[HN Gopher] Plasticlist Report - Data on plastic chemicals in Ba...
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Plasticlist Report - Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area foods
Author : jeff18
Score : 565 points
Date : 2024-12-27 20:15 UTC (1 days 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.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Source on type 2 being mostly genetic? All I've found is
| there is some link but not conclusive.
|
| Also T2 is on the rise in young people. Have their
| genetics changed dramatically in the past few decades? Or
| has food?
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data-
| research/research/young-pe...
| cogman10 wrote:
| So interestingly it could be the two working together [1]
| [2]. T2 may be on the rise partially to epigenetic
| changes.
|
| [1] https://www.thediabetescouncil.com/link-epigenetics-
| type-2-d...
|
| [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10258626/
| jahewson wrote:
| lol no
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| It's true. My mother has been obese for most of her life
| but isn't even pre-diabetic. Her diet would scare people
| on HN.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Yeah, your proclivity to overeat is highly genetic, and
| your predisposition to get T2 diabetes in an energy
| surplus is highly genetic.
|
| We like to think that our (positive) behavior comes from
| our own self-made character traits rather behavior that
| is genetically determined.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is a simplification. Type 2 diabetes _is_ heavily
| polygenic, but the genetic connection could be... you are
| genetically predisposed to like sweet food! In which
| case, the diet intervention _would work_ , most people
| just aren't willing to do it.
|
| Many genetic predispositions are behavioral, it's not all
| pure metabolic effects.
| Spivak wrote:
| Jesus HN, it's a sweet drink. Y'all act like nobody eats
| cookies, candy, ice cream. Happy Birthday here's your kale
| salad.
|
| The "ate like shit your whole life and are now
| overcorrecting in your 40s because you got consequences for
| the first time" energy is big in this thread.
| 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!
| rtpg wrote:
| Is this based off the tapioca balls? I haven't considered
| the health of the balls, but I could see it as being the
| same as swallowing a bunch of gum.
| Tagbert wrote:
| They are not "gum". They are mainly starch. They have no
| nutritional benefit but a do convert a big load of sugars
| in your blood.
| jorvi wrote:
| Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough has ~25g sugar per 100g.
|
| Boba has ~14g per 100g, depending on the type.
|
| Coca Cola has ~11g sugar per 100g.
|
| In other words, ice cream has 1.8x more sugar content
| than boba and 2.3x more sugar content of Coca Cola.
|
| If you're concerned about the tapioca, that's literally
| just starch. You know what else contains starch? Potatoes
| and rice.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough has ~25g sugar per 100g.
| Boba has ~14g per 100g, depending on the type.
|
| Nothing at Boba Guys weighs 100g. That's the difference!
| 100g really is a typical cup of gelato or ice cream.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > In other words, ice cream has 1.8x more sugar content
| than boba and 2.3x more sugar content of Coca Cola.
|
| Most Boba Tea cups I've seen are far bigger than the
| typical ice cream.
|
| You can't use per-100gm doses this way. You have to look
| at sugar in the product as ordered.
|
| People don't order and eat their food in neat 100gm
| increments.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| How much people happen to eat in one sitting is nice
| bonus info, but it doesn't make sense to complain that
| the data has been normalized into density figures.
|
| Either way, a little 16oz carton of Ben and Jerry's that
| people smash in one sitting is 1200 calories. So it's
| still more sugar- and calorie-dense than boba tea.
|
| I don't really see the point in bickering over calorie-
| dense junk foods though. Both of them are displacing
| healthier foods in your diet that you could've eaten
| instead. Neither should account for more than a small
| fraction of your calorie intake.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| It's funny that you hold up ice cream as a paradigmatically
| unhealthy food, when most of the studies point in the
| opposite direction:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-
| cre...
|
| The state of nutrition science is so bad that I wouldn't
| believe most any study, though.
| rtpg wrote:
| I like the texture of the tapioca balls and like milk tea.
| I'd only get the milk tea plus tapioca (and choose the lowest
| sweetness possible, "no sugar" if offered)
|
| I mean I get not liking it. I like it. I'd have it maybe once
| every three months as a little treat
| 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...)
| wumeow wrote:
| This seems to be the happening with other items and chemicals
| tested as well. Look at the results for DNP in Clover organic
| milk for example.
| iAmAPencilYo wrote:
| Further down, they explain the measurement errors involved:
|
| " If you buy the same product twice, how much will chemical
| levels vary?
|
| When we bought two samples of the same product, plastic
| chemical levels differed on average by 59%, calculated as
| Relative Percent Difference (RPD).
|
| To test whether completely identical samples would show
| different levels of chemicals, we sent about 10% of our
| products in triplicate. This means we sent three copies of
| the product from the same batch - with matching lot number
| and expiration date - bought at the same store on the same
| day. We found that the triplicate samples differed less - on
| average by 33%.
