[HN Gopher] Lead exposure from routine consumption of coffee and...
___________________________________________________________________
Lead exposure from routine consumption of coffee and tea from
ceramic mugs
Author : spekcular
Score : 166 points
Date : 2021-12-18 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (foodcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com)
| politician wrote:
| Well, this ruined my morning cup of coffee.
| spekcular wrote:
| It shouldn't. All mugs sold commercially should satisfy FDA
| guidelines for lead in the glaze.
|
| Note that only one mug here produced coffee that was over the
| FDA limit for lead in bottled water (and still below the tap
| water threshold).
|
| Now, the foreign mugs, or vintage mugs, or handcrafted mugs you
| buy at a local market from a local artisan who may or may not
| be using lead-free glaze? There you have to be careful. NYC had
| severe lead poisoning cases from this just a few months ago:
| https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/574547-lead-
| poisoning-....
| acdha wrote:
| The main thing makes me curious about is how many companies
| cut corners. The fact that only one mug was significant seems
| like poor quality control by a single manufacturer, which
| probably says we need more random sample monitoring.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| > should satisfy FDA guidelines
|
| Many of my mugs are from gift shops. I wonder if they are FDA
| approved?
| spekcular wrote:
| Unless it says "Not food safe" on the bottom, you're
| probably good. If you can find a manufacturer mark and
| Google it, that might be the best way to check. USA made is
| very likely safe.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Almost all say "Made in China". A couple have a
| "THAILAND". One "ENGLAND"!
|
| Only a few have a manufacturer name.
| blakesterz wrote:
| I've always wondered about that, I have a few mugs I use daily
| and they have tiny little cracks inside. The results say coffee
| seems to have more lead than tea, and some of the levels were
| above guidelines. The lead concentrations were dependent on the
| cup used. But blood lead levels did not increase above regulatory
| or guidance values.
| jaclaz wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| > Overall, the potential for lead ingestion from contaminated
| ceramic mugs is minimal when compared to other sources, such as
| food. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
| (ATSDR) reported that the average daily intake of lead from food
| sources in the general population is approximately 56.5 mg/day
| (ATSDR 2007a). In comparison, the maximum daily lead intake from
| drinking 3.3 eight-ounce cups of coffee based on the data
| collected in our study resulted in a dose of 6.71 mg, over eight
| times less than the average daily lead intake from food.
| Nonetheless, exposure to lead should be minimized to the extent
| possible.
| knappa wrote:
| Beware the Green Decorative mug!
| karaterobot wrote:
| I have a green mug, but it is not very decorative, please
| advise.
| londons_explore wrote:
| For the vast majority of ceramic homeware, your beverage never
| comes into contact with the ceramic material - the shiny 'gloss'
| surface is a glaze material. It's _that_ which often contains
| lead.
|
| It's particularly common on 'artisan' home-made ceramics, due to
| the ease of working with lead glazes.
|
| Wikipedia even has a section on the topic:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_glaze#Lead(II)_oxide
| DoctorNick wrote:
| Well, crap. How do you tell which ceramics use lead-based
| paint/glaze and which don't?
| spekcular wrote:
| Almost all do. Most don't leach, or leach amounts too small to
| pose a significant danger.
|
| For more info, check out this blog [0]. The design is a little
| much, but it's quite informative. The author is a mother whose
| kids got lead poisoning, so she bought a XRF spectral analyzer
| and now posts lead test results for tons of items. I've found
| it a useful resource.
|
| [0] https://tamararubin.com/2019/12/which-ceramic-coffee-mugs-
| ar...
| jdnier wrote:
| Really interesting.
|
| From the article: "Total Lead content in the glaze or coating
| of modern mugs (as detectable with an XRF) is not regulated.
| As long as mugs are not leaching Lead at the time of
| manufacture (when they are brand-new), they are considered to
| be safe to use -- even if the Lead content of the glaze is
| very high. However, for context, the amount of Lead
| considered unsafe (and illegal) in the paint, glaze or
| coating of a newly-manufactured item manufactured and sold as
| "intended for use by children" is 90 ppm or higher. The good
| news is that, since children's items are regulated for total
| Lead content (as of 2008), newly-purchased children's mugs
| legally must have coatings below 90 ppm Lead [and my findings
| have confirmed that manufacturers are generally complying
| with this law -- although I recommend sticking with
| children's items manufactured in 2011 or later, as it took a
| while for the companies (and their supply chains) to get up
| to speed in their compliance with the new regulations]."
