Can disposable lunch boxes be heated?

Many people often order fast food when they work overtime because they don’t have time to eat. Most fast food uses disposable lunch boxes. During the delivery, the food may become cold due to weather and other reasons. Many people want to put the disposable lunch box directly into the microwave to heat it up. So, can the disposable lunch box be heated?

The main raw material for producing lunch boxes is polypropylene, with a content of about 80%; industrial calcium carbonate is used as a filler, and its content cannot exceed 20%. Polypropylene has strong plasticity, and the lunch boxes produced from it have good strength and are not easy to deform. However, industrial calcium carbonate is a stone powder with poor plasticity. When used in excess, the powder is difficult to stick together. Therefore, the lunch boxes produced are prone to quality problems such as softening and leakage.

The common characteristics of these unqualified disposable lunch boxes are that they feel soft, break easily with a slight tear, and have a peculiar smell. The soft feel makes the lunch box inconvenient to use and may even cause food or soup to spill during meals. The odor is caused by the material of the lunch box.

Obvious sign that the material contains toxic substances.

Disposable lunch boxes are foam plastic tableware. If the food in them exceeds 65 degrees, the toxins they carry will precipitate and invade the food, just like plastic bags cannot be exposed to high temperatures. Moreover, if the process is not well controlled during the processing, the toxicity will be even greater.

Eating from such a lunch box is equivalent to chronic poisoning. Although the toxicity is weak, long-term use will still cause damage to the liver and kidneys.

The country strictly prohibits the use of fluorescent whitening agents in the processing of food and food-related products, because once fluorescent whitening agents are absorbed into the human body, they can destroy cellular proteins and are one of the potential carcinogenic factors. At the same time, the benzene ring organic substances contained in fluorescent whitening agents will weaken the healing ability of wounds.

Even disposable plastic tableware made of new materials poses safety hazards. When the temperature exceeds 100 degrees Celsius, the disposable foam lunch boxes will deform. Especially when holding oily foods or heating in a microwave oven, the unpolymerized styrene monomer will enter the human body and cause poisoning. Not only that, the plastic itself can also be melted and ingested by the human body. It cannot be decomposed, and if it accumulates it will endanger life.

As can be seen from the above, disposable lunch boxes cannot be heated. If heated, they will be deformed and some toxic substances will enter the food. If you eat these foods frequently, it will easily cause some symptoms in your body, and severe cases may even be life-threatening. Therefore, it is best not to use disposable lunch boxes, let alone heat them.