|
| Our lab's quality control methodology lists 20% RPD as an
| acceptable margin of measurement error for duplicate samples,
| meaning if you tested the exact same sample twice, you could
| see up to a 20% difference purely due to measurement noise.
| Taking that into account, the RPD for two samples of the same
| product (not necessarily from the same lot) ranges from
| 39-59%. For samples with the same lot number and expiration
| date, the RPD narrows to 13-33%.
|
| Within-product variability appears high, possibly because we
| are dealing with very small chemical concentrations measured
| in nanograms."
| gertlex wrote:
| Yep, I saw that section. To my interpretation, these
| average percents are so much smaller than the variation
| seen, that it's basically /not/ addressing the outlier
| variations.
|
| Perhaps plots would be better/less alarming than easy-to-
| cherry-pick tables, but I'm not expert on conveying this
| sort of data either...
| kristofferR wrote:
| It's really annoying that they only test one brand (Boba Guys),
| it's unclear wether other producers have better quality
| products.
| diamondfist25 wrote:
| In Taiwan, there was a huge scandal decade ago about this exact
| same issue -- people discovered vendors were using plasticiser
| to make the boba jelly like.
|
| Im sure most of the boba shops in the US import ingredients
| from Taiwan, so its not surprising here
| 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.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Plastic straws are natural predators. Removing them from the
| food chain will simply cause overpopulation in turtles.
| 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.
| soperj wrote:
| i mean you're lucky if it's just coated in plastic, most are
| PFAS.
| julianeon wrote:
| If you want one takeaway, it's: rethink your boba consumption.
| 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? ;)
| 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.
| blargey wrote:
| Actual foods with plenty of detected DEHP/DBP:
|
| Salmon, Chicken breast, Beef (ribeye), Rice, Pasta, Tomatoes,
| Cow Milk, and a Stanford University Dining Meal (Beans,
| Chicken, Rice, Cauliflower)
| jeffbee wrote:
| There's only one tomato item and it's ND across the board?
| Agree on the other stuff, you shouldn't eat animal products
| because of the bioaccumulation issues.
|
| I punched in all the stuff I ate this week and almost none of
| it is in their test. It's very skewed to weird processed
| stuff, there's only a few items from real produce markets.
| BadHumans wrote:
| It's skewed towards what a bunch of Bay area college
| students and their friends eat. Seems accurate to me.
| 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/
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Doubtful it's good to have such durable micro materials
| bouncing around our lungs and digestive tracts.
|
| Having odd things in your lungs is bad. Having things
| bouncing around in your digestive tract means nothing. The
| whole point of the digestive tract is that you put
| untrusted materials into it.
| jcims wrote:
| As long as it actually makes it out the other end. Bits
| of undigestable matter the size of smoke particles is a
| relatively new phenomenon.
| lazide wrote:
| Uh, smoke particles and mineral dusts are generally non
| digestible - and we've been eating smoked/cooked meats
| and slightly dirty things for at least as long as
| recorded history?
| thatcat wrote:
| isnt smoked/charred food associated with colon cancer?
| lazide wrote:
| Many of the chemicals in smoke particles cause cancer
| with extended contact.
|
| But not new. At all.
| MVissers wrote:
| Yes.
|
| And the last decades we've had a new unknown cause of
| colon cancer increase in young adults.
|
| My money is on plastics, but will be hard to prove.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Also, is there an aggregate plastic danger metric? It would be
| great to develop an aggregate metric that combines the
| different types of plastics and multiplies them by their known
| potential dangers to the human body. I realize the multiples
| will change over time as more research comes in, but right now,
| there's no way to quantify BPA vs DEHP dangers.
|
| This would make the main giant aggregate list:
| https://www.plasticlist.org a lot more useful.
| roseway4 wrote:
| The PlasticList site explores safety levels, including a
| discussion of aggregate levels across products and chemicals.
| It's an interesting but frustrating read.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Are you looking at the results in the table on the main page?
| That is tap water treated with some purifying tablet, not
| straight tap water. There is plain tap water in the full
| database but it doesn't seem to have levels of anything in
| excess of established limits.
| devindotcom wrote:
| My mistake, I didn't see that part. I thought the tablet
| treatment was just something they did to prepare it for
| testing. Maybe the tablets kill the microfauna via
| microplastic overdose.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Manufacturers are putting more and more plastic into things to
| cut costs it seems.
|
| My favorite pour over coffee maker almost entirely had water in
| contact with metal and glass during brewing. Glass reservoir,
| glass decanter, metal grounds basket - only rubber tubes going
| from reservoir to heating element.
|
| When it died (your average coffee maker only lasts 5 years) all
| of their newer more expensive models had mostly plastic
| everything except for the decanter.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| Hmmm...I'm now worried about my Aeropress, which I love.
| Perhaps it's time to switch to a french press.
| kristofferR wrote:
| They have an Aeropress in glass now:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pw0hc7CB64
| falafels wrote:
| > Fish are aggregators of this stuff so that's not surprising.
