[HN Gopher] Plasticlist Report - Data on plastic chemicals in Ba...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Plasticlist Report - Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods
        
       Author : jeff18
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2024-12-27 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.plasticlist.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.plasticlist.org)
        
       | rtpg wrote:
       | The boba tea result alone makes me want to never drink that
       | again. Was a fun little treat while it lasted...
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | Why did you ever drink it in the first place? A boba is 500g of
         | diabetes packaged in 100g of trash. It's the worst idea ever.
        
           | cactusplant7374 wrote:
           | Boba can be part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
        
             | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
             | So can smoking
        
               | cactusplant7374 wrote:
               | No it can't. Type 2 diabetes is mostly genetic. I can eat
               | as much Boba as I want and not get diabetes.
        
           | PittleyDunkin wrote:
           | Some people are capable of consuming nutrition in moderation.
        
           | rgbrgb wrote:
           | my fam loves boba w zero sugar added... all the places we go
           | to here in san diego let you adjust (e.g. omomo [0]).
           | basically a fresh milky fruit or avocado smoothie with chewy
           | tapioca pearls. it's a fun treat that seemed a lot healthier
           | than an ice cream or something. these findings make me sad
           | :-|
           | 
           | [0]: https://www.omomoteashoppe.com
        
             | jeffbee wrote:
             | Ice cream strikes me as a lot healthier than boiled play-
             | doh.
        
               | tyre wrote:
               | You seem to have a weirdly strong hatred for boba.
               | 
               | It's okay if something isn't for you!
        
         | gertlex wrote:
         | It seems noteworthy, but not commented that I can see (in the
         | article), that the different samples of "Boba Guys Black Tea
         | Pearls" have 20x variation in measured amount.
         | 
         | So what's up with that? (I have uninformed ideas...)
        
       | mobileexpert wrote:
       | The Boba Guys result is a real kick in the nuts. Using a shitty
       | paperish straw for the environment but the core product being so
       | high in these tests.
        
         | dgfitz wrote:
         | Think of the turtle.
        
         | gertlex wrote:
         | 20x variation in their measurements of "Black Tea Pearls" (and
         | 8x or so in the tea juice). Would have liked to see more
         | reflection on that.
         | 
         | (I feel like I'm still seeing plastic straws for boba
         | everywhere in San Jose; but I'm far from a frequent consumer)
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | The "paper" straw, that's still coated in plastic and becomes
         | unusably soggy long before the product is consumed.
        
       | julianeon wrote:
       | If you want one takeaway, it's: rethink your boba consumption.
        
       | idunnoman1222 wrote:
       | I've always been more worried about getting handmaid's tailed
       | than dying from the wet bulb
        
       | doug_durham wrote:
       | The sugar content of boba tea is much more relevant than trace
       | levels of BPA. You will have disastrous health effects from
       | sugar, versus potential effects from BPA.
        
       | sebmellen wrote:
       | > _At least one of the 18 chemicals was found in every baby food,
       | prenatal supplement, human breast milk, yogurt, and ice cream
       | product that we tested, to name only a few categories._
       | 
       | Wow
        
       | jacobn wrote:
       | Great work, very interesting list!
       | 
       | Ideally the "% Limit" column would: 1. Be right-aligned 2. Have
       | consistent formatting (i.e. same number of digits after the dot)
       | 3. A little bar underneath each number showing relative scale
       | (i.e. top entry is full width, last entry is 216.7 / 32571.4 =
       | 0.00665307601, though maybe on a log scale for confusion? ;)
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | Have any order-of-magnitude errors been found in the results?
        
       | jeffbee wrote:
       | I don't see much that I recognize as "food" in the report, and in
       | the database I see that actual foods -- eggs, bananas, suchlike
       | -- are no-detect across the board. Conclusion: eat food, instead
       | of whatever these things are.
        
       | hahahacorn wrote:
       | RIP Boba Guys, that's unfortunate.
       | 
       | I'd love to figure out what we can change about our governance
       | and institutions to get human-readable reports like these (for
       | $500k, no less!) from the institutions we dutifully disburse
       | billions in taxes.
       | 
       | But, I guess I'd also prefer to not go there. Because I imagine
       | any process-heavy government form of this would invariably
       | include boba guys not being allowed to sell their boba _until_ it
       | is tested, which sounds so great in theory, but in practice would
       | impose a disproportionate cost on retailers with less control
       | over their supply chains than should be the case.
       | 
       | Or maybe the real answer is discovering new technologies that
       | allows you to test for plastic quantities in food for less than
       | $500k/7xx samples.
        
       | devindotcom wrote:
       | Looking forward to more testing like this. I've been trying to
       | consciously avoid anything combining "hot" with "plastic" though
       | there's only so much you can do.
       | 
       | Fish are aggregators of this stuff so that's not surprising. Spam
       | and other processed meats and prepared foods also not too
       | surprising (though what's with the Annie's organic mac and cheese
       | being so full of it? Maybe it's the sauce?)... I think the tap
       | water was the scariest one to me. Sure, you expect some but ...
       | wildly unsafe levels?!
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Have "unsafe levels" been established, or are we just assuming
         | that any is bad?
         | 
         | Edit: I see they appear to be using the European Food Safety
         | Authority (EFSA) intake limits for most of their tests.
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | Initial data says they're at least bad for sea life. Doubtful
           | it's good to have such durable micro materials bouncing
           | around our lungs and digestive tracts. Stopping pollution is
           | also much easier than cleaning up after the fact.
           | 
           | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10151227/
        
       | blindriver wrote:
       | Well fuck.
       | 
       | How can I test for effects from endocrine-disrupting chemicals on
       | my children? Are there blood tests that check for this?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-12-27 23:00 UTC)