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My mum when I was a kid in the 90s: we don't store things in plastic, glass or ceramic only Me when I was a kid in the 90s: mum is a f'ing idiot wtf is wrong w
by neom 3y ago
My mum when I was a kid in the 90s: we don't store things in plastic, glass or ceramic only
Me when I was a kid in the 90s: mum is a f'ing idiot wtf is wrong with plastic this hippy shit is dumb
My mum 2020s: so plastic huh?
Me 2020s: ugh.
- Pxtl 3y agoA good set of mason jars is great for lunches, for salads and pastas and the like. They seal better than tupper, they're microwave-safe, they're standardized so you can get replacement lids easily, and they're pretty rugged. I use metal when the kids are too young for glass.
- Msw242 3y agoMetal usually has a plastic coating though, doesn't it?
- clnq 3y agoCoca-Cola cans, and probably many others, have plastic coating with BPA on the inside. But that doesn’t matter much in comparison, because PFAS (corrected) are in the product, allegedly: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/simply-orange-juice-coca-cola-pfas-class-action-lawsuit https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/simply-o...
- Grazester 3y agoI don't think someone trying to be totally healthy is going to be drinking Soda or any of these juices with their ridiculously high sugar content anyway.
- clnq 3y agoTwo things: 1. Lots of drinks come in metal cans with BPA lining on the inside. 2. You can absolutely be reasonably healthy and drink some of these drinks, including the variants that are not sugar-free. I don’t think most people try to be perfectionistically healthy. But I think PFAs are not anywhere closer “reasonably healthy” to consume.
- ifyoubuildit 3y agoIt's kinda like saying people can be reasonably healthy and still smoke some cigarettes. True enough, but if someone is trying to be healthy that's a pretty obvious change to make.
- saiya-jin 3y agoI don't think I ever considered drinking from cans healthy, it is just a desperate move if no better option is present. Same beer tastes significantly worse compared to glass (but if you drink cheapest crap you probably don't notice nor care).
- kijin 3y agoWine would be a better analogy. It contains a large amount of a known carcinogen (alcohol), but plenty of people who try to be healthy don't feel particularly guilty about drinking some wine every now and then.
- ifyoubuildit 3y agoI don't know if it's a better analogy, but I agree that it's a good one. There are tons of things that won't outright kill you on first exposure, but are good candidates for minimizing if you want to improve your health.
- pitaj 3y agoIt's not BPA anymore, but something very similar. Also, PFAS is not the plural of PFA - those are actually different classes of chemicals.
- chrisco255 3y agoBPA is not plastic.
- giantg2 3y agoFood/drink cans do. Reusable storage made from stainless steel usually doesn't.
- isametry 3y agoBy "too young for glass", I'm assuming you mainly hint at weight – which happens to be basically the only, but quite significant downside to glass. The material itself is already about 1.5× to 2× as dense as your average container plastic, plus since you're aiming for at least a decent strength, on top of that the wall thickness will probably be several times larger too.
- cout 3y agoPlain glass jars can break if dropped (or thrown) off the table. If I'm sure a jar is borosilicate then I might consider letting my child drink from it, otherwise it's not worth the risk.
- masfuerte 3y agoI've heard of a very small child being offered a sip from a thin glass and biting a chunk off the rim. Fortunately no harm was done.
- saiya-jin 3y agoThis happened to us on vacation in Italy 2 weeks ago, my almost 2 years old daughter was drinking water from glass wine (since some better restaurants there don't give you any other type of glass regardless of drink). We obviously freaked out and acted immediately, the staff was a bit concerned but it wasn't their child chewing glass shards. Daughter fortunately developed quite a skill or pushing stuff she doesn't like from her mouth using tongue, so she pushed out everything quickly, small cut in her inner mouth, 2 minutes of crying, us running around and that was it, with some evening worries (wife is a doctor but still...). Not recommending this experience, better check what they give to your young ones (say below age of 3) beforehand, or just bring your own unbreakable one, even if (good) plastic.
- derekja 3y agoI had presumed he meant breakage and the shards turning into little knives.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoNot sure it matters since there's plastic in all the food and drinking water anyway. There's no way to avoid ingesting plastic any more. You could maybe reduce it a bit, that's all.
- jjallen 3y agoSo don’t try and minimize it altogether because you’re getting some elsewhere? This isn’t good logic.
- gotoeleven 3y agoIt's important that the titanic's deck chairs be nicely arranged.
- olalonde 3y agoWhen the risk is small enough, it seems rational to ignore it.
- haswell 3y agoThe more we learn, the less reasonable it seems to dismiss the risk as small enough to ignore.
- dekhn 3y agoin many cases it's the opposite: the more we've learned, the more we recognize that the body is able to tolerate small doses of many things in a way where the effects at larger doses don't scale down (IE, the linear no-threshold model is probably wrong in many cases, beyond radiation)
- haswell 3y agoI'm not making claims about a specific harmful threshold, just pointing to the rationality of concern given the ubiquity of plastic and our increasing understanding of its harm. Unless you're saying we understand the specific threshold for plastic and the risk of reaching that threshold can be reasonably extrapolated from typical levels of exposure, I think we're getting at different points.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoIf you can, there are some great borosilicate glass containers out there. I use them for everything. The ones I have seal well enough that I can fill it with soup and stick it in a backpack, ride somewhere and it's fine on the other side. Thick enough to be basically unbreakable, microwavable, dishwasher-safe, etc. Don't need to worry about tomato staining either like on plastic. I've been thrilled with mine.