|
| I doubt the BPA in fish originates from the fish themselves.
| It's more likely from the can linings used to package the fish.
| 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?
| kuczmama wrote:
| You could get this plastic test:
| https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/products/microplastics-
| te.... I haven't tried it, but it's the only one I know of.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I don't know what that's measuring but TFA is about plastic
| chemicals like BPA, not microplastics
| erur wrote:
| Great read and amazing initiative. Relevance of findings seems to
| 90% depend on whether you believe the EFSA BPA intake thresholds
| over the FDA. Love how transparent they're about it instead of
| doing what most do. The world needs more of this.
| uncomplexity_ wrote:
| so these are the ones in my balls (*\ _ /*)
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Am I interpreting this correctly that Brita actually works as a
| limiter for plasticizers in tap water? Specially since tap water
| plasticizer content can vary by a lot?
| roseway4 wrote:
| The study makes clear the water findings are inconclusive.
| Maxion wrote:
| If you are interested in water filters that filter out
| microplastics, look in to filters that have NSF ratings for it.
| Afaik only the berkefeld filters (NOT berkey) do. Also a lot of
| water filter companies are sketchy, and market their filters
| with terms like made from NSF rated components but do not have
| the actual full filter assemblies tested (red red red flag).
| FriedPickles wrote:
| One thing I'd like to see tested: I have a theory that reusable
| plastic containers leach out most of their chemicals early in
| their life, so the amount imparted to any food diminishes with
| each use. Under this theory, I save and reuse old plastic
| containers for a long time, and avoid new ones (especially single
| use). Could this be true, or misguided?
| ghostly_s wrote:
| I don't have any sources handy but I believe conventional
| wisdom is that plastic decomposition accelerates with age due
| to the cumulative effect of UV exposure.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'd expect almost the opposite. Plastics left in the sun tend
| to turn brittle, I'd expect that to be a big contributor to
| microplastics generally in the environment as those plastics
| break down.
|
| But I agree, would be interesting to know.
|
| I've been switching my stuff over to glass when possible. But,
| unfortunately unless I become a full-time farmer there's no
| escaping the fact that my food comes wrapped in plastic that's
| wrapped in plastic and further wrapped in more plastic. Single
| use plastics for food should be heavily restricted.
| SerCe wrote:
| Not exactly food containers, but apparently, textiles release
| most of their microplastics after the first few washes [1]. So,
| the longer you wear a tshirt, the safer it becomes.
|
| [1]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/microplastics-from-
| te...
| SerCe wrote:
| At the same time, some containers like Huskee cups literally
| start breaking down after a few years [1], so it's not just
| microplastics, but you can see bigger chunks of plastic
| ending up in your food.
|
| [1]: https://uk.help.huskee.co/en-US/what-does-end-of-life-
| cups-r...
| virtue3 wrote:
| Misguided probably...
|
| "They certainly did not advise putting deli containers in the
| microwave or dishwasher. Warner puts it simply: "The more you
| reuse them, the more they would be likely to leach chemicals
| because of the repeated washing and exposure to acidic things
| and soap, and scouring them in cycles. "
|
| https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/is-it-safe-to-
| reuse....
|
| tl;dr -> if you care about your health with regards to plastic
| ingestion, just use glass or metal.
| devindotcom wrote:
| Why not both? My guess would be, they release one type of
| horrible thing early on, then graduate to some other horrible
| thing through short term degradation.
|
| We switched out plastic containers for glass and silicone for
| the most part some time back. Personally I was just routinely
| disappointed with the quality of the tupperware-type things, so
| why not spent a few bucks more once and get something that
| lasts? It still will have a plastic top or parts but you can at
| least heat it up in the glass part.
| SerCe wrote:
| I wish similar testing were available in Australia, I'd pay for a
| subscription to have access to high-quality independent testing
| of the common foods that are available in the shops.
|
| I wonder if enough people care for this to be a viable business
| model.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I'd also like this.
|
| I just want a ballpark on the orders of magnitude between
| alternatives so I can make simple swaps.
|
| The most popular three brands of each food category (canned
| black beans, soy milk, hummus, etc.) would be a nice start.
|
| On the other hand, it also seems like the wrong fixation for
| most people. Most people should probably be making swaps away
| from things like junk food and saturated fat before they invest
| energy in minmaxing the nanograms of pfas in their butter. It
| would suck if it introduced more chaos and confusion into
| health/food discourse.
| dalanmiller wrote:
| Would be nice to put through all the terrible plastic-wrapped
| produce you find at Coles and Woolies.
| wumeow wrote:
| Oh god, the almond milk. I guess that's that habit kicked.
| kennyloginz wrote:
| I guess I will have to kick the human breast milk, my mom will
| be happy.
| energy123 wrote:
| Can someone explain why this is the case:
|
| The salmon in the first table shows BPA levels at 500-1000% the
| safe level, with salmon near the top of the range of all tested
| products, but in the separate "Results" page, if I search for
| "salmon", the same products show up but the BPA levels are only
| around the 20th percentile of tested samples.
