231–240 of 344 posts
As someone who avoids cooking with plastic, I've always wondered... what makes people think it's safe? Does it not occur to most people that plastics can break down through the heat they're subjected to, or do they assume the plastics in question have been specifically designed to adequately withstand that?
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Yeah, this is one of those cases where I think it's better to take the cautious route. Now that we know we're ingesting massive amounts of plastics and it's been found in every human organ, and in blood, and in breast milk, etc I think it's probably a good idea to take what steps we can to cut down on it until things are more clear about the harms. Avoiding this exposure will be easy for me, because I was never very…
The biggest drawback I find with cast iron is the weight. The cleaning, as much as you are supposed to clean it, is generally simplistic. Either just hot water and a light brush or paper. A good thing to know is that any surface that get hot enough will release a bit into the food. Cast iron generally leech iron, stainless steel leech iron, nickel, and chromium, and ceramic leech whatever coating it has similar to no…
The lifecycle of (artificial) plastic stuff in the biosphere is one of these bold, impact agnostic technological adaptations whose true footprint only reveals as densities and exposures become systemic and get integrated over time. Our mental models and economic organization are simply not geared to long term, insidius, slow cooking phenomena. If a profitable and desirable convenience is not immediately and obviously…
The problem is that the entities that are tasked with protecting us from shortsighted and other problematic paths are not doing that. Either they're incapable because they're not invested with the necessary authority to do their jobs, or they're influenced by those who would gain from harmful scenarios, or both.
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There are plenty of things that are perfectly safe, even beneficial, on the skin that are harmful if eaten, injected, or inhaled.
genuinely, i ask, like what? i was told by a doctor once that the general rule is to never put anything on your skin you wouldn't also eat, inject or inhale. your skin is your body's largest organ, and allows many types of molecules to pass through it in either direction. if you rub it on there, you may as well be injecting it, the effect is the same, except, in most cases, the magnitude
I'd probably also avoid eating most moisturizers, those probably aren't great to eat.
Anti-fungal creams to fight toe fungus probably aren't for eating as well.
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You wouldn’t have to experiment on children as such. You can follow children who were Brest fed and children who were bottle fed and compare the two. It’s sort of a worrying study for me personally. Because bottle feeding only really works so well because you can microwave, both for cleaning and for heating, modern bottles so easily. If you have to go back to glass containers it’ll be a literal nightmare for most par…
If only there was some model, something like a human, preferably smaller, that maybe doesn't live quite as long. Perhaps it would be ideal if we could even hold it in our hands, and have a small space to contain many of these models. Pfft who am I kidding, what an insane idea. People would just complain that the model has some unknowable flaw, and is therefore entirely useless.
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We are seeing a steady increase in childhood cancer [0] and our male population now has half the sperm count the same population had in 70s [1]. [0]: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/3/incidence-childhoo... [1]: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/11/why-are-male-testo...
Overweight and obese men are more likely to have lowered sperm counts[1] and obesity has tripled since 1970[2]. [1] https://www.healthymale.org.au/news/obesity-overweight-can-i... [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and...
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You wouldn’t have to experiment on children as such. You can follow children who were Brest fed and children who were bottle fed and compare the two. It’s sort of a worrying study for me personally. Because bottle feeding only really works so well because you can microwave, both for cleaning and for heating, modern bottles so easily. If you have to go back to glass containers it’ll be a literal nightmare for most par…
If only there was some model, something like a human, preferably smaller, that maybe doesn't live quite as long. Perhaps it would be ideal if we could even hold it in our hands, and have a small space to contain many of these models. Pfft who am I kidding, what an insane idea. People would just complain that the model has some unknowable flaw, and is therefore entirely useless.
As someone who avoids cooking with plastic, I've always wondered... what makes people think it's safe? Does it not occur to most people that plastics can break down through the heat they're subjected to, or do they assume the plastics in question have been specifically designed to adequately withstand that?
That plastics are incredibly stable. That is why they last so long.
EDIT: Chem engineer here
I'm far more concerned about the non-plastic additives, added to plastic than the actual polymer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are seeing a steady increase in childhood cancer [0] and our male population now has half the sperm count the same population had in 70s [1]. [0]: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/3/incidence-childhoo... [1]: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/11/why-are-male-testo...
Those things could be related to any change in society. There's nothing to suggest it's plastics in particular, right?
Besides, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle dictates that lawmakers should anticipate risks instead of allowing everything "because it's profitable" only to ban it 30 years later.
The lifecycle of (artificial) plastic stuff in the biosphere is one of these bold, impact agnostic technological adaptations whose true footprint only reveals as densities and exposures become systemic and get integrated over time. Our mental models and economic organization are simply not geared to long term, insidius, slow cooking phenomena. If a profitable and desirable convenience is not immediately and obviously…
It never was, and we knew it. Whole civilization went extinct when they depleted their sources of food or energy (e.g. wood) or poisoned themselves.
It's not ignorance. People in power took deliberate decisions to prioritize their interests.
E.g. "COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECTING CLIMATE" was published on 1912 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ROTWKG19120814....
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie... )