[HN Gopher] PlasticList's Advice for Food Companies
___________________________________________________________________
PlasticList's Advice for Food Companies
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 125 points
Date : 2025-01-02 18:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Plasticlist Report - Data on plastic chemicals in Bay Area
| foods_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42525633 - Dec 2024
| (188 comments)
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| Why are wood cutting boards outlawed for commercial kitchens.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Although very beautiful and functional, they require proper
| sanitation and careful maintenance. Being, in fact, the wood is
| a living and porous material, it is not advisable to sanitize
| the cutting board daily, as this could risk the proliferation
| of germs and bacteria.
|
| https://www.euroceppi.com/en/blog-en/why-cant-wooden-cutting...
|
| Makes sense to me, I never process meat at home on a wooden
| board. Only plastic and dishwasher after use.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| But couldn't a knife hitting a plastic board shed micro
| particles into your food?
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Sometimes you just need to use the least bad option. I tend
| to use my wood board for dry or veg foods, and 100% always
| use the plastic board for meat products.
| stevage wrote:
| Until I read this article, this thought had never occurred
| to me.
|
| Not that I use a plastic board anyway.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| not to mention all the microplastics released in the
| dishwasher when it runs! this sounds like a bad idea to me.
|
| I personally have a dedicated wood cutting board that is
| for meat only. I cook my meat to safe temperatures anyway
| so i'm not too worried about sanitizing it perfectly. I
| just do my best with hot water, soap, and a sponge.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Not really, at least judging by the state of my plastic
| boards. Contrary to wooden boards, they're completely
| unsuitable for dishwashers. Who knows what were these
| wooden boards treated with to make them "food safe".
|
| I hope you don't use any polyester if you're so concerned
| about my plastic board. Just imagine all that plastic
| from washing polyester. Or maybe you have a car with
| seats made out of plastic bottles fished out of the
| ocean?
| lurking_swe wrote:
| yeah, a wooden cutting board isn't great for a dishwasher
| either.
|
| I dislike polyester in general, with the exception of
| exercise shorts and sneakers. I buy cotton or wool if
| possible. Polyester just feels cheap to me, and avoiding
| it also means i have less microplastics exposure. :)
|
| There's no hiding from microplastics. I do take some
| steps to avoid them where it's easy, instead of purposely
| adding more to my body.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Anything waterproof is going to be either leather or
| polyester. There's no getting around it today.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Waxed cotton?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxed_cotton
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Never seen anything made out of that in the shop. How
| expensive is it? And what do we think about this?
|
| > Waxed cotton came in either black, or an inconsistent
| dark olive. Colour was controlled by the amount of copper
| left from the cupro-ammonia treatment.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| that's pretty interesting, didn't realize that was used
| for some outdoor gear!
|
| It reminds me of this cling-wrap alternative i use in the
| kitchen: https://www.beeswrap.com/
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I do have a couple of those. They're terrible to wash.
|
| Switched to this kind of stuff instead
| https://www.dm.de/profissimo-frischhaltehauben-aus-
| silikon-p... + normal cotton towels and paper for
| everything else.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| yes they are. i use them more for covering bowls, etc.
| They don't get as messy that way.
|
| This looks great for wrapping avocados, cucumbers, etc.
| Thanks for the tip!
| ericd wrote:
| Boiled wool is pretty water resistant, that's usually
| what wool coats are made of.
| ericd wrote:
| Yep, polyester was the first thing to go. It's a crappy
| fabric for all sorts of other reasons anyway.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| There's apparently so much plastic already in me that I
| don't care. What I care is not having that chicken fluid
| soaked into the wooden board.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Scrub it with hot soapy water and let it dry it will be
| fine.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| You mean scrub with that sponge made out of plastic?
| Because you definitely want those crevasses clean. And
| how hot should the water be? You have 70 degree Celsius
| water coming out from your tap?
|
| But hey, I used to do that. No matter how much you take
| care of them, the hot water wash and drying leads to
| those chopping boards splitting after so many uses. Those
| plastic buggers last for years.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| scrub with a natural bristle brush.