| oblio wrote:
| It's such a sad realization when you notice that most of the cost
| decreases for common products have happened through plasticizing
| everything.
|
| It's basically impossible to find cheap natural products for
| cleaning consumables, for example, and it's really hard to find
| trustworthy global brands.
|
| Plastic is entering absolutely every aspect of our lives and I
| really fear it's a "lead in gasoline" and "asbestos" moment for
| our generation :-( and it's going to be much harder to undo that
| either of those.
| pnw wrote:
| Of course my favorite blueberry RXBAR is full of bad things.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Don't miss the DIY...
|
| https://www.plasticlist.org/diy
| conorh wrote:
| My wife is a doctor dealing with (part of) the endocrine system
| and for years she has had us avoiding heating anything up in a
| plastic container and avoiding food/liquids+plastic where we can.
| She believes that these endocrine disruptors are very likely much
| worse for us than we currently realize, and that the research is
| eventually going to show that.
| metadat wrote:
| Why does she believe this? What data is it based on?
|
| (I also avoid these things but only because I feel paranoid
| about it.)
| conorh wrote:
| From my understanding she feels that the mechanisms for these
| endocrine disrupters are there, that they act similarly to
| BPA, which is better understood, and that over time as
| research is done we will find more ways that they interact.
| The research is hard to do and takes a very long time, and
| quite a lot of it is not definitive because it is difficult
| with so many confounding factors, but there is a lot of it
| and more over time.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Microwaving the food in the food containers reduced the plastic
| chemicals on average, it didn't cause any leakage according to
| the results. Weird.
| Maxion wrote:
| My wife is a researcher that has looked in to human breast
| milk, and blood metabolites. She has colleagues who have looked
| in to similar things. They all avoid plastics as much as
| possible.
| asdff wrote:
| I think when people act like this they get a little irrational
| even if they have credentials and education. For example, the
| concern is limiting plastic intake. the solution is to limit it
| at home apparently, because this is within our realm of
| control. It's a fallacy though.
|
| However, if this was approached scientifically, we might ask
| ourselves to identify where these plastics are most likely to
| come from when we get in contact from them. Are these few
| levers in our control really having any effect compared to the
| levers we have no control over that probably also contribute
| significant plastic in our lives? That is the first question to
| be asked before any action IMO. It is humbling I am sure to
| know of a problem but also subconsciously at least know there
| isn't anything you can do about it. Like most other pollution I
| guess; you have to breathe that air at the end of the day. And
| your only salve is the scientific community gathering evidence
| of these effects so that regulation might be written to target
| them specifically. Individually, we are powerless.
| wintercarver wrote:
| Being lazy here, but would love to know more about how testing
| for all of these plastics chemicals that are omnipresent is done
| in a way that ensures the measurement process or tools themselves
| do not contribute trace chemicals (e.g. lab tech wears latex
| gloves while handling the sample, whoops, etc).
| thomascountz wrote:
| They go into significant detail about their sample handling as
| well as documenting potential sources of contamination here:
| https://www.plasticlist.org/methodology
| wintercarver wrote:
| Nice and thank you! Will now go head my head in shame for not
| having bothered to click the "menu" icon on the main report
| :facepalm:
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > Additionally, acid in foods may break down the phthalate
| diesters we measured into monoesters, which our testing didn't
| detect. This means actual phthalate levels could be higher than
| reported.
|
| Just curious, is it possible for the acid to break them down
| completely? Like, poof, no more harmful plastic monoester, it's
| now just plastic-adjacent goop?
| malfist wrote:
| More likely it didn't break down the phthalate itself but
| interfered with the monomer their test method created and
| measured
| rsync wrote:
| I am, in a different life, a _consumer_ of compost and I have
| started looking very carefully at the compost products for sale
| in the bay area.
|
| On the urban consumer side of things I see compost collection
| bins which cannot possibly be decontaminated of all manner of
| plastic pieces which will, inevitably, be ground up into the
| compost product.
|
| On the rural side of things I see miles of plastic baling twine
| and weedeater string - and other plastic meshes and grid - used
| throughout pastures year after year and then collected back up
| again with loads of hay and manure which also end up in the
| compost stream.
|
| These truckloads of soil/compost/fill have to be significantly
| contaminated and the rural end users are pouring them right back
| on their fields.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| In Columbus we have, "The Compost Exchange" and as a small
| farmer I get their compost delivered.
|
| It is now so full of plastic contamination it's just not worth
| it anymore. Its disgusting what I find in there, countless
| grocery bags, Keurig cups, people don't care and I don't save
| enough money to be worth picking out plastic.
| asdff wrote:
| Because they tell you to do this like this. Food container?
| green waste. Dogpoop bag? green waste. Its less about giving
| you good compost and more about getting the local landfill to
| emit a little bit less methane by not having as much organic
| matter rotting in there.
