Is Melamine Safe to Eat Off?

Hi everyone,

First up a bit of news! A group of lawmakers just introduced the No Toxics in Food Packaging Act. It would ban PFAS, phthalates, bisphenols like BPA, and a handful of known carcinogens, including formaldehyde, from anything that touches food.

Formaldehyde is the binder in a lot of “unbreakable” plastic dinnerware, so this is the rabbit hole I’ve gone down this week re Melamine (more on this below).

If this bill becomes law, it would give food packaging makers a clear deadline to find safer materials, which sounds like a good thing to me, as long as those safer materials are properly tested to be safe rather than another case of marketing like “BPA-free” while other untested and potentially harmful substances are used as substitutes.

Introducing our new guide to melamine. You will most likely have owned or used melamine at some point. It is the hard plastic used for most “unbreakable” plates, kids’ bowls, and camping dinnerware. And I learned that it’s used to make those white “magic” cleaning sponges (which I am guilty of using in the past but never will again).

So is melamine safe? It’s fine for cold and room-temperature food, but like all plastics, hot or or acidic food can cause the resin to release small amounts of melamine and formaldehyde. So it should never go in the microwave or used to hold hot food. All very interesting to me given I have quite a bit of thrift store found melamine kids plates and bowls!

More on this in the guide:

➜ What Is Melamine? (And Is It Safe to Eat Off Of?)

🎉 Newly Rated: Young Eden

Young Eden just earned their first rating with us! They’re a woman-owned, family-run brand from California, making organic kids’ clothing and curating a shop of 60+ other organic adult and children’s brands. Their own line is 100% GOTS-certified organic cotton, sourced through a Fairtrade cooperative in India, and about 71% of it is left undyed (the coloured pieces use low-impact dyes and no chlorine bleach). Orders ship in 100% recycled mailers, and they plant a tree in Kenya for every item sold. They landed in our “Mastering” tier, the top 20% of brands we rate.

Read the Full Rating | Shop Young Eden (10% off with SJEDEN10)

We refreshed our deep dive on hemp, which is a fascinating and under-appreciated fabric but like bamboo, can be greenwashed:

➜ What Is Hemp Fabric & Is It Sustainable?

However you’re eating outside this week, thank you.

Joy x