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| FWIW, every "recommended" mug in her current list is a glass
| mug, not a ceramic glaze mug. Which is no problem for me but
| this doesn't answer the original question.
|
| As a matter of fact, I ordered a new glass mug set from
| Amazon using a link in her article (which I assume is an
| affiliate link) out of gratitude for her work.
| harles wrote:
| Does anyone know the credibility of this site or the journal this
| article is in? The subtitle is odd enough to make me question the
| legitimacy "comparison to California Safe Harbor Levels".
| spekcular wrote:
| It's run by a reputable publisher (Springer) and the editorial
| board consists of scientists at major universities: https://foo
| dcontaminationjournal.biomedcentral.com/about/edi....
| timr wrote:
| It's not a great journal. Per the metrics:
|
| 0.882 - Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 0.37 -
| SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 4 - Cite Score
|
| This is a place where niche papers get published. Springer
| runs tons of crap journals.
|
| (for reference, SJR scores for all journals:
| https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php)
| spekcular wrote:
| Low citation count does not imply it's an untrustworthy
| journal. Sometimes niche knowledge is useful - as in the
| present case of food contamination studies!
| timr wrote:
| No, but it implies they have a low bar for acceptance.
| You can't take impact factor of the journal as the sole
| indicator of quality for a particular paper (even NEJM
| publishes garbage), but it should strongly influence your
| prior.
|
| Especially for general-interest studies like this, if the
| results were impactful and well done they'd be published
| in a better journal. Assuming that this is done well (I
| have no idea), the fact that it's in a super-niche
| journal means that it's likely _not_ surprising
| /interesting to anyone in the field.
| spekcular wrote:
| Let's not conflate "quality" of the paper with whether
| the results are surprising or interesting to experts. As
| far as I tell, the work is competently done and provides
| useful information to consumers. Namely, that
| commercially available ceramic mugs likely do not pose a
| lead hazard, with quantitative estimates of the lead they
| leach.
|
| It's not going to win a Nobel prize - but I don't think
| that should be the bar for taking food safety research
| seriously.
| ldoughty wrote:
| My wife does pottery, and makes her own glazes. This is a major
| concern for potters, and you usually won't see a professional or
| semi-professional potter use lead in their glazes...
|
| Of course, if you're buying on Amazon, who knows.. but you are
| very, very unlikely to have this problem with people who make
| pottery for a living (like local artists, or reputable Etsy
| shops)..
| throwaway82931 wrote:
| This safety risk applies to anything else you buy on Amazon.
| Not just pottery, but all dinnerware. Not just dinnerware, but
| also items like children's toys.
|
| If you can't trust the origins of pottery on Amazon, why can
| you trust the origins of _anything_ on Amazon?
|
| And if you can't trust the origins of anything, you can't count
| on safety regulations and standards that you take for granted.
| derefr wrote:
| > If you can't trust the origins of pottery on Amazon, why
| can you trust the origins of anything on Amazon?
|
| Because many (most?) categories of goods are consolidated
| into an effective oligopoly of reputable brands, where these
| brands push competitors out of the market in basically every
| respect -- in brand-recognition, in advertising payments, in
| number of reviews, in review score, in "link juice", etc.
|
| So even when there _are_ garbage Shenzhen e-waste products
| being marketed on the same website, in the same category as
| the thing you 're looking for, you won't see them if there
| are real products to be had, because the first five pages are
| all the real products. (Unless you're doing _very_ specific
| searches, using very unusual keywords that the well-known
| brands would never think to buy.)
|
| This is why the experience of shopping on Amazon is a
| different experience than shopping on a site like Wish or
| AliExpress: Amazon has both the e-waste _and_ the stuff from
| well-known brands, and if you stay "on the happy path" of
| using the site, you'll end up mostly seeing stuff from well-
| known brands.
