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Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

reuters.com

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Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#61

Post by chiefalchemist »

boringuser2 wrote: post #41
chiefalchemist wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toothless? How about clueless then? Or better, favors Big Inc profits over public health. Call it what you want, but the FDA is too often a paper tiger.

Only someone who has never worked under the FDAs eye of Sauron could think this, strong Dunning-Kruger vibe.

Only someone who doesn't follow the news would think this. The FDA's (unofficial) motto is:

Innocent until found guilty.

They know. We know it. Big Inc knows it. That's a foolish - at best - way to approach public health and ecological health. Tho', of course, it's great for profits.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#62

Post by malfist »

boringuser2 wrote: post #41
chiefalchemist wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toothless? How about clueless then? Or better, favors Big Inc profits over public health. Call it what you want, but the FDA is too often a paper tiger.

Only someone who has never worked under the FDAs eye of Sauron could think this, strong Dunning-Kruger vibe.

> strong Dunning-Kruger vibe

Remember, personal attacks are not allowed here.

One doesn't have to work for the FDA to realize that the prioritize profit over health in a lot of cases. Case in point is sunscreen. How many years did the FDA allow sunscreens that didn't protect against UV-A exposure, knowing that UV-A was the primary cause for sun damage related skin cancer.

Even when they did decide to require protection against UV-A, the enforcement was delayed for several years, explicitly to not cause financial harm to sunscreen makers. I remember back in college, enforcement was delayed over a year to permit sellers to move through existing stock of sunscreen.

This is far from the only example. FDA very much prioritizes protecting companies bottom lines.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#63

Post by throw10920 »

Hooray for Consumer Reports! They're one of the few truly independent (e.g. no paid sponsorships like you see on YouTube channels) product testing and review companies. I have a subscription to them and it's served me well, and I hope they stick around for a while.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#64

Post by ajross »

jrajav wrote: post #58
ajross wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

How many cycles do we have to go through of "oh, recklessly dumping this substance into the ecosystem probably doesn't have any ill effects, and you should prove it does before being such a negative nelly"? Just once, I'd like to sacrifice consumerism at the altar of my and my family's internal organs, versus the other way around. We're a few decades late to finally be putting full product lifecycle accountability in…

> How many cycles do we have to go through of "oh, recklessly dumping this substance into the ecosystem probably doesn't have any ill effects, and you should prove it does before being such a negative nelly"?

Because to be blunt, and even to adopt your inflammatory frame, "recklessly dumping substances into the ecosystem" has been Generally Accepted As Safe for literally thousands of years. For everything particular you want to shout about, there are thousands or tens of thousands of human impacts that went just fine. We have 8 billion of us out there, demanding zero impact just isn't going to happen.

So... do you freak out about watering your garden with a well? Ever use fertilizer or lime? Eat food at a restaurant with a grill? Buy a cut of meat wrapped in wax paper? Use anything made of smelted metal? Use a refrigerator? I mean, just think about the crazy alien cultures going on in that sourdough starter in that fridge! Everything impacts the environment. Everything leaks.

You square this by measuring impacts and doing the science, not by shouting on the internet. I'm sure that's not as satifying, and tends frustratingly not to have the villains you clearly want to see. But it's the only way that actually works.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#65

Post by AlexandrB »

Log_out_ wrote: post #31
agilob wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the canary of plastic pollution similar to we knew about global warming in '70s. We know it's only going to get worse, but we're happy to ignore it until it gets really bad.

I'm more worried about the output of life that is capable of devouring plastics being toxic becoming widespread?

I'm pretty ignorant of biology, but it would be wild if plastic consuming fungi/bacteria became widespread. Imagine all the plastic bits of your car getting "moldy" if you leave it outside too long.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#66

Post by dieterjakob »

jdietrich wrote: post #12

>Consumer Reports said none of the phthalate levels it found exceeded limits set by U.S. and European regulators. I'm totally fine with this. Maybe the FDA is toothless, I don't know, but EFSA do not kid around.

In biotech circles, the FDA is actually renowned to be the tougher one of the two...

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#67

Post by njovin »

ajross wrote: post #47
chiefalchemist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. First, don't worry about it... Then, some is ok... Wait! Less than some is ok... Wait again!! Next to nothing is ok... Fuck!!! Avoid this shit at all costs.

> These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely…

All the science I've seen has shown a strong correlation between increased levels of phthalates and a wide range of fertility problems in human males and females.

The terrifying thing is that phthalates in mothers not only cause developmental issues in the reproductive systems of their offspring, but the offspring then carry the same risks to _their_ offspring, even if they have reduced phthalate exposure post-birth, meaning you need 2 "clean" generations to clear out the contamination properly.

I think a lot more studies are starting to look at this and I predict we're going to see a rapid increase in regulation of plastics once the generational impact becomes clearer.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#68

Post by galdosdi »

achrono wrote: post #36

It's time to come up with what I'd call a Plastic Chain Index. For any given edible item, a very low plastic chain index implies that it would only have plastic inadvertently absorbed from the environment, whereas a high one would be e.g. those super hot French fries rolling in plastic. If you're optimistic, this will usher in easy measurement, widespread awareness and consumer enlightenment. But realistically, we wi…

Indeed. Until then we hapless individuals trapped in the present will have to resort to heuristics.

The best one I can think of to start with is avoid processing. The more processed a food is the more opportunities it had to potentially be contaminated. Contamination can happen with raw ingredients too, but at least that's fewer opportunities strictly speaking.

So, for example, in order from most dangerous to least:

French fries from a restaurant

French fries pre sliced in a bag but you bake them

Raw whole potatos you yourself slice up and fry in oil you purchased

Raw whole potatos of random origin, baked

Raw whole potatos of known origin, baked

It's very similar idea to eating lower on the food chain to avoid bioaccumulated toxins.

Just a heuristic but can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Happens to coincidentally also be a good way to eat healthy in general even ignoring contamination.

PS: if anyone has any other ideas for heuristics I want to know them!

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#69

Post by ceejayoz »

arsome wrote: post #60
ceejayoz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can require companies to do at least some due dilligence, though, to give a reasonable amount of comfort it is. "It's safe" is a falsifiable claim.

But that could change over time with further understanding. No point panicking today over something not known to be harmful. The effect size is clearly very small. If I wanted to better my health in an actually measurable way I'd be much better served by dropping alcohol and refined sugars than worrying about microplastics.

> But that could change over time with further understanding.

That's not a good excuse not to bother at all. It's an argument for periodic reassessment of common additives.

Re: Consumer Reports finds 'widespread' presence of plastics in food

#70

Post by chaostheory »

achrono wrote: post #36

It's time to come up with what I'd call a Plastic Chain Index. For any given edible item, a very low plastic chain index implies that it would only have plastic inadvertently absorbed from the environment, whereas a high one would be e.g. those super hot French fries rolling in plastic. If you're optimistic, this will usher in easy measurement, widespread awareness and consumer enlightenment. But realistically, we wi…

> realistically, we will spend decades over confusion as to whether a high PCI really makes for poorer health or not

Personally, I’d rather try to avoid or minimize ingesting endocrine disrupters when possible

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