|
| You can oil them occasionally if they are drying out too
| much and cracking.
|
| But yes they probably won't last forever. Shrug. Get
| another one.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I'll stick my plastic boards for meat :)
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I have a bamboo cutting board that I purchased in 2004,
| and a mesquite wood cutting board gifted to me a few
| years later. Both look nearly new despite using them
| daily.
|
| Now I don't cook meat, so maybe that is why my experience
| doesn't match yours.
| ericd wrote:
| Just regular soap and water with a brush seem to work
| fine, no need to scrub hard, generally.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Under-rated comment. Microplastics are an omnipresent,
| low, vague risk, and I already have a long list of those
| which people want me to care about. While food poisoning
| is much more of an immediate problem - and still from
| time to time kills people!
| ska wrote:
| Food safety. It's ironic that in a home setting they can often
| be better than plastic (people typically don't clean plastic
| well enough, or replace often enough), but you can't sanitize
| them like you typically would in a commercial prep area, so
| they are disallowed/discouraged (based on jurisdiction).
| throwup238 wrote:
| Some jurisdictions also ban wood cutting boards in general
| but allow some made of closed-grain hardwood with like maple
| or walnut.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| That's a shame. Hard close grain would damage very sharp
| knives I would think.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Are folks not simply throwing their plastic cutting boards in
| the dishwasher after finishing prep? I basically always do,
| especially after cutting meat...
| newsclues wrote:
| Not everyone has a dishwasher.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Hmmm. It's only in the last four years or so that I've
| even had one, you'd have thought I would have remembered
| that ...
| datavirtue wrote:
| Buy some Purell.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| yay for microplastics (and maybe phthalates) all over my
| utensils, plates and glasses!
|
| on a serious note, I try to avoid putting ANY plastic in a
| dishwasher unless it's silicone. what's wrong with buying a
| cutting board that is used for meat only? do your best
| scrubbing it down with hot water and soap, and it's not an
| issue. Especially if you cook your meat to a safe
| temperature anyway.
|
| Even better, avoid a plastic cutting board to begin with:
|
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c00924
| 0_____0 wrote:
| At least the dishwasher is doing its best to remove
| surface contamination from its contents.
|
| How does your cutting board compare to tire dust, shed
| particles from textiles, and latex paint in terms of your
| exposure and the danger thereof?
|
| I really do try to triage "things to worry about" by
| severity and likelihood. At my age I'm mostly worried
| about not getting hit by cars and my mental health.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| can't avoid tire dust. Luckily i don't paint often, and i
| don't lick my walls. :-)
|
| I agree it's low on the list in terms of risk (big
| picture). I guess shopping for plastic free alternatives
| isn't stressful to me, i view it like a shopping game.
| Plus the plastic free stuff tends to hold up better
| anyway over the long term!
|
| I do wonder how rinse aid affects this too. Might reduce
| the residue left behind.
| ericd wrote:
| Re tire dust, you can avoid living near major roads, and
| running a hepa filter anywhere you spend significant
| time. Our old apartment's balcony used to get a coating
| of black dust on everything within a week of wiping
| things down, since we were near some major road, now that
| we live in the country, I never see that.
| ska wrote:
| Many people generally don't change boards enough, yes. And
| keeping plastic boards after they are quite deeply grooved
| is a problem.
|
| If your dishwasher doesn't have a sanitize cycle (or you
| aren't using it) you may not be getting hot enough at home
| anyway to be up to the standard a commercial kitchen would
| need.
|
| Of course you may not have a dishwasher at all.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Automatic dishwasher detergent is loaded with chlorine
| bleach. Sanitizing temperatures are not necessary.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| This is wrong (at best outdated). No dishwashing
| detergent sold at your local grocery has chlorine bleach
| in it. There are other non-chlorine bleaching agents in
| some formulations.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| You seem to be correct, at least based on review of the
| MSDS for a popular powdered dishwasher detergent, it's
| using oxygen bleach (peroxide). Pretty sure it was
| chlorine bleach in the past.
