So am I reading this right you're probably an order of magnitude below the 'safe' limit even if you subsist solely off of RXBars and Sweetgreen? Which is not so far from me at one point in my 30s...
I didn't expect to open this chart and feel _better_ about my plastic consumption, maybe I'm just misunderstanding the chart. It seems even if the limits are 10x too high, you're still probably fine.
But yes, eating even a pound of the 100th percentile food daily seems to have well below the recommended amounts. So - update the recommendations?
For example, the cocoa powder from the 1920s https://www.plasticlist.org/product/990
My only question is was the cow milked by hand or by machine? The tubing in a milking machine almost certainly contains plastic.
I'd expect that it can pull all kinds of chemicals from the milking equipment.
It is in a glass bottle, so maybe not the greatest example: https://www.sciencealert.com/glass-bottles-actually-contain-...
Straight from the cow would be far more interesting with respect to what you are bringing up, albeit beyond the scope of the broader discussion.
It's very hard to maintain a mental ranked list of health things to be worried about when hypothetical concerns get more attention/coverage the confirmed ones.
Microplastics do nebulous harm, and it's difficult or impossible to control intake.
Obviously, varies dramatically from person to person.
(Not saying it’s a good trade off or that it’s the only or best way to achieve these things obviously)
Not saying that's a good thing. But giving up plastics (not just in our personal life, but across the entire supply chain we rely on) would probably be harder for the average American than giving up alcohol for a drunk.
...
The European Environment Agency’s two Late Lessons from Early Warnings reports (European Environment Agency, 2013, European Environment Agency, 1896-2000) highlighted the danger. The reports analyze the impact of past inaction (or action) on environmental damage caused by, for example, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and public health issues generated by exposure to asbestos or diethylstilbestrol (DES). Each case is deconstructed to identify patterns leading to delays in appropriate decision making. The insights led to recommendations regarding how to respond to new warnings with the precautionary principle, i.e. to act to reduce potential harm as the preliminary signs of harm are still arising. It is interesting to note that the EEA had difficulty in identifying any cases of overregulation of a pollutant that had turned out to be benign when all the science was in. Most early warnings turn out to be legitimate. The costs of inaction are often drastically underestimated (European Environment Agency, 2013).
"Where is the evidence that human exposure to microplastics is safe?", HA Leslie, MH Depledge, Environ Int. 2020 Jun 26;142:105807.
<https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7319653/>
We are aware of harms from materials leaching from plastics, as well as direct harms from PFAS (<https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human-hea...>) and BPA (<https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25813067/>), to name only two of the myriad compounds and constituents of plastics.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
For example: DEHP - Endocrine disruption, disruptor of thyroid function, Ingestion of 0.01% caused damage to the blood-testis barrier... etc
source:
I'd long since noted that as the jar emptied the grinders were increasingly ineffective. Thinking on why that might be ... I realised that this was because as you grind the pepper, you're also grinding plastic directly into your food.
There's surprisingly little discussion about this that I can find, though this 5 y.o. Stackexchange question addresses the concern:
<https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/103003/microplas...>
Seems to me that plastic grinders, whether disposable or sold as (apparently) durable products, are a class of products which simply shouldn't exist.
Searching, e.g., Walmart for "plastic grinders" turns up five listings presently, though it's not clear whether it's the body or the grinder itself which is plastic. In several cases it seems to be the latter.
<https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/plastic-grinders>
(Archive of current state: <https://archive.is/yIIX4>
Krell or otherwise.
While not food, another not so frequently talked about plastic exposure could be clothing dryer vents pushing materials from synthetic clothing into the air. It’s likely less of a problem than the rubber tires on our cars making their way into the air. But it was something that occurred to me while cleaning out the dryer vent this past weekend.
However, I wonder how bad eating bits of the plastic burr grinder actually is. Presumably, they mostly pass through. Stomach acid probably leaches a bunch of stuff, but is it worse than (say) canned tomatoes that were sitting in a plastic liner for a year? I’d wager the grinder bits have a lot of surface area from scarring. That’d increase leaching.
Anyway, I strongly recommend small turkish-style grinders:
https://bazaaranatolia.com/products/turkish-grinder-pepper-m...
(No idea if this brand is decent; the form factor is great, especially for $14)
It has roughly a single-recipe capacity, so I stick crushed red pepper flakes, cumin seed, celery seed, black pepper kernels, etc in it per the recipe, then grind until it is empty. The burr on the one I linked is metal.