|
| The only time this falls down is when there are _no_
| reputable brands in a category. Such as in the category of
| kitsch stoneware. For those categories, Amazon and Wish
| /AliExpress become effectively the same site.
|
| > And if you can't trust the origins of anything, you can't
| count on safety regulations and standards that you take for
| granted.
|
| I mean... most of the things I buy on Amazon, I'm not putting
| in my mouth. What's the worst a christmas ornament is going
| to do to me? Get glitter on the floor?
|
| I do understand the cases you're referring to -- electronics
| and such -- but in those cases, there are import regulations
| that actually prevent things like "burns your house down"
| electronics from coming into the country, with actively-
| maintained blacklists of products. Some few dangerous items
| might slip through the cracks and get imported anyway
| (especially at first, in unusual+novel categories like
| "negative-ion wellness products"), but one email to US
| Customs is usually enough to get these things sorted out, and
| the whole category will disappear from the store the next
| day. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7TwBUxxIC0)
| VRay wrote:
| What the hell are you talking about? No-name Shenzhen
| manufacturers rocket to the #1 slot all the time, through a
| combination of being cheaper and literally paying for 5
| star reviews
|
| Just search for anything on Amazon right now and you can
| see what I mean. I ran afoul of this when I needed a
| humidifier last year, but just now I searched for "phone
| charger" and the front page was mostly brands that exist
| solely on Amazon and some tiny Facebook page
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I think his point was that the Shenzhen stuff only
| rockets up like you say when you're buying niche items.
|
| For example, if you search for a good mixer, you're going
| to get reputable brands at the top like KitchenAid,
| Cuisinart, etc. Conversely, when I went to buy a pull-up
| bar last year, there were only Shenzhen knockoffs because
| there are no big-time players in the pull-up bar
| industry.
|
| There's probably a nice parallel to be made between this
| subject and first-party and third-party games made for
| certain gaming consoles.
| someuser54541 wrote:
| > _Of course, if you 're buying on Amazon, who knows.. but you
| are very, very unlikely to have this problem with people who
| make pottery for a living (like local artists, or reputable
| Etsy shops).._
|
| Purchasing decisions by buyers are probably not based on
| whether or not the seller produces pottery for a living. I'd
| wager price, convenience (fast shipping, etc.), size, and
| design matter far more to a buyer.
|
| Here's how the mugs were selected:
|
| > _The five mugs chosen for this study were selected because
| they were found to contain lead in a screening-level
| assessment. Specifically, 24 mugs from the authors' office were
| tested using an Olympus Innov-X Delta handheld X-Ray
| fluorescent (XRF) analyzer. Each mug was measured once with the
| XRF gun at its highest sensitivity setting, which required the
| tester to hold the analyzer over the mug for 45 s. The three
| mugs with the highest resulting lead concentrations (1,223 to
| 7,034 mg /kg) were selected for the present study. These mugs
| each had decorative elements and will be referred to by their
| predominant colors: Green Decorative, Yellow Decorative, and
| Red Decorative. In addition, two representative mugs were
| selected from the batch of office mugs baring the authors'
| company's logo. These will be referred to as Black Logo1 and
| Black Logo2. All five mugs selected were in active use in the
| authors' San Francisco, California, office environment, and
| were typically washed daily in an automatic dish washer. Four
| of the five mugs were purchased in the U.S., and one was
| purchased in Europe (Red Decorative). The mugs all appeared to
| be in good condition, with no obvious signs of damage or wear._
|
| The types of mugs found in a standard office _probably_ match
| the types of mugs many people have in their homes. Regardless,
| lots of coffee is regularly consumed in an office environment.
|
| I believe the results of this study are a little more relevant
| than your comment suggests.
| yread wrote:
| > Olympus Innov-X Delta handheld X-Ray fluorescent (XRF)
| analyzer
|
| That sounds like an interesting toy. Pity it costs about
| $15.000. But checkout the video in this listing:
|
| https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Xrf-Analyzer-Price-
| Ha...
|
| You just point it at things and it says what are they made
| of. Magic!