| zo1 wrote:
| I just use a plate for my cutting needs. No idea about this
| "cutting board" obsession. Plate just goes into the
| dishwasher. No wood or plastic particles to worry about and
| cleanup is easy.
|
| Then again, I also exclusively use serrated knives and
| think people that use ultra-sharp knives in the kitchen to
| make food cut like butter, crazy.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| How does that not absolutely destroy your knife?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| GP uses serrated knives. They're not actually cutting
| food, more mangling it while scratching their plates. Not
| wanting to use sharp knives just speaks to inexperience
| in the kitchen.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| The bit you're missing is that other people need cutting
| boards and you don't, because you don't do the types of
| prep work that would require a cutting board. It would
| take a about 4x longer if I did my prep work with your
| tools. No harm in that, we just do different things in
| the kitchen.
|
| Edit: I remembered that beyond being simply slower, some
| important operations are extremely impractical without a
| cutting board, like mincing. Flat out impossible to do
| with a serrated knife as well.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| The thing about replacing them frequently is that that goes
| against the principle of using something until it is worn
| out. (That is, reducing the amount of plastic we use.) I'm
| not sure if this is a problem, or if there are better
| solutions (I use wooden chopping boards for vegetables and
| fruit of course).
| secstate wrote:
| An excellent point. Most modern germ theory says all bacteria
| is bad. This, despite the fact that our guts are full of
| bacteria and that you simply cannot avoid ingesting bacteria.
| Nevermind that plenty of wood cutting boards are full of
| beneficial bacteria that keeps listeria and e. coli at bay.
|
| Edit: Also there are literally some forms of cheese that you
| cannot make in sanitized stainless steel. The combination of
| bacteria you need needs to be impregnated in the wood.
| lukas099 wrote:
| > Most modern germ theory says all bacteria is bad.
|
| I've never heard anyone say this.
| everdrive wrote:
| Seems like it would be simply enough for a household to just
| have at least two cutting boards:
|
| One for anything which is not likely to harbor dangerous
| bacteria. (eg: vegetables, bread, etc.)
|
| One of meat, which gets cut and then gets cooked, and so
| theoretically a bit of bacteria is no issue in any case.
|
| I can see how this would be much tougher for a commercial
| kitchen, though.
| maxwell wrote:
| Commercial kitchens use color coded cutting boards AFAIK.
|
| https://www.webstaurantstore.com/3053/cutting-
| boards.html?fi...
| Aurornis wrote:
| No, you need to clean and disinfect to kill bacteria
| regardless.
|
| Cooking meat does not kill the toxic byproducts of bacteria.
| Many bacteria produces enterotoxins, which survive cooking
| and cause what we know as "food poisoning".
|
| You would not want your cutting board harboring and growing
| these bacteria under any circumstances, even if you're
| cooking the product you're cutting.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| You could stop eating meat instead. But unfortunately
| vegetables can get cross-contaminated with animal products
| during growing/harvesting/processing. So even vegetarians
| like me have this risk, albeit at lower levels, along with
| contamination from non-animal sources.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| It's interesting that, if you go to a wet market in many Asian
| countries (e.g. Hong Kong) you will see the butchers cutting
| meat on wooden chopping blocks where the cutting surface is
| _grain up_ - typically a circular section of a log. I thought
| "surely this is the worst possible orientation for the wood?" I
| think they clean the blocks by using hot and cold water to
| expand and contract the wood, and scraping it with the blade of
| their knives.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| I believe that if you're doing some heavy chopping, that
| orientation keeps the cutting board in good condition for the
| longest time, as you're not cutting through the wood grain
| and taking chunks out of the board.
