4 ms·

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 pla

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.

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.