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I bought a tagine (Moroccan clay pot that you cook stews with
| that is enclosed except for a spout at the top) for cooking and
| I found out it had lead in the glazing. A lot of the decorative
| ones do of course, but this one was specifically for cooking
| and came with instructions for "seasoning" it where you soak it
| over night and then slowly heat it up so it gets broken in
| without cracking.
| stiray wrote:
| This is exactly what my wife said (also doing the pottery).
| Lead glazes are never used unless you use it for some "special
| effects" or you are playing it cheap.
| pengaru wrote:
| > or you are playing it cheap
|
| Shouldn't we assume all this mass-produced pottery found on
| the shelves of Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond is being made as
| cheaply as possible?
|
| I don't know about you, but the only time I see non-MADE IN
| CHINA pottery these days is used, at the thrift store. New
| stuff isn't generally coming from some domestic artisan who
| cares about poisoning their neighbors more than a bigger
| profit.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| I do some work with a national ceramics circle, and you're
| right, use of leaded glazes is uncommon and explicitly reserved
| for non-food-contact pieces. Unless they do restoration or
| period-work, it's about as common to see as leaded aviation
| fuel in a regular car owner's garage or someone reusing acid
| from a battery.
|
| ASTM D-4236 conforming glazes will contain warning labels that
| clearly indicate that they are "non-toxic" or "dinnerware
| safe".
| hamburglar wrote:
| I'm sure this is an ignorant question, but what's the
| incentive for using leaded glazes at all? Do they perform
| better?
| [deleted]
| stephencanon wrote:
| It performs extremely well; lead glazes can be fired at
| lower temperatures, produce smoother and glossier finishes
| with fewer flaws, and prevents crystallization (that's
| desirable in some glazes, but you don't want it all the
| time). I'm probably forgetting a few other benefits.
|
| Of course, toxicity means that it pretty much isn't used
| any more, so alternatives have been developed. They're just
| harder to work with.
| mattchamb wrote:
| It also allows you to produce some colors of glaze that
| are hard otherwise.
| krisoft wrote:
| > but you are very, very unlikely to have this problem with
| people who make pottery for a living
|
| Amazon clearly doesn't use a mater compiler either. They buy
| their mugs from people who make pottery for a living. Perhaps
| the distinction is different? Maybe people who make pottery for
| a living in the developed world? Or perhaps people who make
| pottery for a living at smaller scales?
| ldoughty wrote:
| At least my view is that if someone is selling pottery on
| Amazon, it's about quantity... And at scale, the cost savings
| might be worth something....
|
| It's not even a thing you usually find in stores as a
| hobbiest in the states.. if someone is using lead, it's going
| to be most commonly a cost cutting measure... Or for a
| specialist purpose
| jacoblambda wrote:
| There's a bit of a distinction between people who make
| pottery for a living and people who run factories that churn
| out pottery.
|
| When the focus is mass production it stops being a
| craftsman's job and rather becomes a calculated process
| designed to extract as much profit as possible with little
| regard for anything else.
| Yizahi wrote:
| If the tea and coffee comes with lead poisoning, well, screw it,
| I'll take it :)
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Just wait until you start testing all the brass-looking metal
| material in your home from before the 80s... Lamps, door handles,
| stained glass, it's endless
| Dowwie wrote:
| "Overall, the potential for lead ingestion from contaminated
| ceramic mugs is minimal when compared to other sources, such as
| food. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
| (ATSDR) reported that the average daily intake of lead from food
| sources in the general population is approximately 56.5 mg/day
| (ATSDR 2007a). In comparison, the maximum daily lead intake from
| drinking 3.3 eight-ounce cups of coffee based on the data
| collected in our study resulted in a dose of 6.71 mg, over eight
| times less than the average daily lead intake from food.
| Nonetheless, exposure to lead should be minimized to the extent
| possible"
| cbfrench wrote:
| This is why I'm a big fan of Fiestaware. It has a sort of fun
| retro vibe, but it also specifies that it's "lead free" on it.
| (At least the stuff I've had for the last decade does. But I
| think it's been lead free for most, if not all, of its history.)