|
| Separately I've heard that while bacteria can live in wood
| cutting boards, they tend to stay where they are rather than
| migrate out of the board and into the food -- but I can't
| back that up with any actual references.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Bacteria needs moisture. It ain't clean until it's dry.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Wood tends to draw moisture in, I'd think especially if
| "grain up," leading to a dry surface which is not very
| hospitable to bacterial growth.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Plastic cutting boards are mostly just plain undyed
| polyethylene (HDPE)- which is just a fully saturated perfectly
| straight hydrocarbon, similar to saturated fat or wax and lacks
| the kind of reactive functional groups that make other plastic
| polymers toxic. I think it is quite unlikely that HDPE in
| particular is toxic or endocrine disrupting to humans in the
| way a lot of other plastics seem to be.
|
| It's also basically just a very viscous fluid and I suspect
| would flow into grooves when a knife blade hits it, without
| releasing particles like harder more solid plastics would.
|
| Personally, I try to avoid having most plastics contact my food
| and water, but make an exception for HDPE.
|
| In general, each plastic polymer is very different from another
| chemically, and it makes sense to consider their safety
| independently, and not group all plastics together.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The problem is cutting boards break off little bits of
| plastic with use and your body has evolved zero mechanism for
| disposing of microplastics once they are in your system.
|
| https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2023/10/making-
| meals-... https://phys.org/news/2024-12-microplastics-
| multiple-human-t...
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I've looked a bit, and not been able to find evidence of
| HDPE getting into cells, or exhibiting biological toxicity,
| whereas there seems to be quite a bit of evidence of this
| for almost every other type of plastic. Still, I wouldn't
| blame someone for just avoiding all plastic food contact by
| the precautionary principle.
|
| The first study you linked is interesting- it does seem to
| confirm what I suspected, that HDPE does flow on knife
| impact causing it to release less plastic debris than other
| plastics, but still not zero.
|
| The second one seems to be a fairly low quality review
| article looking at what does sound like a concerning issue,
| but doesn't really consider different types of plastic
| independently. It might be useful in the sense of citing a
| lot of papers in this area that could be looked at
| directly.
| timr wrote:
| > Plastic cutting boards are mostly just plain undyed
| polyethylene (HDPE)- which is just a fully saturated
| perfectly straight hydrocarbon, similar to saturated fat or
| wax and lacks the kind of reactive functional groups that
| make other plastic polymers toxic.
|
| This is all just completely made up -- starting with the
| assertion that "plastic polymers" (whatever those are; you're
| not being specific enough to have a debatable claim) are
| "toxic" in the first place.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Everything I said are basic facts about plastic chemistry
| you can verify yourself, but I can elaborate more if that
| is helpful.
|
| If you'd like a more specific example of what I am talking
| about, take for example Bisphenol A (BPA), one of the
| monomers used in making polycarbonate - which most people
| have heard of, and has now been eliminated from consumer
| products like water bottles (edited per correction from
| reply below). It is chemically similar enough to steroid
| hormones, that it can bind to steroid hormone receptors (in
| particular estrogen receptors), making it a potential
| endocrine disruptor. HDPE does not contain complex
| functional groups that are likely to mimic natural hormones
| and bind to receptors or enzyme active sites in a living
| system.
|
| In general, molecules that contain a lot of aromatic rings,
| or reactive functional groups are more likely to exhibit
| drug like effects or toxicity. Such properties are
| systematically enriched for in chemical libraries used for
| drug discovery, but if trying to avoid unintended
| biological effects, it makes sense to exhibit more caution
| with such molecules.
| BadHumans wrote:
| > take for example Bisphenol A (BPA), one of the monomers
| used in making polycarbonate - which most people have
| heard of, and has now been almost universally eliminated
| from things that contact food and water for human
| consumption.
|
| Why did they find large amounts of BPA in more than a few
| foods they tested if it has been eliminated from food
| manufacturing process?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Good point- what I said is wrong, it was removed from
| consumer goods like water bottles but is still legal and
| used in food manufacturing equipment in the USA. It has
| been banned in the EU from all food contact. I have
| edited my post above to correct this.
| econ wrote:
| You should do as you want ofc but I don't trust anything
| that hasn't been proven toxic.
|
| If they make a fine wine or a quality beer and put it in
| plastic (or something coated with plastic) I can't take
| the company seriously.
