the case in 2008 in China when six babies died and 50,000 others were hospitalised after being fed baby formula contaminated with melamine.
But what does research have to say about the risk of exposure from melamine resin bowls?
A recent study from Taiwan showed that people who consumed hot soup, which was 90 degrees Celsius when poured into a melamine bowl, did excrete small amounts of melamine in their urine, indicating that melamine from the soup bowl had been absorbed into the body.
If you and your family use melamine dishes, never put hot food on them. It is also the condition of melanin plates and bowls that matters. They probably have lots of hairline fractures or scratches even if you never put them in the oven or microwave.
Is it really worth the risk? Traditional dinnerware is surely safer alternative and environmentally friendlier.
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