I’d probably prefer stainless body + whatever is commonly used for espresso grinders, assuming such a gadget exists.
> These grinders are made of Zamak (brass and zinc)
If it's real brand-name ZAMAK, then it should at least be low in lead :)
Personally I would prioritize water filtering for PFAS over microplastics worries if you have limited budget to start changing consumption patterns.
3M and Dupont deserve the death penalty for it and should've been dissolved completely for crimes against humanity.
I switched to bamboo toothbrushes from plastic a while ago, before de-plasticizing was really a thing. Now I'm glad I did, because plastic bristles grinding against my teeth seems like an easy way for plastic to get inside my body. The bamboo toothbrushes are pretty nice too, the bristles are soft but firm, and the handle is made of bamboo too.
The idea of brushing my teeth with plastic has lost its appeal for me and will never be recovered.
The simple wooden ones last a decade or longer and cost about 35 $/€/£
We are doing it on purpose, eating plastic that is, the only question is why!
And to be fair, it's still fairly uncertain. We demonstrated endocrine problems with BPA, but aside from that microplastic consequences on health still seems uncertain. At best we're mostly doing the correlation/causation thing that leads people down a confusing path of cure-alls and snake oil.
If there was a smoking gun for the consequences of this in our day to day living, surely it would be regulated out of existence[1], but thus far that evidence doesn't exist.
[1] - ha ha, who am I kidding. In reality industry groups would muddy the waters, try to pretend it's "political", finance astroturfing groups, and soon enough a certain segment of society will be proudly clutching onto their microplastics, demanding higher dose services, and ascribing it with magical cure-all powers.
surely, it's not so sure, especially with the current administration reversing so many existing policies. for example, reversing the restriction of asbestos is currently in the works. so adding new regulations on plastics use seems like something that the current policy makers will absolutely not be considering. at this point, I would not be shocked if they said they were reversing the bans on lead in gasoline or paints
> After reading about micro plastics in the disposable salt and pepper grinders from the big box, stores broke down and bought these very nice all metal mechanism grinders.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/1liyril/after...
If the plastic particles are large enough, I assume we pass them.
The follow-up question you might want to ask though is: How often do you want to ask that question?
Yes, every tiny little bit is insignificant. That is true for most things, including actual direct poisons.
A better way to look at such discussions is not to assume that this very specific thing you are currently looking at is the one, only complete problem. Remember instead, in these posts we are looking at lots and lots and lots of tiny details, only a tiny part of the whole problem space.
Do you repeat that relevancy question for every single part? The answer, when you split the problem enough, is always "relevance is near zero".
That is the problem of our tiny brains not being able to comprehend the whole, requiring us to look at tiny parts one at a time. When you create the sum, or the integral, of a huge number of rounded-down zeroes you get zero, and now you have the wrong answer for the whole of the problem.
Even big problems consist of a huge number of tiny parts. Asking the summary question on each tiny part is not a good method.
Every tiny bit of plastic we find is exactly just that - one tiny piece of the big picture. By itself and alone it would be inconsequential. If it was just that one single source of plastic particles, we would not have this discussion. We are here, performing such research, having such discussions, because we have a very large number of such tiny pieces. The question of relevancy is for the whole. Whether this one particular piece of microplastic you ate today, which came from your plastic pepper mill, is the tipping point is not a useful or answerable question, it's all of them combined over time.
That linked StackExchange thread perfectly portrays why the site went down the drain.
>Maybe you'll ingest more microplastic on fish or proteins in higher food chain than grinders.
>If you drink tea you've got a lot more to worry about in terms of ingestion.
OK ... ?
>Your concern, although logically valid, is nearly impossible to regulate or even measure.
And yet, PlasticList is a thing.
>We're talking about amount that is, literally, microscopic.
Yeah Einstein, that's why they're called microplastics.
I am SO glad that place is extinct now.
https://us.peugeot-saveurs.com/en_us/inspiration/history/
The car business sold to Stellantis, but the lineage’s kaleidoscope of other enterprises apparently continues.
A good pepper grinder (and the Peugeot’s are top notch) is such an obviously valuable purchase. Lasts a decade and fresh pepper from a good grinder is much tastier. One of the best $35 to spend imo
Specifically: the grinder top is not mated with reverse threads. This means the act of grinding loosens the top. I have to stop and re-tighten quite frequently.
I suppose the design is perfect if you are left-handed ...