|
| Tomatoes are the worse I hear because of their acidity.
| In the store there is a whole wall of canned tomatoes and
| plastic bottles. Non of the more expensive brands use it.
| The Tupperware comes out of the microwave all red? It
| even looks unappetizing.
|
| If you can choose why go with the experiment? I'd pick
| the silverware over the plastic utensils every time.
| neom wrote:
| My mum has been on the plastics thing since as long as I
| can remember (35+ years), we never had plastic in the
| house and if someone gave us something in tupperware mum
| wouldn't let us eat it, ha. Once I questioned her on this
| as I thought it was nuts, she said "plastic can melt,
| stretch, move, if it breaks off or leaks into our food
| it's toxic because it's chemicals, that is why we only
| use glass metal and wood in this house" - I still thought
| she was nuts, toxic plastic? What a load of hippie
| hogwash... I thought...
| timr wrote:
| > Everything I said are basic facts about plastic
| chemistry you can verify yourself, but I can elaborate
| more if that is helpful.
|
| Sure, go ahead. Nobody could verify what you claimed,
| because it was so vague to be undefined. That's the
| point.
|
| You said something vague ("plastic polymers"), then you
| asserted toxicity (which is also a meaningless word --
| nearly everything is toxic _at some dose_ ). As for the
| rest of the comment...I actually do have some training in
| chemistry and I have no idea what you're talking about.
| Just for example:
|
| >> polyethylene (HDPE)- which is just a fully saturated
| perfectly straight hydrocarbon, similar to saturated fat
| or wax
|
| No. Saturated fat is nothing like polyethylene. A fat is
| a triglyceride. A polyethylene molecule is not. You can't
| just wave your hands and say "they both have carbon
| chains" and draw broad conclusions from that.
|
| Similarly, A "wax" can have all of the stuff that I think
| you'd (probably?) characterize as a "reactive functional
| group" -- things like esters, alcohols, and ketones.
|
| > take for example Bisphenol A (BPA), one of the monomers
| used in making polycarbonate
|
| You're trying to overgeneralize from very specific
| examples. Setting aside the evidence (or lack thereof)
| regarding the specific harm of BPA, the difference
| between BPA and even _other kinds of polycarbonates_ is
| so vast as to be a meaningless comparison.
|
| In biochemistry, the stereochemistry of a single bond can
| make orders of magnitude difference in toxicity, even if
| all the other atoms are the same. You can't just go _"
| oh, it has rings/oxygens/whatever, so it must be toxic"_,
| or even _" it looks like a fatty acid, so it must be
| safe"_.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I'm not writing a biochemistry textbook here (although I
| have done so)- the things you are saying are not new
| concepts to me. It is always challenging to be precisely
| correct, while clear enough to have a meaningful
| discussion with people of varying backgrounds.
|
| Everything I said was very simplified, but could be much
| more specific with a lot more details that would be
| inappropriate for a HN comment- however I am happy to
| clarify exactly what I meant if you have more specific
| questions about what I mean. Indeed, each individual
| chemical structure can and should be evaluated for it's
| actual effects, and very small changes in structure can
| make a big difference. The importance of stereochemistry,
| and using biosynthesis to control it precisely is
| something I am very focused on. I stand by the claim that
| it is realistic to generalize that straight chain alkanes
| are well understood and have a lower risk of drug like
| effects than other classes of compounds, and mentioning
| fats and waxes here is an appropriate comparison in this
| specific context of risk assessment from limited
| evidence. Natural waxes - and most living things-
| actually do have a small fraction of saturated "fatty
| hydrocarbon" molecules that are not
| triglycerides/alcohols/etc. [1]. Some will even be
| unbranched alkanes, but with much much shorter chain
| lengths than HDPE. We also have liver enzymes that can
| convert these to alcohols.
