[stcg]

I don't think becoming vegetarian helps. From the article:

> The study found evidence that food processing is a likely source of microplastic contamination, as highly processed protein products (like fish sticks, chicken nuggets, tofu, and plant-based burgers, among others) contained significantly more microplastics per gram than minimally processed products (items like packaged wild Alaska pollock, raw chicken breast, and others).

Note the tofu and plant-based burgers.

[dashundchen]

If you look at the actual data, tofu had the third lowest concentration of microplastic particles per gram (0.03, vs 0.02 for pork loin chop and 0.01 for whole chicken breast).

The press release does a disservice to the study by referring to the highly processed group as a whole and not excluding tofu. For reference, the breaded shrimp and fish sticks were measured to have 1.2 and 0.26 particles per gram.

Table 3.7 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974912...

Regardless if a processed food like tofu has minimal plastic concentration, I would assume minimally processed whole plant food like beans and nuts would also have low microplastic exposure. The study found little total plastic from packaging, their evidence pointed towards the processing.

[ericmcer]

Did you account for calories? Beef has ~3-4X the calories per gram of tofu.

I would guess plants have more microplastics as they just pull things out of the soil and store them (why many plants have a ton of heavy metals). Animals at least have some systems for filtering and processing unwanted items.

[ahoka]

Plant based meat substitutes are vegan junk food. There are other things to eat that are not meat.