I see lots of people saying they avoid microwaving plastics. We do as well in my household and are all in glass. However, the microwave covers to prevent food splattering is plastic now I think of it. What do you all use to cover your food?
Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
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Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think intuition is underrated too.
When it comes to small risks adding up, intuition is massively massively overrated. People are awful at estimating it.
I disagree, if you drink water that tastes like plastic from your drink bottle, you intuition will probably tell you drinking it isn't healthy. You avoid drinking the water until you have evidence to support your intuition.
Is something wrong here? Was something bad done? I would see a problem if I blindly trusted it.
Personally, I was told for a long time to ignore my intuition and it actually got me into trouble quite a few times, I take a more balanced attitude towards it now.
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understand this pedantry. The GP is commenting on a forum, not writing a research paper. Who cares how they write, as long as they're understood?
It's just visually jarring. Do you consider your use of spaces after commas and periods and capitalizing the first word in a sentence "pedantry"? To me it's at the same level.
Keep being you. We all have our weird things that bother us. Apparently the spaces issue is centuries old and used a minority of the time, so you've just got a lot of convincing to do. Maybe you can multiply your effects by writing bots that, for instance, submit github pull requests. Good luck!
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with microwaves? Aside from their mechanism of heating, what do they do differently to food to anything else? Arguably they get the outsides of some foods much hotter than otherwise, but I'm not sure how true that might really be - we regularly cook loads of other foods at very high temperatures in ovens or pans.
I had a organic chemistry professor when I studied biology at university, who said he was convinced that microwaves split amino acid chains in proteins, thus leading to free radicals which could be cancerogenic.
Free radicals last for microseconds in any material. The moment you removed microwave power the free radicals would immediately react with other materials and stabilise (plenty of those in food since the whole point of it is it's high energy).
Which is to say, that's a very specific claim for a professor to make without publishing any papers about it.
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#225The lifecycle of (artificial) plastic stuff in the biosphere is one of these bold, impact agnostic technological adaptations whose true footprint only reveals as densities and exposures become systemic and get integrated over time. Our mental models and economic organization are simply not geared to long term, insidius, slow cooking phenomena. If a profitable and desirable convenience is not immediately and obviously…
Chief Seattle had it right all along it seems[0]. We should have been aggressive about considering the impact of technology on the next seven generations. It’s not too late to start of course, but it is too late to avoid dire planetary changes. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_generation_sustainabil...
It is a one-time cultural leap or socioeconomic transition that needs to happen, but at global scale and spanning fairly diverse cultures (some more ready than others).
In some sense the amount of damage that will cumulate till that transition process is complete is secondary to it actually happening (for which there is not guarantee)
In any case, given that such views are nowhere yet close to being common ground truth that is widely accepted the next decades will likely see enormous strife, debate and ideological movements (maybe even religious ones).
A defining moment in our social evolutiom that a lot of us that grew up in the age of carefree consumerist ignorance probably did not see coming.
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#226I see lots of people saying they avoid microwaving plastics. We do as well in my household and are all in glass. However, the microwave covers to prevent food splattering is plastic now I think of it. What do you all use to cover your food?
I use a plate.
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#227I see lots of people saying they avoid microwaving plastics. We do as well in my household and are all in glass. However, the microwave covers to prevent food splattering is plastic now I think of it. What do you all use to cover your food?
I've just always used a Corning plate or bowl upside down. I didn't even know there were plastic covers until recently
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#228> Rather than introduce just the number of particles released by one container, the researchers instead exposed the cells to particle concentrations that infants and toddlers might accumulate over days or from multiple sources. > After two days, just 23% of kidney cells exposed to the highest concentrations had managed to survive So they used concentrations that they believe toddlers might accumulate over two days an…
The first thing they said is that real world impact to health remains unclear.
Then they added the in-vitro test results.
One can imagine it's not trivial to run a trial on toddlers to discover how bad nanoplastics are to their kidneys...
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#229I see lots of people saying they avoid microwaving plastics. We do as well in my household and are all in glass. However, the microwave covers to prevent food splattering is plastic now I think of it. What do you all use to cover your food?
A sheet of Paper towel
Re: Study finds billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving containers
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is one of those cases where I think it's better to take the cautious route. Now that we know we're ingesting massive amounts of plastics and it's been found in every human organ, and in blood, and in breast milk, etc I think it's probably a good idea to take what steps we can to cut down on it until things are more clear about the harms. Avoiding this exposure will be easy for me, because I was never very…
Cast iron is not bad at all to clean if you have a chain link steel scrubber (The Lodge sells these, other companies too). Ideally you scrub it when the pan is still warm. If you've let something sit in there that hardens, like cheese, you may have to let it soak in some warm water for a bit and apply elbow grease with the scrubber. You can even fill it with water and set it on the stove to warm the water up a bit to…
I wouldn’t soak a cast iron pan.
Just apply a little heat, then use a bamboo/wood spatula to scrape the stuck food, then rinse (if needed) and wipe clean.
For me, the biggest problem with Cast iron is the weight. I’m a big guy, with physical strength commensurate to my size, and cast iron pans are cumbersome to deal with. I have a 9” pan that I leave on the stove for daily use, but I don’t want to have cast iron cookware exclusively.