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Yeah and the slightly radioactive antique orange color helps
| sterilize the contents.
| clavicat wrote:
| So that's why I'm retarded.
| tvb12 wrote:
| It specifies that the source of the lead is the paint or glaze. I
| didn't think lead paint was still a thing, but some quick
| googling is making me a little nervous... It seems quite a few
| modern mugs contain some amount of lead.
| spekcular wrote:
| Note it's not just lead, but also cadmium for bright colors.
| Trendy cookware manufacturer Le Creuset uses cadmium in many of
| their hues, for example. Many other enameled and ceramic
| cookware manufacturers do too.
|
| Some test results: https://tamararubin.com/2019/02/made-in-
| france-c-2013-yellow....
| kurthr wrote:
| Although to be fair the interior surface is white and came in
| at ~30pm/150ppm Pb/Cd less than 1/100th compared to the
| bottom flame surface of the pan. I'd wonder whether modern
| 2020 Le Creuset has similar numbers to this 2013 pan.
|
| It's still not as low as I'd like for a simmering pot/dutch
| oven, but it is clearly in the decorative outer coating. Also
| not surprising Cadmium's in bright yellow... lucky it's not
| Uranium!
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Once upon a time uranium was used to make glass bright
| green.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_glass
| kurthr wrote:
| Uranium oxide was also used quite commonly in a ceramic
| glaze for bright yellows and reds:
|
| https://www.artsy.net/artwork/lucie-rie-lucie-rie-rare-
| urani...
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| That's incredibly frustrating. You shouldn't need to worry
| about things like that from a high end manufacturer.
| spekcular wrote:
| It's unclear to me whether one should worry, assuming the
| glaze is intact. The cookware passes California prop 65
| standards (extremely stringent). The coloration with the
| high cadmium levels is not on a surface that contacts food,
| and even if it was, I don't know that it would leach. But
| we have no way of knowing without expensive testing!
|
| However, even if we ignore the possibility of harm to the
| end user, I think the author of that blog makes a great
| point: "By using high levels of Cadmium in manufacturing,
| Le Creuset has - apparently for decades - been causal in
| contributing to "the demand for" the mining, refining and
| manufacturing of a toxic pigment that can (and does) poison
| others (workers, communities, waterways, the planet)
| through various processes/at multiple points throughout
| their manufactured products' life cycles."
| amelius wrote:
| Did they test how much of it actually ends up in cooked food?
| Also, those numbers don't tell me much, I want to know how
| this compares to lethal/toxic dose etc.
| xyst wrote:
| I switched to stainless steel a long time ago. Only use ceramics
| as decoration or to hold fruit
| laumars wrote:
| Stainless steal has lead in too. Is there any research that
| compares stainless steal to ceramics?
|
| Edit: ignore me. I'm confusing lead with iron. That'll teach me
| posting while drinking.
| loeg wrote:
| Lead is not used to make stainless steel.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| The title appears neutral, but I can't help but think "I've
| definitely been unwittingly poisoning myself" when I read it. But
| then in the findings it basically says it's a complete non-issue.
| I wish they would have included the findings in the title, it
| feels like click-bait.
| eganist wrote:
| > The title appears neutral, but I can't help but think "I've
| definitely been unwittingly poisoning myself"
|
| Probably because this abridged title isn't neutral (flagged
| accordingly). By simply stating "Lead exposure from [x]," the
| implication is that impactful exposure risk exists.
|
| The original title and even the condensed title (everything
| after the colon scrubbed) were both at least 18 characters too
| long, but a better abridgement of the title would've been "A
| pilot study to assess lead exposure from routine consumption
| from ceramic mugs" scrubbing the coffee/tea reference as the
| subject happens to be the mugs themselves
| smarx007 wrote:
| "An assessment of lead exposure from routine consumption of
| coffee and tea from ceramic mugs" should have been fine too.
