Fast Food and Fast Casual Restaurant Packaging and PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' — Report 2023

Does the food packaging from your favorite fast food or fast casual restaurant contain toxic PFAS “forever chemicals?” These chemicals can make your meal more toxic and may take decades to break down in your body. This was exactly the worry Mamavation community members had when they asked us about which restaurants had the safest food packaging.

Fast food happens and we want to help you navigate that. You’ve trusted Mamavation to cover topics like safest cookware sans PFAS “forever chemicals,” safest yoga pants sans PFAS in the crotch, and safest water filters to remove PFAS, now join us for another consumer study on the safest food packaging by the restaurant.

Disclosure: This consumer study is released in partnership with Environmental Health News and BoldTV.

Scientific reviews were performed by (1) Terrence Collins, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Green Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, (2) Linda S. Birnbaum, Scientist Emeritus and Former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program and Scholar at Residence at Duke University, North Carolina University, and Yale University, (3) Pete Myers, Chief Scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, and co-author of Our Stolen Future, and (4) Scott Belcher, Associate Professor with the Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS at North Carolina State University.

This post was medically reviewed by Sondra Strand, RN, BSN, PHN. Donations were provided by Environmental Health News and Mamavation community members. Mamavation has only “spot-checked” the industry and thus we cannot make predictions about brands and products that we have not tested. Products and manufacturing aides can change without notice so buyer beware.

This post contains affiliate links, with some to Amazon, which means Mamavation will receive a portion of those sales and we will use that to pay ourselves back for the testing. You can also give a tax-deductible donation to our consumer studies here through Environmental Health Sciences. Click “yes” when asked if the gift is in honor of someone and type “Mamavation.” Thank you!

Mamavation Finds PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Fast Food and Casual Packaging Across California

Mamavation sent 81 pieces of fast food and fast casual food packaging off to an EPA-certified lab to test for indications of PFAS “forever chemicals.” PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that have been used for many decades as stain-resistant, oil-resistant, grease-resistant, and water-resistant chemicals in commerce.

PFAS is found in many areas of our homes with some examples being cookware, makeup, drinking water, contact lenses and dental floss. These chemicals are linked to serious health effects, which we will discuss later.

Because PFAS are so toxic, Mamavation has commissioned our own scientific studies on indications of PFAS “forever chemicals” to make recommendations on fast food and fast casual restaurants with safer packaging.

These tests were also done during a very special time when a new California food packaging law came online — AB 1200. AB 1200 banned PFAS in food packaging starting January 1, 2023. Mamavation tested packaging before and after this to ensure compliance and report back to our community. Here’s what we found during our investigation:

Linda S. Birnbaum, Scientist Emeritus and Former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program and Adjunct Professor at Duke University, University of North Carolina, and Yale University, said, “Fast food packaging is one of the main ways that consumers are continuously exposed to PFAS chemicals.

We support States that pass legislation to curtail these problems, but we worry that brands may have just moved their more toxic packaging to other states that allow it. So the next step here to protect consumers would be federal legislation banning PFAS in food packaging so that all states comply. This is essential to protect the public.”

PFAS Is Problematic to Human Health and Can Last for Decades in Your Body

Toxic PFAS chemicals are useful giving us stain repellency, grease repellency, and water repellency, so it’s no wonder they are used in food packaging. However, they are also very problematic to the environment and human health. PFAS chemicals are ubiquitous, persistent, and toxic. Many of these PFAS chemicals can last for years or even decades in our bodies.

Pregnant women and children are the most vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment, like PFAS. The development of a child can be disrupted by toxic chemicals that mimic natural hormones in such a way that are permanent and profound.

Therefore, it’s imperative to reduce the amount of PFAS your children are exposed to from food, water, and consumer products. Mamavation is dedicated to helping you do that. Here are some of the health effects of different PFAS “forever chemicals:”

It’s also very clear based on biomonitoring evidence from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that PFAS are in essentially all Americans. Therefore, these impacts can harm most Americans.

Pete Myers, Chief Scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, and co-author of Our Stolen Future had this to say: “I can’t imagine that any American remotely familiar with the harmful effects of PFAS chemicals gave the companies selling fast food in PFAS-contaminated food packaging permission to add PFAS to their products.

Yet that’s what is happening! And that means these chemicals are in us and our children and grandchildren.”

What Is PFAS Doing in My Hamburger Wrapper and Who Is in Charge of Removing It?

PFAS “forever chemicals” have been used for decades in fast food and fast casual packaging because of their grease-resistant and water-resistant qualities. However, because of their persistence and omnipresence, this widespread contamination of PFAS will cost taxpayers billions to clean up from drinking water and soil.

Have the Feds taken action here yet? The Department of Defense has banned PFAS in Military Meals Read-to-Eat (MREs) which started in 2021. However, most of this change has been state-led.

Because of the persistence of PFAS, several states are taking action to protect citizens from PFAS in food packaging. Maine and Minnesota have adopted a policy to ban all uses of PFAS unless the use is necessary for public health. All told, twelve states have passed legislation to curtail PFAS in food packaging in particular:

We did testing to see if California’s new food packaging law is being followed. According to AB 1200, “Regulated perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS” means either of the following: (A) PFAS that a manufacturer has intentionally added to a product and that have a functional or technical effect in the product, including the PFAS components of intentionally added chemicals and PFAS that are intentional breakdown products of an added chemical that also have a functional or technical effect in the product.