| jrmg wrote:
| I'm usually less worried about microplastics than many (human
| lifespan is at the longest it's ever been, and people are
| healthy at older ages than ever - things can't be that bad
| overall), but weed eater string is a pet peeve of mine. We're
| just spewing nylon microplastics everywhere, and I can't
| understand how it's not at all controversial!
| rendaw wrote:
| Plastics were really only introduced ~1950 and
| usage/production has been increasing since, which means that
| we'll only know the lifetime effects of current exposure
| levels 80 some years from now. Human lifespan statistics are
| currently based on people born before 1950.
| userbinator wrote:
| Mid 1800s is when synthetic plastics started appearing.
| rsync wrote:
| I've spent some time thinking about this and it's a difficult
| problem for two reasons:
|
| First, while we use metal blades on our ranch it's not easy -
| you need to educate workers on the extra safety issues
| involved with the blade and you need to be very careful about
| fire safety due to sparking. There are only a few months
| where we use the trimmers at all due to fire risk.[1]
|
| Second, operators of trimmers don't like the performance of
| the blades and how they cut. With a bit of practice it is
| fine and as an employer I can dictate the tools I choose ...
| but convincing homeowners or small property owners to switch
| to blades is going to be hard. Further, there are some
| techniques (like trimming up to landscaping features or house
| siding without destroying them) that are impossible with the
| blade.
|
| But yes ... if you see a row of workers mowing a big field
| with string ... somebody isn't putting two and two together
| and it's a shame to see pristine fields being plasticized.
|
| [1] I have looked into a short metal cable made of non-
| sparking metal as a replacement for the blade ... not an easy
| thing to put together ...
| modeless wrote:
| It's funny how the same people that dump whatever trash they
| feel like into the compost bins because it's convenient turn
| around and say "Wow, free compost! Let me spread that all over
| my garden!" Like, didn't I just see you yesterday putting a
| compostable takeout container into the bin with ketchup packets
| still inside? You think the municipal composting fairy just
| magics that stuff away?
| tadzikpk wrote:
| This is so informative, thank you. I always got my kids baby food
| in glass, thinking it would reduce their microplastics exposure
| as well as reducing plastic waste. Turns out only one of those
| was true :(
| npunt wrote:
| It may still be true. Handling plastic over time (e.g. lots of
| squeezing and dropping) could plausibly cause an increase of
| plastic leakage over time.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| You might try getting a cloth diaper service as well. All those
| plastics, plasticizers, and VOCs can leach into skin.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Did they test Wheat. I'm convinced something is up with the Wheat
| here. I've not seen Europeans gain anywhere near as much weight
| from eating bread as people do here. From my experience visiting
| Paris, croissants, butter and pastries pretty common on the menu.
| But still people are still pretty skinny in comparison. And like
| Pasta in Italy is a staple. Yet still, lower BMI there.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| American bakers use more sugar.
| attentive wrote:
| I think EU (at least some countries) bans glyphosate and
| tightly regulate other pesticide and herbicide usage on their
| wheat.
| refurb wrote:
| Nothing special about the wheat, it's the amount Americans are
| eating that is the problem.
|
| When I lived in Asia I was amazed how skinny everyone was! Most
| people ate street vendor food which was mostly carbs and very
| little vegetables or protein.
|
| The answer was...portion sizes! Even manual labor workers ate a
| lunch that was maybe 500 kcal. Total daily caloric intake
| rarely went over 2,000. While Americans average 3,600.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Really interesting how microwaving food containers didn't do
| anything, in fact results usually were lower before microwaving
| than after.
|
| (search "microwave)
| block_dagger wrote:
| I've been using a reverse osmosis water filter at home to reduce
| microplastics and other contaminants from my drinking and cooking
| water for the past few years. I am using the #1 recommended
| product on Buyer's Guide[1] for others who are interested.
|
| [1] https://buyersguide.org/countertop-reverse-osmosis-
| system/t/...
| InMice wrote:
| Of course, a reverse osmosis filter system made of...Plastic.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Honestly what else are you going to make it out of? Metal?
| What about rust? Horrible idea to make it out of metal.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Is this sarcasm?
|
| Rust is fine to consume, but there are also metals that
| don't corrode in water.
| malfist wrote:
| Semipermeable osmatic membranes cannot be made out of
| metal
| fooblaster wrote:
| I don't want to be a downer, but given the pervasive amount of
| plastics in food, it seems essentially impossible to have a
| meaningful impact on overall plastic consumption for anyone who
| depends on a supermarket/restaurants for sustenance.
| block_dagger wrote:
| I'm also vegan and buy mostly organic products and cook at
| home. I get your point, though. There's only so much we can
| do. The tofu I eat daily comes in plastic containers,
| unfortunately.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I am using the #1 recommended product on Buyer's Guide[1] for
| others who are interested.