| eganist wrote:
| True
| [deleted]
| smarx007 wrote:
| There is an abstract in every academic paper and this paper had
| this bit in the abstract: "The estimated daily dose of lead
| exceeded the California Maximum Allowable Dose Level of 0.5 mg
| per day for one of the five mugs tested. Blood lead levels did
| not increase above regulatory or guidance values.". As others
| have written, "Blood lead levels did not increase" does not
| mean there is no long-term health problem, it was simply
| outside the scope of the publication. Academic paper titles are
| almost always describe what the paper is about, not what the
| conclusion is. Academics don't do frontloading, thankfully.
|
| Edit: to look into the title further, you can see that it
| starts with "A _pilot_ study". This can indicate that the
| sample size of 5 mugs was not a mistake and the main purpose of
| the paper is to get feedback on the methodology and a larger
| follow-up study may be underway and we shouldn't be deriving
| any (health-related) conclusions from this paper.
| politelemon wrote:
| For UK readers, here is the regulation around amount of lead and
| cadmium in ceramics that are in contact with food.
|
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1179/made
|
| I'm not 100% sure of the maximum safe lead per day, though I did
| find this
|
| https://www.hse.gov.uk/lead/health-effects.htm
|
| > The occupational exposure limit for lead in air set out in the
| Regulations is 0.15 mg/m3, and blood lead suspension levels for
| males and females are 60 and 30ug/dl, respectively. For young
| workers (under 18) the blood lead suspension limit is 50 mg/dl.
|
| But someone with better dotUKfu may provide a better source!
| throwawayboise wrote:
| There's no "safe" level for lead exposure. The levels are for
| when various types of action are required.
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| That's a good sound bite, but -- if taken literally -- we
| have sadly evolved upon the wrong planet. Yes, we should
| minimize lead exposure but there is no actionable way for
| even 30% of the Earth's population to live at blood lead
| levels lower than 5 ug/dl.
| fredophile wrote:
| I briefly looked at the article but don't see anything actionable
| from what it said.
|
| I could buy lead testing kits and check out all of my mugs at
| home. It looks like that would cost around $40 a test which seems
| a bit high for checking every mug I own given the low risk
| indicated in the link.
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| _Blood lead levels did not increase above regulatory or guidance
| values._
|
| And this was _after_ screening for the mugs with the highest
| concentrations of lead in their ceramic glaze. I think we 're
| done here.
| 5tefan wrote:
| Well. Gotta die from something anyway. Cannot avoid all that's
| around us nowadays or I'll die trying within a week from now.
| Seems to be the deal in our modern world.
|
| Also good to read the comments from real pottery artists to put
| it into perspective.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> The five mugs chosen for this study were selected because they
| were found to contain lead in a screening-level assessment.
| Specifically, 24 mugs from the authors' office were tested_
|
| This is an interesting (and maybe not too rigorous) method of
| selecting research samples, and points towards the need for
| another study: How representative was this 5:24 ratio of lead
| bearing mugs? Greater or less than what you would find in the
| broader mug population?
|
| It's also fun to imagine how the researchers came about this:
|
| --Was it boredom? ("Hey Shannon, I'm in between projects, how
| about we go see if there's anything in the kitchen area that
| could be dangerous?")
|
| --Maybe serendipitous? ("Shannon, I just read an excellent novel
| that happened to mention the role that lead plays in ceramics an
| enamel finishes. Let's have go at the office mug collection and
| see what we find!")
|
| --Brute force? ("Lead seems to get into everything these days...
| let's test every single thing in the office.")
| Aerroon wrote:
| Whenever I see studies/articles like this I wonder what is the
| safest material to eat from and store food in? My thinking always
| defaulted to glass. If it has been good enough for chemistry for
| hundreds of years perhaps it's good enough for food. But some
| glass also contains lead.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Standard borosilicate glass. Metal ions are more reactive than
| their glass counterparts (because they already have their
| oxygen;)).
| jrootabega wrote:
| Magnetic bottle. Great for fusion cuisine.
|
| But seriously, my lay understanding is that PTFE is one of the
| safest things that could exist, for some substances/activities
| at least.
| simlevesque wrote:
| My understanding is that PTFE never reacts with anything, but
| you can scratch it and ingest some of it which is bad too.