(B) The presence of PFAS in a product or product component at or above 100 parts per million, as measured in total organic fluorine.

Mamavation tested and found food packaging products over 100 ppm using the method specified by the California law, which took effect on January 1, 2023. Our results show that specific companies were or still are operating outside this new law. Mamavation will report on who those brands are and all other detections we received from the laboratory.

Terrence Collins, Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry and Director of the Institute for Green Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University had this to say:

“When we buy food for our families — our spouse, our children, and our grandchildren — we should not have to worry about forever PFAS chemicals.

This is especially true of little ones! Two decades ago, it was known hamburger wraps from McDonald’s were contaminated with more than one part per million of the developmentally disrupting chemical, PFOA, the particularly toxic PFAS compound that is the villainous chemical in Mark Ruffalo’s movie, ‘Dark Waters.’

At that time, it was known that PFOA was a potent developmental disruptor from rodent studies. In fact, at the time, I quietly counseled a DuPont scientist hoping she would do something about it. Yet, here we are decades later with this worry still hanging over us. It is probably not PFOA today inside food wraps, but different ingested PFAS compounds.

However, the same rule applies because they are unlikely to be excreted quickly and very hard to get rid of. The data gap on what they might do to us looks to me to be a bit like the Marianas Trench. In other words, there is A LOT we don’t know. I wish I could stop flinching every time I buy food wrapped in paper with a shiny coating. We need to get beyond this unacceptable risk and ban all PFAS in food packaging.

Food packaging chemicals can show up in other places you would not expect which brings more urgency. Even when ingested PFAS from contaminated food is excreted, some of it likely takes up residence in the bacteria in our sewage treatment plants that grow on the organic matter we excrete.

This becomes ‘biosolids’ that may be spread on farmland. How many magnificent farms will we have to shut down in the future because their owners made the mistake of using this ‘sewage sludge’ fertilizer? PFAS has staying power. It’s now contaminating farmland and meat products. When will new federal regulatory limits become a reality?”

General Tips on How to Avoid PFAS

It’s not possible to avoid all PFAS exposure because it’s so ubiquitous in the environment, however, it’s possible to lessen the amount we are exposed to. Focus your efforts on reducing overall exposure in areas you can control like inside your home. Instead of fretting about the issue, vote with your dollars, share valuable information with friends and family, and let your elected representatives know how you feel about this issue.

Here are some things Mamavation can help you with to lessen the amount of PFAS your family is exposed to:

Other Industries Mamavation Has PFAS ‘Forever Chemical’ Consumer Studies

Before we launch into the raw data from our lab, we wanted to remind you about all the other studies we have done on indications of PFAS “forever chemicals” inside the food and consumer products you may bring inside your home.

Restaurant Brands Planning PFAS-Free Changes to Fast Food Packaging — How Did They Do?

Mamavation was not the first organization to look at indications of PFAS in fast food packaging. Consumer Reports published a similar consumer study on food packaging in 2022.

Based on work from Consumer Reports and our partners at the Mind the Store Campaign, partners of Toxic-Free Future, we’ve seen some great strides in brands making commitments to change their packaging nationwide. Here are some of those brands that have made commitments to clean up their packaging nationwide so far. You’ll note that some of them have done better than others.

Mamavation’s Investigation on Fast Food and Fast Casual Restaurants in Mostly California — Raw Data

Mamavation sent 81 pieces of fast food and fast casual packaging to an EPA-certified lab looking for indications of PFAS “forever chemicals.” The specific lab method used by Mamavation tested for total fluorine by using the Determination of Total Fluorine by Oxygen Flask Combustion and Ion-Selective Electrode.

If detectable total fluorine was observed at a detection level of 10ppm, the lab did the Determination of free Fluoride Ion in the tablet by Ion-Selective Electrode and then subtracted that from the Total Fluorine to determine the amount of organic fluorine.

Organic fluorine testing is marker testing. There are over 15,000 different PFAS chemicals and it’s impossible to identify all of them. In fact, it’s only possible to identify about 100 or so in a really good commercial lab. Therefore, we do marker testing instead looking for the element they all have in common — organic fluorine. What else could organic fluorine possibly contain other than PFAS? Nothing you want to sip from.

The other main possibilities are other fluoropolymers, pharmaceuticals, and common hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, such as 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (commonly known as R-134a) and 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene (commonly known as HFO-1234yf). These are also all PFAS.

Scott Belcher, Ph.D. and Associate Professor with the Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS at North Carolina State University says “fluoropolymers, such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), are extremely common forms of PFAS that could be contributing to the organic fluorine found in fast food packaging.

Methods used for detecting individual PFAS, such as PFOA or GenX, cannot directly identify PTFE. However, the analysis of total organic fluorine does account for all PFAS contaminants in fast food packaging, including PTFE. Therefore, this method of testing serves as a good ‘spot-check’ of consumer products, such as food packaging.”

About the Author

Leah Segedie is the President and Founder of Mamavation.com. Mamavation produces award-winning content and independent consumer studies examining the intersection of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and everyday products brought into American households. She’s been referred to by many as “the real FDA.”

Since 2008, Mamavation has been helping everyday moms navigate the grocery store by commissioning consumer studies on food, beverages, personal care products, and other such products and thus democratizing science and testing for everyone.

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