[Review of Methods and Risk Assessment of Microplastics from Food Sources]

Microplastics are becoming an emerging environmental pollutant of great concern. Microplastics present in large quantities in the environment can accumulate in the human food system, thus threatening human health. Characterizing microplastic contamination in food is important for scientifically assessing the risk of human intake. Based on the current published literature, this study analyzed the exposure pathways of human dietary exposure to microplastics in terms of food raw materials, processing, and packaging. Moreover, it further summarized the research methods for food microplastics, which mainly included density flotation, membrane technology, and electrokinetic separation technology series of detection methods and visual analysis, spectroscopy, chromatography, and laser infrared imaging series of identification methods. Finally, the estimated daily intake of microplastics through food exposure was calculated, and the potential hazards of microplastics to humans were discussed, it is proposed that future research needs to be conducted systematically in the directions of analysis and detection, source tracing, and toxicological studies to provide theoretical references for the comprehensive prevention and control of microplastics and the assessment of human health risks.