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Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

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Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#131

Post by conorh »

metadat wrote: post #70
conorh wrote: post #67

My wife is a doctor dealing with (part of) the endocrine system and for years she has had us avoiding heating anything up in a plastic container and avoiding food/liquids+plastic where we can. She believes that these endocrine disruptors are very likely much worse for us than we currently realize, and that the research is eventually going to show that.

Why does she believe this? What data is it based on? (I also avoid these things but only because I feel paranoid about it.)

From my understanding she feels that the mechanisms for these endocrine disrupters are there, that they act similarly to BPA, which is better understood, and that over time as research is done we will find more ways that they interact. The research is hard to do and takes a very long time, and quite a lot of it is not definitive because it is difficult with so many confounding factors, but there is a lot of it and more over time.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#132

Post by hombre_fatal »

Aurornis wrote: post #115
jorvi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough has ~25g sugar per 100g. Boba has ~14g per 100g, depending on the type. Coca Cola has ~11g sugar per 100g. In other words, ice cream has 1.8x more sugar content than boba and 2.3x more sugar content of Coca Cola. If you’re concerned about the tapioca, that’s literally just starch. You know what else contains starch? Potatoes and rice.

> In other words, ice cream has 1.8x more sugar content than boba and 2.3x more sugar content of Coca Cola. Most Boba Tea cups I’ve seen are far bigger than the typical ice cream. You can’t use per-100gm doses this way. You have to look at sugar in the product as ordered. People don’t order and eat their food in neat 100gm increments.

How much people happen to eat in one sitting is nice bonus info, but it doesn't make sense to complain that the data has been normalized into density figures.

Either way, a little 16oz carton of Ben and Jerry's that people smash in one sitting is 1200 calories. So it's still more sugar- and calorie-dense than boba tea.

I don't really see the point in bickering over calorie-dense junk foods though. Both of them are displacing healthier foods in your diet that you could've eaten instead. Neither should account for more than a small fraction of your calorie intake.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#133

Post by jancsika »

> The lab was able to test 705 samples which came from 296 different food products

Ok

> Here's a complete list of all the presently-available food samples (excluding vintage foods) we tested that exceeded a published daily intake limit for any of the chemicals we tested:

41 samples in table

> That said, with the 24 exceptions above,

What, what? There are 41 exceptions in that table, and still more than 24 even if you deduplicate.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#134

Post by hombre_fatal »

It's interesting that everyone is talking about boba tea instead of things they regularly consume like milk and beef, also featured in dedication sections of TFA.

Either because they didn't scroll past the first chart or it's more convenient to focus on a food item they don't eat daily.

Edit: I was randomly on NewRepublic's website and saw this relevant article about how farmers using 'biosolids' (sewage) on their land multiplied the PFAS in their livestock/dairy/water: https://newrepublic.com/article/187106/pfas-milk-maine-texas... ("One State’s War on Forever Chemicals in Milk")

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#135

Post by rsync »

jrmg wrote: post #105
rsync wrote: post #74

I am, in a different life, a consumer of compost and I have started looking very carefully at the compost products for sale in the bay area. On the urban consumer side of things I see compost collection bins which cannot possibly be decontaminated of all manner of plastic pieces which will, inevitably, be ground up into the compost product. On the rural side of things I see miles of plastic baling twine and weedeater…

I’m usually less worried about microplastics than many (human lifespan is at the longest it’s ever been, and people are healthy at older ages than ever - things can’t be that bad overall), but weed eater string is a pet peeve of mine. We’re just spewing nylon microplastics everywhere, and I can’t understand how it’s not at all controversial!

I've spent some time thinking about this and it's a difficult problem for two reasons:

First, while we use metal blades on our ranch it's not easy - you need to educate workers on the extra safety issues involved with the blade and you need to be very careful about fire safety due to sparking. There are only a few months where we use the trimmers at all due to fire risk.[1]

Second, operators of trimmers don't like the performance of the blades and how they cut. With a bit of practice it is fine and as an employer I can dictate the tools I choose ... but convincing homeowners or small property owners to switch to blades is going to be hard. Further, there are some techniques (like trimming up to landscaping features or house siding without destroying them) that are impossible with the blade.

But yes ... if you see a row of workers mowing a big field with string ... somebody isn't putting two and two together and it's a shame to see pristine fields being plasticized.

[1] I have looked into a short metal cable made of non-sparking metal as a replacement for the blade ... not an easy thing to put together ...

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#136

Post by postscapes1 »

I wish they would have been more concentrated with their approach versus this spray and pray route (ie test chick-fil-a from different parts of the country and done it 1000 times so customers could actually impact a change to the biggest offenders). Would happily pay to crowdsource a much bigger project here.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#137

Post by lazide »

jcims wrote: post #123
thaumasiotes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doubtful it's good to have such durable micro materials bouncing around our lungs and digestive tracts. Having odd things in your lungs is bad. Having things bouncing around in your digestive tract means nothing. The whole point of the digestive tract is that you put untrusted materials into it.

As long as it actually makes it out the other end. Bits of undigestable matter the size of smoke particles is a relatively new phenomenon.

Uh, smoke particles and mineral dusts are generally non digestible - and we’ve been eating smoked/cooked meats and slightly dirty things for at least as long as recorded history?

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#138

Post by lazide »

highcountess wrote: post #117
gregwebs wrote: post #113

Paint is a huge source of microplastics that many are unaware of [1]. But also consider how you are wearing clothing made with plastic and the fact that it’s not hard to find 100% cotton shirts. Start figuring out how to have less plastic in your life. It’s not hard if you can be content to do it gradually. [1] https://www.e-a.earth/plastic-paints-the-environment/

I don’t even know, but it would not surprise me if whatever they spray on cotton clothing to make it feel new, which washes out with the first wash, is also some endocrine disrupter. It is insane to me that we have allowed our psychotic cooperations and the psychotic narcissistic people who run and are part of them to totally poison our whole world and lives. This is not even a new thing. I know for a fact that Nestl…

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercerisation], plus various lubricants most likely.

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#139

Post by [deleted] »

jart wrote: post #93

It's hilarious how McDonalds ends up being the safest premade meals you can get (outside a big tech company cafeteria) at least from a scary plastic chemical standpoint. They actually have the resources and a big enough PR problem to spend the money to send their stuff to labs and get it tested. Everyone else solves the PR problem by just labeling their food organic and healthy instead. https://justine.lol/tmp/health…

[deleted]

Re: Plasticlist Report – Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods

#140

Post by OutOfHere »

jart wrote: post #93

It's hilarious how McDonalds ends up being the safest premade meals you can get (outside a big tech company cafeteria) at least from a scary plastic chemical standpoint. They actually have the resources and a big enough PR problem to spend the money to send their stuff to labs and get it tested. Everyone else solves the PR problem by just labeling their food organic and healthy instead. https://justine.lol/tmp/health…

McD tested high for phthalates, phthalate substitutes, and even sometimes for bisphenols.
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