- Korean War-era sugar ration
Vs.
- store-bought sugar
https://www.plasticlist.org/product/65
What are they grazing on, plastic lawn turf?
And you're right, there's also: plastic from water sources, plastic in the field that gets taken up by the gras, supplements given to the cow, plastic in the cutting board the meat was cut in, plastic the meat was wrapped in . . . it's hard to get plastic out of your supply chain.
https://www.primalmeats.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/gra...
But nobody said it was coming straight off the ground!
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/cows-eating-trough-made-blue...
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2CFFY4J/hay-bales-wrapped-in-heavy...
Your most dangerous plastic or microplastic is the PFAS. And the biggest source of PFAS is the water you drink. Does it run through plastic tubing? A pfas filter at any point? Sit in a plastic jug?
The most effective way to deal with this is to distill your water. Distilled water is nearly pfas free, and also removes bpas, lead, mercury, and any bacteria.[1]
https://learn.pfasfreelife.com/research/distillers-remove-pf...
Don't research the poison of the plastics that wash out of those volatile fibers whiilst in the laundry machines. Oh, did you think that the only source of the micro-plastics in the water supply was water bottles?
Separately, I always knew there was a reason those RXBars taste like plastic. /s
Any web dev type can tell me what framework, if any, is that done with?
Other that that just styled HTML based on a quick look at the debugger window if there was another framework used its not obvious...
Think of it as democratizing PlasticList's methodology: you choose what gets tested, we handle the logistics of sample collection + lab work, and results are published openly to pressure companies toward cleaner supply chains.
Also, if it's crowdfunded, why am I unable to see any finished results without giving you my email?
A fairly responsible caveat.
It should clearly state the container (when multiple are possible) as that's likely the origin of 99.9% of the microplastics, as well as temperature. Prime example: "Starbucks Matcha Latte". I bet there are orders of magnitude difference in microplastic content between getting a hot one in a plastic (coated, if not fully) takeaway cup vs an iced one in a mug.
In general, containers and the way they're used generally make the difference, but all the focus here is only on the food item.
But by this same measure (intention of consumer vs. exposure) we find a deeper irony:
If you sort the entire dataset by "nanograms per gram", 3 of the top 5 items are prenatal vitamins:
I mean I already have exposure to lead and asbestos, and the random particulates I breathe in aren’t going away. I feel like this is getting attention because it’s a new issue, not that all other concerns pale in comparison.
Also the negligible levels of plastic detected in plastic water bottles is surprising. I was under the impression, based on other reports, that water in plastic bottles is something we should avoid.
I was originally inspired by PlasticList, and actually made a quiz on my website based off their data for people to assess their plastics exposure (quiz.neutraoat.com)
Sometimes conveyor belts would be left running for days or even weeks in the test area. After a while, you would start to see very fine dust on and around the conveyor belts. This was finely ground POM plastic. On some occasions, there were actually heaps of that stuff forming beneath the conveyor belts.
In the factories, everything gets washed down with pressure washers at least once per day, so very little of this stuff goes into the food, but it definitely gets washed away out to sea.
I think that there is probably a wide-spread misunderstanding on how the micro-plastics enter the food. It does not seem very likely that it would come from the packaging or your tupperware (unless your tupperware is so old that it has actually started to disintegrate). It seems much likelier that the plastics were in the food before it was packaged.
There is a story in Hindu mythology about churning of the milk ocean, by gods and demons in cooperation, using a mountain as the churning rod, with an objective of extracting the nectar of immortality. After a great amount of churning, a great poison comes out which must be consumed, otherwise it ends the universe. Lord Shiva consumes it, but keeps it in his throat, to save himself and the universe. When the Nectar finally comes out, somehow gods trick the demons, to keep the nectar to themselves.
Sometimes it occurs to me that this story foretold the extraction of oil from ocean deeps, giving the luxuries to the developed world and pollution to the third world.
> If you chop something on a plastic cutting board (because wood cutting boards are outlawed in commercial kitchens, apparently), test before and after chopping.
Who banned wood cutting boards from kitchens and for what purpose? I did some digging and some sources cite that neither FDA nor USDA strictly ban wood cutting boards, but individual state health departments are often strict on commercial kitchens that use wood instruments. I get concerns of wood being porous and all, but with the alternative being I have to ingest shavings from the plastic cutting board with every meal... Maybe it's time for a paradigm shift.
cmaggiulli•7h ago
Mr_Eri_Atlov•4h ago