First we had a bacon scare telling us that the delcious, albeit processed, meat causes cancer. Now, a new report says there are teeny tiny pieces of plastic in common table salt. You know, the granules you sprinkle on literally everything for extra flavor. 

According to Scientific American, the microplastic pieces are polyethylene terephthalate, which are used to make water bottles, cellophane, and the microbeads in cosmetics. They've been detected in 15 types of salt tested by researchers at East China Normal University.  

And if you think that opting for the more "natural" sea salt will make you better off, you're wrong. The team found this type of salt to be the worst culprit, with up to 1,200 pieces of plastic per pound. And we guess this makes sense. With the ocean collecting more and more non-biodegradable pollutants, the remnants are bound to make their way into the salt harvested for human consumption. Yet the plastic has also been found in lake salt and rock salts that originated in wells. Researchers believe the plastic in these types of salts are coming from the production and processing plants. Before you get too freaked out, most of these particles are so miniscule you'd never notice that they're there. However there have been some outliers: 

While the salts that were tested all hailed from China, Sciientific American aptly points out that "plastics have become such a ubiquitous contaminant, I doubt it matters whether you look for plastic in sea salt on Chinese or American supermarket shelves." So, um, go easy on the salt? 

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