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Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#271

Post by JohnFen »

tomtheelder wrote: post #44
JohnFen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cast iron is the best. The hardest part of cast iron is all of the nonsense people believe about cast iron, leading them to think it's inconvenient and, worse, that gets them to actively make cast iron problematic.

I still have a cast iron skillet, but I mostly stopped using it once I got some carbon steel pans. In my experience they beat cast iron in nearly every way. I only use my cast iron now if I need a huge amount of thermal capacity (like pre-heating it to make pizza on or something) or for the presentation value.

Yes, carbon steel pans are great as well.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#273

Post by echoangle »

iamacyborg wrote: post #265
echoangle wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know by what mechanism you’ve become sick? Do you cook that sparsely that you can positively say you’ve never become sick a few days after eating something you’ve cooked?

I cook all the time and come from a family that actually cooks meals, so yeah, the hygiene aspect is a non-issue so long as you just wash stuff properly.

The specific thing I was talking about is this:

> I’ve not gotten sick from home cooking once.

How would you know that? Unless you’ve never been sick at all, I don’t know how you could say that.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#274

Post by michaelt »

MrSkelter wrote: post #226
altacc wrote: post #166

This article is brief and uses big numbers to make a scary point but I'd be interested in if there is proof of causation of significant physiological effects at the exposure level from domestic cooking. Often media will say "people exposed to Y have increased Z" but fail to mention that in studies those people worked in industrial settings with Y and the exposure level is hundreds or thousands of times higher than in…

The precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.

In my country we have some ridiculous newspapers that will publish any story with "may cause cancer" in the headline. So for a lot of people these stories are a boy-who-cried-wolf situation.

Precautionary principle? I'm sorry to say stainless steel may leech heavy metals into food during cooking [1]

And also silicone may leech potentially harmful chemicals into food [2]

Nonstick coatings? Teflon flu "could be a real concern" [3]

Wooden spoons are porous and can crack, making them a breeding ground for germs, and they can splinter [4] - and good luck finding a wooden spatula that doesn't suck.

So personally I don't think it's churlish to take these warnings with a grain of salt. Especially for rarely-used pieces of cookware.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284091/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19680914/ [3] https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/teflon-flu-r... [4] https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1941959/replace-...

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#275

Post by Aachen »

MrSkelter wrote: post #226
altacc wrote: post #166

This article is brief and uses big numbers to make a scary point but I'd be interested in if there is proof of causation of significant physiological effects at the exposure level from domestic cooking. Often media will say "people exposed to Y have increased Z" but fail to mention that in studies those people worked in industrial settings with Y and the exposure level is hundreds or thousands of times higher than in…

The precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.

Maybe a stupid question, but how can I tell the difference between plastic and silicone? We use a black spatula that's flexible (shapes a bit to the curvature of what you're wiping, super convenient) and doesn't scratch the pan while not being porous like wood (where I always wonder how many bacteria live in these crevasses). It seems perfect and is being sold specifically for cooking so I assumed this plastic, if that's what it is, is safe for that. Now, reading the article, it says it's not, but then in the comments I read it may be yet another material. How can one tell what's what?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#276

Post by toofy »

cchi_co wrote: post #154
ggggggreat wrote: post #25

Barista: you want a lid? Me: what color is it?

It's wild how something as simple as a coffee lid can become a point of scrutiny

it is.

and it absolutely won’t be limited to coffee lids. when we don’t hold creators and sellers of products to any kind of real standard, they over and over and over will cut corners. we know this is a fact.

when we don’t hold them responsible for the harms they directly or externally cause, we have to waste our fucking time scrutinizing ridiculous items like coffee lids. soon it will be each of the hundreds of items we buy during our regular trips to target—from toothbrush to laundry soap to shampoo to batteries.

we have to get some actual enforceable testing, standards, and holding bad actors to account soon or it’s going to be a very very real mess.

when we can’t trust companies to sell us safe spatulas or the lids on our coffee cups, we know we’ve gone off the rails.

no one has time to “do their own research” on the hundreds or thousands of random products they come in contact with every single day, “the market” has never fixed this, this requires regulations with teeth.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#277

Post by dotancohen »

onli wrote: post #248
dotancohen wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can use a cotton towel to dry it and move down to one paper towel. You don't even need the entire paper towel. During the Hamas attacks last year I was unable to leave to the store for quite some time and began seriously reducing consumption in the house. Half or even a quarter paper towel is enough. And even that doesn't need to be thrown away - the paper towel is still clean for purpose of reoiling the pan th…

Nice. Also, adding oil each time after cleaning is also not necessary, especially after cooking with enough of it and if that went well (though I do it most of the time as well).

Yes, most of the time I don't even use water now that I'm more comfortable with the pan. Just a really good wipe.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#278

Post by reedf1 »

michaelt wrote: post #274
MrSkelter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.

In my country we have some ridiculous newspapers that will publish any story with "may cause cancer" in the headline. So for a lot of people these stories are a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. Precautionary principle? I'm sorry to say stainless steel may leech heavy metals into food during cooking [1] And also silicone may leech potentially harmful chemicals into food [2] Nonstick coatings? Teflon flu "could be a real…

A well made point, but you won't get through. When you're in the fad, it's the center of the universe. Plus there will be an endless number of presently unknown medical worries and niggles. It all comes out in the wash, the best bet is diversification.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#279

Post by Moru »

ethagnawl wrote: post #175
onnnon wrote: post #27

A lot of coffee makers run hot water over black plastics too.

It's admittedly been a while since I've looked but there don't seem to be any (automated) drip makers whose use doesn't result in plastic coming into contact with hot water. I'm well aware of and own many of the more manual options that don't have this issue. However, the automatic feature is killer (heh) and this seems like an obvious miss by manufacturers.

We make coldbrew coffee in the fridge. No need to heat up the coffee until it is in your cup with some extra water and into the micro. And it taste a lot better than anything else I tried. And I didn't even drink coffee a year ago because it taste so bad. Now I can even drink it without milk! :-)

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#280

Post by iamacyborg »

echoangle wrote: post #273
iamacyborg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cook all the time and come from a family that actually cooks meals, so yeah, the hygiene aspect is a non-issue so long as you just wash stuff properly.

The specific thing I was talking about is this: > I’ve not gotten sick from home cooking once. How would you know that? Unless you’ve never been sick at all, I don’t know how you could say that.

Food poisoning is generally something you know you’ve got.
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