| evv555 wrote:
| The coating of these containers often contain chemicals
| like BPA so you can't trust a PTFE container is safe even
| if you trust PTFE.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| it (the teflon layer on your pan)'s a carcinogen when it
| inevitably gets scratched off and intermixed with the food,
| however.
| lstodd wrote:
| Nonono, polyethylene and PET are the best. PTFE has this
| vicious fluorine atom there.
|
| (being serious, the article is blatant clickbait, ceramics
| are just fine, spectroscopy can detect parts-per-billion and
| that says nothing about actual harm, while linear-no-
| threshold theories are shit.
|
| --
|
| and we're worrying so much that our health suffers more from
| worries than from most anything else)
| Cerium wrote:
| White porcelain is quite safe. If it rings when you hit it with
| a finger then it was fired at a high enough temperature that
| lead could not have been used in the glaze.
| potiuper wrote:
| Glass is heavy & fragile, wrapping it in a rubber material
| makes it hard to clean leaving places for bacteria. Acidic food
| does not work well with metals like aluminum along with
| stainless steel that leaches nickel and chromium. Plastic 1, 2,
| 4 & 5 kept away from heat are likely the best, but avoiding
| additives including stabilizers and phthalates is difficult.
| lstodd wrote:
| If bacterial contamination is suspected, liberal application
| of ethyl alcohol is advised.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| I like cast iron, stainless steel, or ceramic coated (think Le
| Creuset) for cooking surfaces, with glass for storage. For some
| items, waxed paper/fabric is a good storage. For now, I'm using
| reusable silicone bags for some items until such time as
| research shows that's not a good idea. I know there's a ton of
| food grade plastics used in commercial food production, but in
| my own kitchen I try to stay away from plastics.
| scythe wrote:
| Titanium has a strong argument. It's less thermally conductive
| than steel or aluminium (so Ti is not great for pots, despite
| being occasionally advertised as such, but this is an advantage
| for plates), famously biocompatible, and highly corrosion
| resistant. It won't break into sharp pieces. Your standard
| Ti-6Al-4V alloy has a problem but there are other chemistries.
| gruez wrote:
| stainless steel?
| evv555 wrote:
| Most metal food containers are coated with plastics like BPA.
| You can't trust "BPA free" labels because there are now
| analog compounds in use. For example this is what a dissolved
| coke can looks like.[1]
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHFQoFoxvQ
| gruez wrote:
| >Most metal food containers are coated with plastics like
| BPA
|
| I doubt it. I put my stainless steel containers in the oven
| with no ill effects, so there probably isn't some plastic
| coating on them. Are you confusing _disposable_ metal food
| containers (eg. aluminum cans) with stainless steel bowls
| /cups?
| evv555 wrote:
| Specifically I had something like this in mind.[1]
| Granted that article is about reusable aluminum bottles
| but stainless steel can have its own coatings like
| teflon. It's not unreasonable to believe your stainless
| steel bowls are a safe choice but it takes a surprising
| amount of effort to verify if that's the case given
| precedents like these.
|
| 1. https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20110712/some-
| aluminum-water...
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's kind of weird to be talking about aluminum packaging
| in response to a question and comment about stainless
| steel home storage containers and serving dishes.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Stainless is passivated and its surface is mainly oxides of
| chromium and nickel. They aren't great for storage because
| over time they leach chromium and nickel into acidic foods.
| Glass is altogether superior.
| evv555 wrote:
| There's a reason why most chemistry equipment is made out
| of glass.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Cannabis consumers have know for a long time that colored glass
| pipes and bongs and the like are also suspicious, particularly if
| you don't know the maker and their process, for the same reasons.
|
| Clear glass might look boring, but it's a lot safer!
| canadaduane wrote:
| Boring borosilicate glass is the best. Strong, heat resistant,
| and very safe.
| xaduha wrote:
| There's a lot of soda-lime glass too though. Maybe not that
| crucial, but they don't seem to indicate on the surface what
| it is made of like they do with plastics.
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Blood lead levels did not increase above regulatory or guidance
| values.
| civilized wrote:
| All blood lead is bad and levels well below guidance have
| measurable cognitive effects in children. So this is worth
| knowing about.
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(page generated 2021-12-18 23:02 UTC)