|
| I'm reading their "review" but I don't see anything other than
| common ChatGPT affiliate link blog spam. The "review" is just
| generic filler content about water filtration, not even about
| this product. These websites just collect products with
| profitable affiliate links, run the description of the product
| through an LLM to get it into a standard format, and then drive
| traffic to their list to collect affiliate revenue.
|
| This website hasn't reviewed anything. They're just tricking
| people into clicking links to buy expensive products that will
| give them affiliate ad revenue.
|
| Please don't encourage the proliferation of these website by
| linking to them or endorsing their rankings.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I'm not familiar with this buyers guide site. Is it critical
| rankings by a human or some sort of automatic ranking / SEO
| spam?
| Aurornis wrote:
| I tried reading their review. It was completely vacuous.
|
| This isn't a real review site. It's an SEO trap for affiliate
| revenue. I thought HN readers could spot these affiliate spam
| sites, but I guess not everyone is on to this scam.
| hedora wrote:
| Reverse osmosis leaches microplastics (because of the
| membrane):
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-find-about-a...
|
| I guess it's possible to distill the water and add clean
| minerals back in. (Not sure if "clean minerals" are something
| that you can obtain though.)
| OutOfHere wrote:
| _After_ the RO layer should exist another activated charcoal
| layer. This should block most of the leaked polyamide from
| the RO layer. My filter is this way.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| You point to the membrane as a leakage source, but most RO
| systems also use flexible hosing in the assembly and from
| past work in medical devices it seems that flexible hosing
| is also a huge source of phthalate leakage.
|
| Is that something that is also taken into account in higher
| end RO systems?
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Reverse osmosis completely removes heavy metals from water.
| I'll take my chances with microplastic over lead.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I owe this entire team a beer - but I don't see Russian River or
| Lagunitas on the list. Anyway, let me know and I can meet you at
| Toronado.
| jart wrote:
| It's hilarious how McDonalds ends up being the safest premade
| meals you can get (outside a big tech company cafeteria) at least
| from a scary plastic chemical standpoint. They actually have the
| resources and a big enough PR problem to spend the money to send
| their stuff to labs and get it tested. Everyone else solves the
| PR problem by just labeling their food organic and healthy
| instead. https://justine.lol/tmp/healthy.jpg This is all of
| course assuming no one discovers anything horrible about DEHT in
| the future, which is the new chemical they're leaning into. I get
| maybe 10% as many Google Scholar hits on DEHT compared to its
| terrifying well-studied cousin DEHP.
| refurb wrote:
| It is ironic. Amazing how if you don't go looking for it, there
| is no bad news!
|
| I see the same in people who visit developing countries and
| talk about how "fresh and organic" the food is. They comment
| "you don't read about the food safety issues like you do in
| developed countries".
|
| Yeah, of course you don't, the developing countries don't test!
| sizzle wrote:
| Not gonna lie, the meat I had in some European countries
| without preservatives and processing went through me so
| cleanly and easy I'm convinced we are the ones dropping the
| ball in this whole discussion somehow.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| Not knowing where in Europe you went eating meat, there is
| a good chance it was a developed country.
|
| Regarding the EU vs. US food debate I would generally
| expect to find higher quality produce in the EU countries,
| and that is not because things a pushed under the rug. That
| is just more regulation.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| That's partly true, but on the other hand less intensive,
| less industrialized food production will end up with safer
| food. The apple or tomato from your grandma's backyard in
| Eastern Europe will have less chemicals than the one grown in
| the Dutch monoculture farm.
| volongoto wrote:
| My personal experience is the opposite. There is no control
| on the produce on grandma's backyard and therefore we have
| no idea how much chemicals she is using. Probably she
| doesn't know either. But I'm sure of one thing: she
| definitely uses chemicals if she wants to eat (or sell)
| those apples. Chemical-free agriculture is more demanding
| and the grandma doesn't have an incentive to invest in it.
| After all, using chemicals is what she learned growing up
| and therefore is the "traditional" way.
| seper8 wrote:
| I dont think grandmas are out there using genetically
| modified crops so they can douse the whole thing in
| Roundup
| fn-mote wrote:
| The idea that Roundup is the worst pesticide being used
| is optimistic.
|
| It's like the GP indicates - I think the concern is more
| for yield than safety.
|
| My experience as a tourist was that some fruit reeked so
| strongly of chemicals that I just kept away from it.
| lazide wrote:
| Grandmas can be growing it in heavily contaminated soils
| (old motor oil, lead, arsenic, etc.), or using 'random
| weed spray' at 10x its recommended dosage, or not washing
| their hands after using the toilet and then handling
| veggies, etc.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Your scenario provides far fewer applications of
| pesticides than the alternatives, especially those in
| "organic farming", with a pesticide that is much less bad
| than the common alternatives.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| Having lived in a developing country for a decade: they don't
| speak the local language and don't read local news that's why
| they don't hear about it. The local news and gossip is always
| full of it.
| refurb wrote:
| Varies by country.