|
| I am an academic PI in this field, and much of my labs
| research is focused on discovery and biosynthesis of
| novel small molecule drugs, new plastic polymers
| predicted to have low toxicity, and saturated hydrocarbon
| biofuels. However, it is inappropriate for me to lay out
| a full technical description of exactly what I am
| thinking rather than a high level generalization in a HN
| post- for an audience that has largely never even had an
| organic chemistry course.
|
| When I (or anyone else) is talking about the potential
| toxicity of plastic polymers, there are a lot of
| (hopefully) mutually accepted assumptions: we are talking
| about the real world exposure levels from real world
| regular use of products made from these. If I say
| "plastic polymers" in this context I'm talking about all
| of the common ones that are used in modern times to make
| things that contact food and water as a group- as done in
| the context of the article we are talking about. Doing so
| doesn't in any way conflict with the fact that this is a
| very heterogenous group with very different potential
| risks in different contexts.
|
| Is it possible there is something else you are upset
| about here other than the specifics of what I actually
| said? There seems to be an undercurrent in your replies
| about being very skeptical of the idea that any of the
| widely used plastic polymers are possibly harmful, which
| I suspect is our real area of disagreement- and we would
| need to discuss the actual evidence of that for specific
| molecules with a lot more specifics to actually get
| anywhere. In a lot of cases the evidence is very minimal,
| and vague generalizations about the drug-likeness of
| monomer structures of the kind I am making here is the
| best current evidence one is going to have. One should
| absolutely be aware of how small changes in structure can
| massively alter toxicity, while still making
| generalizations with the evidence we do have about the
| relative probabilities of different biological effects
| from different broad categories of chemical structure.
|
| We must make our decisions with the evidence that exists
| now, even if we don't like how little we have. One can
| and should collect better evidence to make better
| decisions as quickly as it is possible (to get funded to
| do so). If you're offering the funding, many people
| including me are quite prepared to collect better
| evidence starting immediately.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03
| 0881461...
| kleton wrote:
| Silicon dioxide is not chemically toxic. But you can put
| microfiber crystals of it in a mammal's lungs and get tumors
| that grow around them. It is not a huge stretch of the
| imagination from there to hypothesize that nano- and micro-
| particles of a nontoxic polymer could also cause problems.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| True- I don't think they are likely to specifically exhibit
| the drug like toxicity that some other plastics are
| responsible for, but you are right that doesn't rule out
| other potential issues from a small, hydrophobic, physical
| object.
|
| I'm not 100% sure HDPE is safe- and if not it might depend
| on how it is used, but I am less concerned about it than a
| lot of other plastics.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Since plastic vs wood cutting boards is what kicked this
| discussion off, I'd also point out fine wood particles will
| give you lung cancer too
| bilsbie wrote:
| That's a good point. Why do they say water bottles are so
| bad? Can't they use something like hdpe?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| HDPE Nalgenes (branded "Ultralite") are my standard water
| bottle. Unlike the clear plastic sort, they're not see-
| through, nor very heat/impact resistant, but they weigh
| next to nothing. Just don't use 'em as a hot water bottle.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Same here, although they sadly discontinued the narrow
| mouth version.
| dublinben wrote:
| The soft HDPE bottles are actually more heat and impact
| resistant than the rigid clear polycarbonate ones.
| They're the standard recommendation for winter hiking.
|
| https://momgoescamping.com/water-bottles-insulators-
| winter/
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Honestly the water bottles are probably fine as they likely
| don't leach much BPA unless something happens to break the
| polymer apart- like contact with a strong chemical solvent.
| Although BPA is an endocrine disruptor, it is likely that
| normal use of a polycarbonate water bottle is fine. They
| stopped selling them because people got afraid and stopped
| buying them. I still see no reason to use one given the
| uncertainty.
|
| You can get really good HDPE, stainless steel, and glass
| water bottles with a silicon impact cover.
| dehrmann wrote:
| There's an argument that polycarbonate is very well-
| studied and the BPA released is low, while some of the
| alternatives have unknown risks.
| altairprime wrote:
| IIRC it's because plastic cutting boards can be put into a
| sanitizing dishwasher with reliable minimum-effort sanitary
| outcomes, whereas wood cutting boards require more rigorous
| care to remain sanitary and so the US generally bans their use
| rather than allowing rigor as an option. In the US, rigor is
| historically something one can trust food producers to
| sacrifice first in favor of turnaround time, profits, etc. so
| it does make sense that they've just given up and disallowed
| it. For possible exceptions, look into bamboo cookware and/or
| sushi preparation?
