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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

#341
post #317

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.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

Silicone's flavor leaches into your food, which some people can notice.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#342
post #317

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.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

I have wood spoons that go in the dishwasher multiple times per week for years and they're fine.

It's why I like wood. You don't need to baby it, and if it breaks down, you throw it out and it returns to the earth.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#343
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI most coffee cups which appear to be paper are also plastic lined. The real solution is sunsetting single-use anything for any other applications outside bio labs or medical procedures. But $$$

> The real solution is sunsetting single-use anything...but $$$ Those $$$ correspond to real-world costs. For examplee, we also want to lower car usage. Do you imagine that people who commute by bicycle or train are going to carry around durable versions of every single-use item they currently encounter? Cups, straws, plates, utensils, napkins, takeout containers, grocery bags, produce bags, tissues? Carrying around…

> Do you imagine that people who commute by bicycle or train are going to carry around durable versions of every single-use item they currently encounter? Cups, straws, plates, utensils, napkins, takeout containers, grocery bags, produce bags, tissues? Carrying around dirty versions of all the above until they get home to clean them?

Doesn't seem uncommon at all to me, that's what my colleagues and I do, same for my wife and her colleagues (and we work in very different environments and places, different countries even).

Some of my colleagues wash their dishes at work, I just bring them back and put them in my dishwasher a home. My wife has a dishwasher at work so they just put their stuff there. The products we use for washing at home or at work claim to be biodegradable and not harmful for the environment.

Properly taxing externalities is an obvious thing to do though of course.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#344

im lost. whats a plastic? silicone is not plastic? why specifically black plastic? which black pigment? all black plastics use the same pigment?which plastic? is black silicone ok? how about rubber? other colors with same flame retardant is ok? or somehow only black (all plastics?) use 1 particular flame retardant? its strangely specific yet strangely vague?

Silicone is a rubber, not a plastic and black silicone should be fine.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem here is that many people use non-stick cookware, and metal spatulas will scratch them up badly. Plastic or rubber spatulas don't do that. Of course, you can say that they shouldn't use non-stick cookware, but they are, so...

This entire discussion points me towards a conclusion that metal-on-metal is the conservative way to go. So what is the problem with this as a solution ? Do we have to worry about microbits of metal disrupting physiology ?

metal spatulas make scratches into the pan, which destroys any surface coating (so it goes into the food) or, if there is no coating, at least destroys the smooth surface which makes food stick even more.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#346
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

Sincere question - my mom always told me to never put wooden utensils in the dishwasher, but I never got a great answer as to why. I put my wooden spatulas in there. My question is, is it just because it's destructive to the wood? Or is there something else that I should be concerned about?

The wood dries out and cracks.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#347
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

If we're talking about health and cookware, you're not going to want nonstick cookware.

Diamond coated ceramic should be fine.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#348
post #317

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.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

Use a carbon steel or cast iron pan and learn how to season properly. They are very nonstick if you cook correctly in them, and their surface is incredibly durable (I use metal spatulas and I primarily cook on carbon steel and a cast iron griddle.) you can also incorporate stainless steel pots, although stainless pans are not nonstick and very hard to use for beginners.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#349
post #317

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.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

Glass...which is silicon I guess.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I missing something? You link is to an inherited disease. If you don't have this inherited disease is this relevant for most people? The way the comment is phrased, it implies that it's bad for men in general. Your link says for people with a specific issue.

Here is a better link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload The link actually says iron overload can also be called haemochromatosis too so a bit confusing that that page says it’s inherited…

I don't understand the issue with cast iron pots after reading that either.

My understanding is that to get iron overload, your body would need to absorb excess iron and store it. This happens with haemochromatosis over a long time (30+ years), but it can also happen if you consume way too much iron by, for example, taking too many iron supplements when you don't need them. In normal circumstances and with a standard diet, the body will regulate it's iron intake so that too much doesn't get stored and so there's no iron oberload.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but this leaves me a little confused about what the commenter meant. If you have a normal diet and don't have haemochromatosis or some other confounding factor, I don't see how enough iron could be leached from a cast iron pot to cause iron overload.

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