|
| But my comment was more about government inspections and
| news about violations, not news about food poisoning
| outbreaks.
|
| In the developing country I was in, plenty of food products
| are never tested, but once you've visited a factory it's
| clear it would be shutdown in any developed country.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Yeah I know a guy who's daughter almost died after eating
| an ice cream cone bought at a roadside stall in Thailand.
| Had to go to hospital and get her stomach pumped and
| everything...
| OutOfHere wrote:
| McD tested high for phthalates, phthalate substitutes, and even
| sometimes for bisphenols.
| yowayb wrote:
| Are there prospective studies on effects? Afaik it's just in
| vitro, and I wonder if our bodies have a natural mitigation
| mechanism that would allow up to a certain amount without harm.
| I'm just afraid of what I see as a trend to attribute small
| factors to big things that are caused by societal problems, etc.
| benatkin wrote:
| Indeed. It reminds me of NNT's anti-GMO advocacy.
| Imnimo wrote:
| So basically the headline is that Europe and US have a very
| different limit for BPA, most US food is also under the European
| limit, but there are a handful of items that are only under the
| US limit but not under the much lower European limit?
| treme wrote:
| basically you should avoid all wild caught sea food. has roughly
| 50x such contaminants vs land based animal protein
| gregwebs wrote:
| Paint is a huge source of microplastics that many are unaware of
| [1].
|
| But also consider how you are wearing clothing made with plastic
| and the fact that it's not hard to find 100% cotton shirts. Start
| figuring out how to have less plastic in your life. It's not hard
| if you can be content to do it gradually.
|
| [1] https://www.e-a.earth/plastic-paints-the-environment/
| highcountess wrote:
| I don't even know, but it would not surprise me if whatever
| they spray on cotton clothing to make it feel new, which washes
| out with the first wash, is also some endocrine disrupter. It
| is insane to me that we have allowed our psychotic cooperations
| and the psychotic narcissistic people who run and are part of
| them to totally poison our whole world and lives. This is not
| even a new thing. I know for a fact that Nestle experimented
| with including these types of liquid plastics into baby food,
| testing the maximum amount of liquid plastic that could be
| added to baby jar food because it would result in babies not
| being able to take up nourishment, which would in turn cause
| parents to have to feed more and buy more. I don't know to what
| level that was implemented, but I know of a scientist that was
| involved and asked to do thinks he could not reconcile with
| goods conscience, so he resigned. I'm sure they found someone
| else somewhere with less reservations of morals. Most likely
| most industrial baby food has immense amounts of liquid
| plastics in it.
|
| No one that goes through the trouble of cooking their own baby
| food feeds their babies as much as when they feed jar food,
| that foes right through them.
| lazide wrote:
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercerisation], plus various
| lubricants most likely.
| praveen9920 wrote:
| True. Also, no one is talking about tyres. They shed lot of
| micro plastics in their life time
| czhu12 wrote:
| Absolutely amazing work. I wonder what kind of funding / model
| could make something like this sustainable. Presumably, as
| manufacturing processes change, everything on this list has to be
| re-tested again? The current website has no way of crowd sourcing
| + verifying data, but that would maybe be a nice addition
| benatkin wrote:
| For reference the guy funding this is the same person this letter
| was sent to: https://github.com/drop-ice/dear-github-2.0
| wcfrobert wrote:
| Crazy excerpt from the report:
|
| > "On BPA in particular, just 10 years ago, the US EPA and the EU
| EFSA had the same limit. Then the EFSA lowered their limit
| several times, resulting in a 250,000x difference in the limits.
| But the EPA Iris site to this day says that, no, the limit they
| last revised in 1988 is still correct. This is an important
| difference if you want to interpret PlasticList results. Remember
| the Boba Guys tea that contains 1.2 years of safe BPA consumption
| according to the EFSA? According to the EPA, it's well under the
| limit."
|
| How the heck can the limits established by the EPA and EFSA vary
| up to 250,000x ??? That's several orders of magnitudes...
|
| Really hoping this study blow up so more research gets funded.
| The testing is supposedly cheap and there's definitely enough
| public interest at this point.
| concordDance wrote:
| Limits are often set for political reasons (in both
| directions).
|
| There can also be very different appetites for risk.
| jancsika wrote:
| > The lab was able to test 705 samples which came from 296
| different food products
|
| Ok
|
| > Here's a complete list of all the presently-available food
| samples (excluding vintage foods) we tested that exceeded a
| published daily intake limit for any of the chemicals we tested:
|
| 41 samples in table
|
| > That said, with the 24 exceptions above,
|
| What, what? There are 41 exceptions in that table, and still more
| than 24 even if you deduplicate.
| shipilovya wrote:
| These 41 samples came from 24 unique products
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It's interesting that everyone is talking about boba tea instead
| of things they regularly consume like milk and beef, also
| featured in dedication sections of TFA.
|
| Either because they didn't scroll past the first chart or it's
| more convenient to focus on a food item they don't eat daily.
