Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food • Hacker News Board

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#51

Post by kibwen » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 2:55 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #42

AllegedAlec wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume it's bad until proven otherwise.

Thought experiment: How would you go about proving that water is not bad?

Water is bad for you in doses that are trivial to acquire and consume. You've seen a pint glass before? Drink 12 of those in under 3 hours if you want to give yourself water poisoning and end up in the emergency room.

However we can also demonstrate that water is good for you in moderate doses. We have yet to demonstrate that any amount of plastic is good for you.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#52

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 2:57 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #47

chiefalchemist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. First, don't worry about it... Then, some is ok... Wait! Less than some is ok... Wait again!! Next to nothing is ok... Fuck!!! Avoid this shit at all costs.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

But one of the hypothesized effects, with mechanistic evidence from cell cultures and animal models, is obesity.

I don’t see how one can be confident about the presence or absence of population-level effects.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#53

Post by dghughes » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

When it's foods contaminating plastic then we'll really know it's bad.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#54

Post by Eisenstein » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

looofooo wrote: post #2

What is the problem with these "plastics"?

One thing you will find about articles and comments regarding this issue is that there is always a 'we don't know' aspect if you look past the fear inducing 'it could be doing this horrible thing' stances.

I try to stay up to date with scholarly research regarding microplastic dangers to humans, and so far there is no conclusive evidence that they do anything harmful to us.

Just know that you are exposed to many hundreds of actually harmful chemicals in your daily life -- but remember that it is the dose, not the presence of a toxin that causes harm. Even water will kill you if you drink too much of it.

Until there is a smoking gun regarding these particles and human health, it would do good to focus on things you can control that are known to be harmful, rather than something you can't that is only scary sounding.

That said, it is a good opportunity to use this to advocate for far less single-use plastics in society. We should not be using nearly as much plastic for nearly as many things as we do, and it needs to be drastically reduced.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#55

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #29

javier_e06 wrote: post #10

Notwithstanding the literature that says Phthalates are also breathed and absorbed through skin, that ship has sailed for this and the few generations ahead of us.

"That ship has sailed" is a bit of a cop out, no? Just because something already happened doesn't mean we shouldn't/can't change our ways going forward. The current levels of plastics might not be obviously harmful, but that doesn't mean we won't discover harm in the future. Or that we should just say "fuck it" and resign ourselves to eating plastics forever.

[deleted]

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#56

Post by impalallama » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:02 PM UTC

Direct link to article. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the...

> We found [phthalates] in all but one food (Polar raspberry lime seltzer).

A very grim lol.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#57

Post by impalallama » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:03 PM UTC

bestouff wrote: post #13

Note that they seem to only appear in processed food. That's kind of OK of you cook yourself apparently.

CR only tested processed food so that's not really a conclusion you can make.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#58

Post by jrajav » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:05 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #47

chiefalchemist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. First, don't worry about it... Then, some is ok... Wait! Less than some is ok... Wait again!! Next to nothing is ok... Fuck!!! Avoid this shit at all costs.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

How many cycles do we have to go through of "oh, recklessly dumping this substance into the ecosystem probably doesn't have any ill effects, and you should prove it does before being such a negative nelly"?

Just once, I'd like to sacrifice consumerism at the altar of my and my family's internal organs, versus the other way around. We're a few decades late to finally be putting full product lifecycle accountability in the laps of manufacturers everywhere.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#59

Post by beedeebeedee » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:09 PM UTC

boringuser2 wrote: post #41

chiefalchemist wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toothless? How about clueless then? Or better, favors Big Inc profits over public health. Call it what you want, but the FDA is too often a paper tiger.

Only someone who has never worked under the FDAs eye of Sauron could think this, strong Dunning-Kruger vibe.

I'm sure they come hard when enforcing legislation, but the issue seems to be they are not proactive enough in investigating issues before legislation has been made.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#60

Post by arsome » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #48

Spivak wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't prove safe, you can only prove "no harms we know of yet."

You can require companies to do at least some due dilligence, though, to give a reasonable amount of comfort it is. "It's safe" is a falsifiable claim.

But that could change over time with further understanding. No point panicking today over something not known to be harmful. The effect size is clearly very small. If I wanted to better my health in an actually measurable way I'd be much better served by dropping alcohol and refined sugars than worrying about microplastics.