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Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

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Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#121

Post by bonoboTP »

idiotsecant wrote: post #109
timr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You found a paper saying that contamination is possible. That doesn’t mean that most of these plastic studies are doing the necessary controls, let alone the (almost impossible) task of preventing the contamination in a laboratory setting where nanomolar detection levels are used to make broad claims.

Luckily HN software developers, the foremost authority on literally every subject imaginable, are here to bless the world with their insights.

I think there's an important distinction of smug better-knowing instances.

"I have unique insight as a non-expert that all experts miss and the entire field is blind to" -> usually nonsense

"I think in this specific instance academically qualified people are missing something that's obvious to me" -> often true.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#122

Post by cogman10 »

crazygringo wrote: post #119
cogman10 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit. You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable. I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors a…

> To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit.

You are supposed to. I've seen plenty of fast food places where the gloves stay on between jobs.

I'm sure there are upscale places that are better on this point.

> You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable.

If you were just working with raw chicken, that slimy feeling on your skin is a pretty good motivator for most people to immediately wash their hands. It's more than just procedure or habit, your hands feel dirty and you want to wash that off.

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors and nurses are. Like, if you're cutting up chicken for an hour you're not, but if you're moving from chicken to veggies you absolutely are.

You absolutely are supposed to. But there's a gap in what you are supposed to do vs what actually happens in practice. Especially if you get a penny pinching boss that doesn't like wasting money on gloves.

That doesn't happen so much in medicine because the consequences are much higher. But for food? Not uncommon. There are more than a few restaurants with open kitchens that I've had to stop eating at because employees could be seen handling a bunch of things with the same set of gloves on.

It also does not help that food is often a mad rush.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#123

Post by ceejayoz »

crazygringo wrote: post #119
cogman10 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

> So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. To the contrary. You take off and throw out your gloves every time you finish doing something with raw meat. It's procedure. It's habit. You're never relying on "feel" to determine whether there are "raw chicken juices on you". Using "feel" is not reliable. I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves, but doctors a…

> I don't know why you think food service workers aren't constantly putting on new gloves...

I've seen enough absent-minded nose wipes on the back of gloves at Chipotle-style establishments to be pretty OK with this take.

And that's where people are watching.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#124

Post by timr »

bonoboTP wrote: post #121
idiotsecant wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily HN software developers, the foremost authority on literally every subject imaginable, are here to bless the world with their insights.

I think there's an important distinction of smug better-knowing instances. "I have unique insight as a non-expert that all experts miss and the entire field is blind to" -> usually nonsense "I think in this specific instance academically qualified people are missing something that's obvious to me" -> often true.

There’s also the possibility that some of us actually, you know…have subject-matter expertise.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#125

Post by Panoramix »

tsunamifury wrote: post #117
cogman10 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

Uh yea. That’s why most places use washed hands not gloves. I’ve never seen for example sushi portrayed with anything but bare hands

Sushi chefs spend years learning the correct feel of the fish - when it's warm enough, when it's slimy. Japanese are taken aback when they are forced to wear gloves for "safety", which at least in that case is entirely counter productive.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#126

Post by bonoboTP »

cogman10 wrote: post #103
dust42 wrote: post #52

So basically the gloves that kitchen staff now must wear means we get an extra dose of micro plastics? Yikes.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

Yes but most people find it icky and would complain, especially if it's visible behind the counter. Customer is king... I can also imagine it helps with legal liability, "but we were so careful, we even mandated gloves!"

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#127

Post by kalaksi »

NiloCK wrote: post #81
SapporoChris wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that there is not currently conclusive proof that micro plastics are a significant risk to human health. However, this is the same line the tobacco industry used for decades even though they knew different.

Is there any specific evidence that they are a risk to human health? I mean, I get the instinct that foreign-entity can't exactly be good for me , but the same instinct applied to GMOs, and as far as I know organic foods have never yielded any sort of statistically visible health impacts. Plastics earn their keep in general by being non-reactive and 'durable', so it's not entirely shocking if they can pass through (o…

I get your point that plastics are relatively inert and may not cause noticeable harm (depending on quantity?), but I think it'd be wise to be cautious. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic#Bisphenol_A_(BPA) .

I'd also consider plastic, and their additives, to be a lot bigger and longer lasting unknown than GMOs.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#128

Post by refulgentis »

idiotsecant wrote: post #109
timr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You found a paper saying that contamination is possible. That doesn’t mean that most of these plastic studies are doing the necessary controls, let alone the (almost impossible) task of preventing the contamination in a laboratory setting where nanomolar detection levels are used to make broad claims.

Luckily HN software developers, the foremost authority on literally every subject imaginable, are here to bless the world with their insights.

Spiritual equivalent of a life sciences forum discovering memory safety, one person who wrote code for a bit saying they wrote a memory bug in C once, then someone clutching pearls about why all programmers irresponsibly write memory unsafe code given it has a global impact.

Been here 16 years, it's always an adventure seeing whether stuff like this falls into:

A) Polite interest that doesn't turn into self-keyword-association

B) Science journalism bad

C) Can you believe no one else knows what they're doing.

(A) almost never happens, has to avoid being top 10 on front page and/or be early morning/late night for North America and Europe. (i.e. most of the audience)

(B) is reserved for physics and math.

(C) is default leftover.

Weekends are horrible because you'll get a "harshin' the vibe" penalty if you push back at all. People will pick at your link but not the main one and treat you like you're argumentative. (i.e. 'you're taking things too seriously' but a thoughtful person's version)

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#129

Post by cogman10 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #126
cogman10 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I believe the glove mandates for food prep are actually anti-hygiene. Unlike bare skin, you can't really feel when your gloves are contaminated. So you are less likely to replace gloves when you should. With bare hands, you can feel the raw chicken juices on you, so it's pretty natural to want to wash your hands right after handling the raw chicken. Gloves are important in medicine, but that's with proper us…

Yes but most people find it icky and would complain, especially if it's visible behind the counter. Customer is king... I can also imagine it helps with legal liability, "but we were so careful, we even mandated gloves!"

Yeah, that's more the problem than anything else.

And it's true that you would get cleaner food prep if you used gloves properly. However, that requires a lot of gloves getting thrown away.

Re: Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics

#130

Post by refulgentis »

thomasgeelens wrote: post #44

this feels like such a weird oversight in such a controlled environment: "oh my bad it was the gloves!" I wonder in how many other studies this happened?

It wasn't an oversight? They sighted it immediately, hunted it down, then wrote it up for you.
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