|
| Edit: I was randomly on NewRepublic's website and saw this
| relevant article about how farmers using 'biosolids' (sewage) on
| their land multiplied the PFAS in their livestock/dairy/water:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/187106/pfas-milk-maine-texas...
| ("One State's War on Forever Chemicals in Milk")
| postscapes1 wrote:
| I wish they would have been more concentrated with their approach
| versus this spray and pray route (ie test chick-fil-a from
| different parts of the country and done it 1000 times so
| customers could actually impact a change to the biggest
| offenders). Would happily pay to crowdsource a much bigger
| project here.
| asadm wrote:
| so do we yet have baby food companies that have no plastics? I
| would buy those asap.
| tlhighbaugh wrote:
| Well if <10nm pieces of plastic are swirling around Mount Everest
| in the "Death Zone", you bet that they are swirling around on
| your food down here where we have had an abandoned mercury mine
| leeching into the South Bay for almost 2 centuries, an island
| next to SF that in the Cold War they Navy would paint ships with
| radioactive paint to see if they could spray it off with the run-
| off going into the bay and parts of West Oakland still you can
| get lead poisoning just being outside in 80 years after the
| shipyards closed at the end of the war.
|
| I love the Bay Area, native to the East Bay and no matter how
| hard I try to escape, I always find myself crawling right back to
| San Francisco's sweet embrace, but in case it isn't clear to the
| people just arriving and driving the cost up higher than London,
| Paris or Berlin, its never been anything less than an excellent
| example of the horrible things people will do to each other and
| the planet to satisfy their impulse for either money or power.
| Superfund sites abound in the six counties around the bay,
| plastic in your food is probably the least of your actual
| worries.
|
| > Mattie came from far away, from New Orleans into the East Bay.
| He said, 'this is a Mecca!' I said, 'This ain't no Mecca, man.
| This place is fucked!' Six months go by, he has no home, he has
| no food, he's all alone. Mattie said, 'fool me once, shame on
| you.' Didn't fool him twice, he moved back to New Orleans!
|
| - "A Journey to the End of the East Bay", Rancid
| sizzle wrote:
| This research by these non academic background folks is simply
| astounding and exceptional. How did they get the funding to run
| $500k of independent lab testing? Can we donate to the cause?
|
| This stuff is on my mind all the time eating out or from plastic-
| impregnated cardboard food packaging lining, etc. I'm worried
| about reproductive impact on future generations and overall
| personal health, etc.
| osanseviero wrote:
| Nat Friedman leads the project. He was GitHub's CEO, among many
| other things. He funds many interesting ambitious projects,
| such as the Vesuvius Challenge (https://scrollprize.org/)
| falafels wrote:
| So, how about a startup for baby food / prenatals that shows
| transparent, third party testing for plastic compounds and heavy
| metals? I'm serious, would love to do this.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| I love this idea. I hope to see this type of testing for
| everyday food as well. Here are some hurtles you might run
| across
|
| * Can you source low plastic baby food, or low plastic food to
| process into baby food? Seems like large quantities of the food
| supply are contaminated.
|
| * How can you comparatively advertise your low test results
| compared to the competition without being the victim of
| lawsuits? Lawsuits from established companies feels inevitable,
| but being involved in a lawsuit can harm funding rounds for
| startups, even if it's baseless.
|
| * Would brick & motor stores want to deal with you if you are
| essentially calling the rest of their products poison?
|
| * Will you need special tools for processing the food that
| introduces minimal plastics?
| glial wrote:
| For your third question -- there are already lots of products
| on the market in certain stores (Costco, Whole Foods, co-ops)
| that have third party testing or claims about purity.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Yet more evidence that the Age Depopulation Bomb's main root
| causes is plastic endocrine disruptors
| Funes- wrote:
| This should be run globally. Or as globally as it could be run.
| nextworddev wrote:
| Welp not drinking boba again
| anonu wrote:
| I wonder if the Starbucks and blue bottle coffee results are due
| to the plastic in the throwaway cups. The Nestle instant coffee
| (which comes in a glass jar) had much lower scores in comparison.
| alfor wrote:
| 32,571.4% ? 320X the limit?
|
| Why do we continue down that path, are we that stupid
| collectively? We know the fertility of men is falling year after
| year, we know this, yet things go on as if it's not important.
|
| We could calmly debate the amount on the limit, but at this point
| we know the job we have to do.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I guess at some point will know how dangerous to people it is,
| and how risky it is compared to things that we really know are
| really bad, but that we are still eating. (for one reason or
| another).
|
| If it turns out that it is a serious health threat, then pretty
| much anyone alive today is f*ked. and given the build up of it,
| will be for quite a while.
|
| But we also have climate change, AI apocalypse, global
| thermonuclear war, mcDonalds, and all other things at the same
| time.
|
| And we wont know if whatever it is replaced with, if will be
| replaced will turn out any better for humanity in the long term.
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