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| This makes sense as long as they're replaced on a regular
| schedule, which again is low effort and easy to verify.
| ziofill wrote:
| An argument that I've heard is that wooden boards can get more
| infected with bacterial colonies if not washed and maintained
| properly. I'm not sure how actually true this is though.
| Wertulen wrote:
| Well, for one, they're not. "Apparently" in their post implies
| that they are, but instead signals that they haven't done any
| actual research. For instance, hard wood cutting boards are
| permissible for use in Wisconsin:
| https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/atcp/055/75...
|
| The USDA also recommends wooden cutting boards be used so long
| as they are properly washed and sanitized before and after use:
| https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and...
|
| The main issues with using wood are 1) that generally you don't
| want to put them in a dishwasher, 2) it's trickier to track
| cross-contamination as you might with color-coded boards, and
| 3) they're much more expensive than plastic.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Something this study has me concerned about is that regular
| piping hot cup of coffee served in a plastic cup. I didn't see it
| in the plastic list, bit I'm near certain it's not good for EDC
| and plastic ingestion
| tonymet wrote:
| if I'm paying for coffee at a coffee shop and they don't have a
| ceramic mug, i cancel my order. I'd rather drink wine out of a
| solo cup
| nikolay wrote:
| I'm doing the same - both for health and taste reasons. Can't
| imagine drinking coffee in those waxed-paper cups that
| leaches massively into the coffee - you can even see the wax
| floating on top! I'm not sure how these ever got approved for
| hot liquids!
| tonymet wrote:
| they can't possibly be. One thing I appreciate about
| PlasticList and similar projects is that they are exposing
| how flimsy and preposterous most of our food safety
| protocols actually are.
| idbehold wrote:
| You may be disturbed to find out how much plastic is in
| contact with boiling hot water in your typical automatic drip
| coffee brewer.
|
| I was recently trying to find one without plastic to replace
| the $25 all black plastic one I've had for years. The only
| one I could find without any plastic was one of those all
| metal Bunn ones you see at diners. It was more than $400! And
| even that still required you to purchase a separate all metal
| basket as the one that comes with it was plastic. And that
| coffee maker doesn't really make "good tasting" coffee. Any
| premium "good tasting" drip coffee maker will have plastic,
| and probably black plastic at that.
| tonymet wrote:
| sure , but they are different plastics , with different
| tolerances, levels of quality control, etc
| eabnelson wrote:
| i've recently have been frustrated by the tooling out there to
| identify plastics in consumer products and just released
| https://getplasticfree.com/
|
| think it would be a helpful tool for people interested in this
| topic!
| kbaker wrote:
| hmm, I think some of your ratings might be very misleading. One
| of the ideas behind plasticlist was looking at things like
| plastic packaging leaching into the product itself, which
| wouldn't be in the ingredients list.
|
| For example, you list Fairlife Core Power Chocolate Protein
| Shake as 100/100 but it is on the plasticlist report as
| containing levels of DEHP and DEHT, likely coming from the
| packaging. Not sure what an accurate rating would be, but not
| 100 for sure.
|
| Maybe it works for non-food items better, but for food it might
| be counterproductive.
| eabnelson wrote:
| yep that is a great point! I am taking a generalized approach
| for now and have started to filter out food as a category.
| tonymet wrote:
| We're at an interesting inflection point with plastic recycling,
| where people have generally accepted it's a scam, and the
| environmental contamination with microplastics becomes too big of
| a cost to overcome.
|
| This group is calling for foods companies to test all of their
| inputs. Eventually it is going to point to recycling's plastic
| processing & grinding stage.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-03 23:02 UTC)