5 ms·

This seems fundamentally the same as insoluble fiber component of plants/vegetables. Why not just eat a bunch of cellulose/lignin/chitin/other non-starch polysa

by s0rce 5y ago

This seems fundamentally the same as insoluble fiber component of plants/vegetables. Why not just eat a bunch of cellulose/lignin/chitin/other non-starch polysaccharides, seems less likely to have some bad/unexpected side-effect.

mewse-hn 5y ago
Yeah I felt minor horror reading the abstract. Do we really need to reduce caloric density through indigestible plastics when we could just.. you know.. eat plants??
- gumby 5y ago
  Food Engineering (i.e. design and production of factory food, which is most of what's in the grocery store) relies on more flexibility and reliability, plus lower cost, than you can get from ordinary, perishable foods. PTFE is made from petrocarbons, and is easily sourced. Also the fad for "healthy" foods (when healthy isn't really what's wanted) results in abominations like frozen "organic" (and/or "natural") burritos and the like which require even more stabilizers than the "normal" kind. This is why the CEO of Whole Foods famously declared that 90% of what was on the shelves in his stores was garbage. TTTT ignoring its production and disposal,* PTFE is super inert (tightly linked to itself, which is why it makes a good nonstick coating). I once ate some plumber's teflon tape to prove to a colleague that it was inert: it came out the other end intact and white. * but let's not ignore that...I was merely addressing the use in food production in my comment.
  - s0rce 5y ago
    PTFE is not really produced from petrocarbons, at least not directly. Its made by polymerization of tetrafluoroethylene, which appears to be made from chloroform + HF, the former is made from petrocarbons (methane/methanol + HCl/Cl), the latter from minerals. PTFE is quite expensive (compared to most other polymers). I suspect PP or PE could work just fine in this application. I'm just saying that you could simply eat insoluble fiber (from plants or other source) instead of ground up plastics, which will also create a massive source of microplastic pollution and contamination as it comes out the other end. You can easily store insoluble fiber (cellulose/chitin, etc), in vast quantities in dried form without any major issues, I can't imagine ground up PTFE being significantly better in that regard.
    - gumby 5y ago
      > I'm just saying that you could simply eat insoluble fiber We agree, and this is how I eat (factory food: shudder). Just saying this application of PTFE is not bogus IFF you accept modern food production.
- User23 5y ago
  Remember the fiasco that was Olestra?[1] It's an indigestible fat. I had the misfortune of being in a test market and tried some Olestra Doritos and they tasted great. Unfortunately the whole point of Olestra is that it's an indigestible fat. Guess how that works out when it reaches the end of the GI tract. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Seems you are easily horrified by science... Plastics come from oil which used to be plants.
User23 5y ago
Fundamentally I agree with you and have been doing my best to remove 20th century laboratory science experiments from my diet. I mostly don't use Teflon at all and when I do I clean it using hot water jets instead of scrubbing it. That being said, I'm not a chemist, I was just mostly awake during undergrad chem, and I know there are fluorine compounds that are enthusiastic oxidizers[1], but some like Teflon coatings are more or less chemically inert. I assume that's because the oxidization has been taken to the point it's going to go. Is there a fluorine compound that will happily oxidize Teflon? The point of my rambling is can it be conclusively shown in controlled laboratory experiments that these compounds are completely nonreactive with the human digestive tract? [1] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/th...
- s0rce 5y ago
  The manufacturing byproducts are known to be hazardous. Like PFOAs.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    The manufacturing byproducts of vegetables are known to be hazardous (pesticide residue). I'll wager those PFOA are worse, but it's worth saying that if you're gonna manufacture PTFE for human consumption you could possibly clean up the process and get something perfectly clean, even cleaner than vegetables.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - joshuahaglund 5y ago
      This comment makes no sense, it's like you've never heard of organic farming
      - dzhiurgis 5y ago
        It's like you never heard of parasites and bacteria on organic vegetables?

by s0rce 5y ago

mewse-hn 5y ago

Yeah I felt minor horror reading the abstract. Do we really need to reduce caloric density through indigestible plastics when we could just.. you know.. eat plants??

gumby 5y ago
Food Engineering (i.e. design and production of factory food, which is most of what's in the grocery store) relies on more flexibility and reliability, plus lower cost, than you can get from ordinary, perishable foods. PTFE is made from petrocarbons, and is easily sourced. Also the fad for "healthy" foods (when healthy isn't really what's wanted) results in abominations like frozen "organic" (and/or "natural") burritos and the like which require even more stabilizers than the "normal" kind. This is why the CEO of Whole Foods famously declared that 90% of what was on the shelves in his stores was garbage. TTTT ignoring its production and disposal,* PTFE is super inert (tightly linked to itself, which is why it makes a good nonstick coating). I once ate some plumber's teflon tape to prove to a colleague that it was inert: it came out the other end intact and white. * but let's not ignore that...I was merely addressing the use in food production in my comment.
- s0rce 5y ago
  PTFE is not really produced from petrocarbons, at least not directly. Its made by polymerization of tetrafluoroethylene, which appears to be made from chloroform + HF, the former is made from petrocarbons (methane/methanol + HCl/Cl), the latter from minerals. PTFE is quite expensive (compared to most other polymers). I suspect PP or PE could work just fine in this application. I'm just saying that you could simply eat insoluble fiber (from plants or other source) instead of ground up plastics, which will also create a massive source of microplastic pollution and contamination as it comes out the other end. You can easily store insoluble fiber (cellulose/chitin, etc), in vast quantities in dried form without any major issues, I can't imagine ground up PTFE being significantly better in that regard.
  - gumby 5y ago
    > I'm just saying that you could simply eat insoluble fiber We agree, and this is how I eat (factory food: shudder). Just saying this application of PTFE is not bogus IFF you accept modern food production.
User23 5y ago
Remember the fiasco that was Olestra?[1] It's an indigestible fat. I had the misfortune of being in a test market and tried some Olestra Doritos and they tasted great. Unfortunately the whole point of Olestra is that it's an indigestible fat. Guess how that works out when it reaches the end of the GI tract. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Seems you are easily horrified by science... Plastics come from oil which used to be plants.

User23 5y ago

Fundamentally I agree with you and have been doing my best to remove 20th century laboratory science experiments from my diet. I mostly don't use Teflon at all and when I do I clean it using hot water jets instead of scrubbing it. That being said, I'm not a chemist, I was just mostly awake during undergrad chem, and I know there are fluorine compounds that are enthusiastic oxidizers[1], but some like Teflon coatings are more or less chemically inert. I assume that's because the oxidization has been taken to the point it's going to go. Is there a fluorine compound that will happily oxidize Teflon? The point of my rambling is can it be conclusively shown in controlled laboratory experiments that these compounds are completely nonreactive with the human digestive tract? [1] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/th...

s0rce 5y ago
The manufacturing byproducts are known to be hazardous. Like PFOAs.
- medstrom 5y ago
  The manufacturing byproducts of vegetables are known to be hazardous (pesticide residue). I'll wager those PFOA are worse, but it's worth saying that if you're gonna manufacture PTFE for human consumption you could possibly clean up the process and get something perfectly clean, even cleaner than vegetables.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - joshuahaglund 5y ago
    This comment makes no sense, it's like you've never heard of organic farming
    - dzhiurgis 5y ago
      It's like you never heard of parasites and bacteria on organic vegetables?