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Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

theatlantic.com

531–540 of 886 posts

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find a non-Teflon waffle iron?

I have a cast-iron waffle maker from like the 20s that works very well and is very fun to use. Added bonus, you can bring it on a camping trip and make waffles in the woods. I did not pay $400 for it, but it looks like this: https://www.hardmill.com/products/griswold-8-waffle-iron-wit...

We have a reconditioned electric waffle iron from like the 40s. There are folks out there who specialize in taking them apart and replacing all the electrical components with modern stuff.

It also works very well, and as an added bonus it makes much better waffles than the modern Teflon ones do. You just can't get the same crispy outside out of a nonstick surface.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#533
I imagine most of us here likely follow well-known conventional kitchen wisdom: don’t use metal utensils on non-stick pans, wash your hands after handling raw meat, etc. And I suppose I can add, generally avoid black plastic kitchen gear to my list. However, how much does it even matter at this point?

Does the kitchen of the restaurant I’m eating at care about that? Am I still going to drink 2 whiskeys tonight? Anyone got any tiny individually wrapped shitty Halloween candy? How do those synthetic made-in-x-country gym clothes feel against your skin? Wanna have a cigar? Are you breathing recycled air during an airline flight? When was the last time you stretched your legs? When’s the next time you’ll drink a plastic bottle of water? Got a k-cup? What’s the inner workings of that coffee machine do with the near boiling hot water? When was the last time it was cleaned? What chemical was used on your toilet that your buttcheeks are now sitting on? Want some bacon? How bout a hot dog? Been outside recently without sun screen?

So many things are actively killing us or giving us cancer. I’ll try to remember the black plastic thing, but I honestly think I just might forget and continue living in my blip of existence.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#535
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, the main problem for men isn't full blown iron overload but rather subclinical iron excess which mostly comes from dietary heme iron since it bypasses the body's iron intake regulator compared to non-heme iron.

It makes no sense to fixate on elemental iron residue from your cast iron pan, especially if you're still getting heme iron infusions from red meat.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Napkins and tissues are not made of plastics Would you be surprised to learn that napkins and tissues and paper towels have all sorts of plastic coatings on them? It’s an untold story and I’d love one of these pubs to do some research the way they did about pizza boxes back in the day

I would think that durable versions wouldn't be made out of them, unless they were synthetic fibers.

It's coatings, not the main material.

Your 100% cotton sweater has petroleum-derived coatings on it too, which give it a soft handfeel in the store and keep bugs from eating it on its way over from SE Asia :)

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#537

I would like to know if the plastic used in my Moccamaster is subject to these hazards. I bought it specifically because they claim to use food-grade quality plastic that is supposed to be safe.

Even if you don’t care about chemicals, plastic does in my experience absorb a lot of “burnt/old” coffee flavor, especially if it goes through rubber/plastic/silicone tubing.

I can recommend porcelain pour over and paper filters. I fill up around 1L in the morning with hot water from the boiler. It’s very boring and non-fancy, takes about as much time as a coffee maker (pouring is slower but cleaning is faster). Use a thermos if you want it hot for longer. Great flavor for non-snobs.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#538
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying on topic is viewed more positively.

This is directly related to the topic. You cant have an indepth discussion about why we use these type of utensils without a discussion of non-stick as one of hte main reasons we use them is they don't scratch nonstick. Or you can collapse the thread and move on to the discussion you are interested in, or just downvote. But complaining that one of the current points of discussion doesnt do it for ya is a pretty lame…

What about silicon or wood utensils? Are you saying we have to use black plastic utensils because of non-stick pans?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#539
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

what is his jam? blackberry is my favorite jam; blueberry is the worst, so i hope its not blueberry.

I think he's referring to my small farm, we grow raspberries.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#540
post #484

From gidmkhealthnerd, a scientific fact-checker: Counterpoint: this seems to be the crusade of a single researcher - I don't find the data personally convincing and am still using my black spatula for cooking. https://www.threads.net/@gidmkhealthnerd/post/DBxbQERykRx?hl...

It’s kind of funny to watch the following conversations both recur regularly here on HN:

- The replication crisis means most science is bad and we should be extremely skeptical of scientific consensus.

- This one single scientific paper changes everything and you are negligent if you don’t immediately change your life based on it.

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