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Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

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Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but isn't this even worse? I can control what I use at home. I can't when I eat or drink out. So I get to pick between PFAS soaked throwaway single use cardboard cups or epithelial barrier damaging glass/ceramic ware.

There's a lesson in that first few sentences. Of course eating out is risky as it's a black box where you get food for putting money in it. You're not guaranteed quality or safety in the more subtle sense

I have to disagree, a person should be (and, at least to an extent is) guaranteed safety when dining out. Food safety regulations serve this purpose. They are probably not sufficient, admittedly, and ought to be updated to address such concerns as this paper raises, but every so often it impresses me that we have found a way for total strangers to create a thing that you voluntarily ingest without a second thought. We've accomplished an pretty astonishing modicum of safety and thereby trust in food service.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, to my knowledge, I've gotten food poisoning from something I cooked for myself exactly once, and that's because my 12 year old dumbass brain thought microwaving a steak for a few minutes was a valid was a valid way to cook it Almost every time I've actually gotten sick from food has been eating out. I've also seen some close calls like when my fiancee was served 'rare' pork... Which isn't a culinary thing.

Rare pork is absolutely a thing. https://www.seriouseats.com/case-for-raw-rare-pink-pork-food... Food safety is a matter of both temperature and time ( https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-s... ), and we’ve all but eradicated trichinosis in commercially available pork.

exactly, you can have problems also with rare beef

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lesson in that first few sentences. Of course eating out is risky as it's a black box where you get food for putting money in it. You're not guaranteed quality or safety in the more subtle sense

So far, to my knowledge, I've gotten food poisoning from something I cooked for myself exactly once, and that's because my 12 year old dumbass brain thought microwaving a steak for a few minutes was a valid was a valid way to cook it Almost every time I've actually gotten sick from food has been eating out. I've also seen some close calls like when my fiancee was served 'rare' pork... Which isn't a culinary thing.

Rare pork is most certainly a thing! You are missing out.

The scare of pork is the risk of trichinella. To such such a degree that some speculate that is why Muslims have codified it as haram.

Trichinella is practically non-existant in domestic pigs in EU due to regulation/industry.

In the US you should take more care. You should however remember that cooking food safely is not a magic temperature but a function of temperature and time. The threshold for pork is then 63C because mostly everything unwanted is dead at that temperature.

But if you keep it at a lower temperature but for a longer time you will have the same effect. An easy way to do this is using "sous vide". Simply put a water bath at a constant temperature. This has the advantage that if you vacuum your meat it can go into the water straight from the freezer without defrosting first. I usually add one hour to the sous vide time to allow for defrosting time.

So I usually sous vide pork chops (from the neck) at 54C for some hours and then pan sear to finish the crust. With quality pork I honestly find this superior to a regular bovine steak!

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinella https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Safety

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lesson in that first few sentences. Of course eating out is risky as it's a black box where you get food for putting money in it. You're not guaranteed quality or safety in the more subtle sense

I have to disagree, a person should be (and, at least to an extent is) guaranteed safety when dining out. Food safety regulations serve this purpose. They are probably not sufficient, admittedly, and ought to be updated to address such concerns as this paper raises, but every so often it impresses me that we have found a way for total strangers to create a thing that you voluntarily ingest without a second thought. W…

Your statement is different in that it contains a "should":

The reason food safety regulations exist and are much stricter than what you need to apply at home is partly because it affects people at scale, and partly because individuals have no control of it.

So exactly because dining out can be unsafe, food safety should be strictly regulated ("guaranteed").

It seems that the disagreement is mostly how many expectations someone can put into a "guarantee".

> We've accomplished an pretty astonishing modicum of safety and thereby trust in food service.

I completely agree. But I also want to add that it's an unstable equilibrium:

Some years apart you get some scandal where someone kept meat mostly frozen for 30 years.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#85
post #44

Horrible title, since the study didn't actually link normal detergent to gut damage, just rinse aid.

The offending ingredient (alcohol ephoxylate) is present in both my dishwasher pods and my rinse aid. I might start skipping the rinse aid and I'll seek out dishwasher pods that don't have that ingredient. But apparently it's more od an issue with "professional" (restaurant) dishwashers, which use less water and more chemicals. I gathered this from other comments and I don't know if it's true.

I've looked at the dishwasher detergents at a few of my local grocery stores, and all of them contain either ethoxylates or "fatty alcohol alkoxylates", which some brief googling tells me are a class of chemicals that include ethoxylates. I've been unable (even at specialty health food stores) to locate a dishwasher detergent that lacks this class of chemical. If you find a brand that doesn't contain it, please let me know.

I also looked at home-made detergent recipes, as we've had good luck making our laundry detergent, but the blog I looked at showed severe streaking and residue on their example dishwasher load. I can't say that appeals to me, either.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#86
post #2

Get yourself a big old tub of anhydrous citric acid from Amazon or wherever, make up a 10% solution and use that in place of rinse aid. Just check with your dishwasher manufacturer that it’s not going to cause issues first. I got a new Miele unit a few months ago and the manual specifically advises the use of such a solution, with caution not to make it any stronger. It’s been working like a charm.

According to this review, citric acid doesn't work as a rinse aid replacement:

https://www.test.de/Klarspueler-im-Test-Jeder-dritte-hinterl...

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#87

I might be generalising but in some countries (UK) it's common to not rinse soap/washing up liquid off dishes after washing them by hand. Being hypochondriac I was always curious about health aspects of this and feared something similar to what's described in the article.

Though rinse aid is for mechanical dishwashers only.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#88
post #13

From my understanding, this article is only about professional dishwashers used in restaurants and hotels etc. that use much higher concentrations and less rinsing than consumer dishwashers. They specifically mention that they could not repeat their findings on consumer dishwashers.

Yes but isn't this even worse? I can control what I use at home. I can't when I eat or drink out. So I get to pick between PFAS soaked throwaway single use cardboard cups or epithelial barrier damaging glass/ceramic ware.

> I can control what I use at home. I can't when I eat or drink out.

the same can be said about the enormous amounts of salt they put in food ... how do you insure people wash their hands when cooking? eating out is an exercise in trust.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#89
post #6

I wonder if putting the dishwasher in soft water mode will also reduce the risk of this. Should use less rinse aid then.

Doesn't the software/hard water mode just affect how much the ion exchanger (filled with salt) is used?

Perhaps, but as a matter of fact, soft water needs less rinse aid. Not sure whether the hardness setting of the dishwasher takes this into account.

Re: Gut epithelial barrier damage caused by dishwasher detergents and rinse aids

#90
post #2

Get yourself a big old tub of anhydrous citric acid from Amazon or wherever, make up a 10% solution and use that in place of rinse aid. Just check with your dishwasher manufacturer that it’s not going to cause issues first. I got a new Miele unit a few months ago and the manual specifically advises the use of such a solution, with caution not to make it any stronger. It’s been working like a charm.

The last time an article like this went around, I decided to do the same thing with my Miele. The metal starting becoming stained pretty soon, and just recently I decided to switch to 7th Generation organic detergent powder. YMMV but wanted to share my anecdata for anyone considering the same.
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