- jolux 3y agoAren’t the lids typically plastic though?
- Night_Thastus 3y agoYes, but the vast majority of the container being glass still has advantages. For example, whenever heating it, you'd remove the lid and only be heating the glass.
- d1sxeyes 3y agoActually, on at least some of the range, Ikea advertise that the lid can be used as a splash guard in both microwave and conventional ovens (at least on my local Ikea website that's what it says), and has photos of the whole kaboodle in the oven: https://www.ikea.com/hu/hu/images/products/ikea-365-eteltarolo-tetovel-negyzet-al-ueveg-muanyag__0896940_pe695015_s5.jpg?f=xl https://www.ikea.com/hu/hu/images/products/ikea-365-eteltaro...
- giantg2 3y agoYeah. At least the food usually isn't in contact with the lid though.
- bilekas 3y agoI would have assumed (probably incorrectly) that the 'seal' which would come in contact with the glass & liquids would be a type of silicone lid, while it could be considered a type of plastic, if its a good food grade lid, I would imagine it's a bit better ? Ironically though silicone is much harder to recycle though.
- artursapek 3y agobased mum
- bilekas 3y agoSlightly different experience, but my parents were like this always when growing up, it never was an issue but it was just a constant thing that I inherited. Nowadays though I have the extreme where if my food is in plastic I don't feel the food is contaminated (until recently, but for different reasons), but like the plastic is forever smelling of the food and filthy. My gf uses plastic lunchboxes and even reuses plastic bottles and I swear I can smell the things around the appartment. It's gross.
- rektide 3y agoMy dad & his ancient reused plastic waterbottles & container ware. :(
- vsareto 3y agoPurchased drinks taste different in different containers (Coke in plastic vs glass vs aluminum), so I’m on board with food.
- dTal 3y agoCoke in "aluminum" is actually coke in plastic; the cans are lined.
- chrisco255 3y agoNo they're not. It's an epoxy resin, not plastic. It's BPA.
- actionfromafar 3y agoSo, a plastic then? Edit after light scolding by commenter below: BPA is a form of plastic, both in the pedantic sense (it's formed ... plastically... into its product shape) but more importantly in the colloquial sense, "synthetic, plasticky material" and in this general thread "synthetic material with harmful effects on health, probably through hormonal disruption". So, yes, BPA is a resin, it's also a plastic, and it's also probably pretty bad, healthwise.
- nehal3m 3y agoIs it? [0] Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics. Guess it is. Why is it a problem? [1] Researchers have found that BPA exposure is linked to a number of health issues, partly because BPA mimics the structure and function of the hormone estrogen Not to be wagging the finger, but instead of a snarky remark (ending in a question mark, so the reader can't conclude anything from it) a little Googling and posting a correction with the reasoning would be better. [0] https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/index.cfm https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/index... [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/what-is-bpa#basics https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/what-is-bpa#basics
- myth_drannon 3y agoWe threw away all our glass containers because they constantly chip. I'm more afraid of ingesting piece of sharp glass than nanoplastics. I don't know why that keeps happenning, I guess dishwasher's high heat damages the glass or they keep bumping into each other.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoYou would poop the glass though
- arsome 3y agoYeah, generally speaking unless it's a very large shard and cuts your esophagus, once it reaches your stomach, acids will knock the edges off and it'll pass without issue.
- thombat 3y agoGastric acid is basically hydrochloric acid, and rather less concentrated than the standard laboratory bench HCl, which stands peaceably for years in glass flasks. I would be wary of assuming that chemical attack will quickly blunt glass shards.
- lostlogin 3y agoI really doubt stomach acid would do anything to glass. Strong acids are regularly stored in glass.
- XorNot 3y agoHCl will do nothing to glass. It's strong bases that will dissolve glass (a little), and your digestive system doesn't have any.
- myth_drannon 3y agowell the pieces are about 5mm. For sure it will cut mouth, throat or something else.
- ren_engineer 3y agowill be interesting to see if plastic ends up being our modern day equivalent to Rome and their lead pipes
- anlaw 3y agoSounds like leaded gas. Wasn’t banned until 1980s. Our leaders are 80 year old post war shell shocked, Cold War paranoids who huffed leaded gas fumes for decades. Explains quite a lot actually.
- Frost1x 3y agoThere's a delicate balance between adhering to empirical data and paranoia of something. On the one hand, you can point at mountains of data that show for the most part, to our knowledge, many plastics are safe when used appropriately. Specific cases have shown otherwise (e.g. BPA use and hazards in certain plastic manufacturering is a well studied example). Then there's all the cases where we have little evidence it's harmful. Our ignorance of harm doesn't mean there isn't harm though. Transition to paranoia. Everything we don't empirically know is a non-hazard and non-dangerous and should be avoided or leveraged very cautiously. We use materials that have been around for ages like wood and ceramics because we know most the hazards at this point and rely on the maturity to mitigate risk of the unknowns. Somewhere in between we can try to reason about things, but frankly we don't know either way, so either extreme argument (avoid at all costs, use it because it's safe as far as we know) is rational. The Roman's has no reason to think lead was hazardous until it was a bit too late. Marie Curie had no idea she was slowly killing herself. In some places where time isn't critical, we should probably lean towards the paranoia and tread cautiously. In times where time is important and progress should be made we should tread more toward risk taking and accept the unknowns while trying to manage risk as we go. No matter what risk exists. Lead propelled the Roman's in some aspects, then in some perspectives may have been one of their ultimate downfalls.
- dclowd9901 3y agoI keep saying it but it would be phenomenal if glass container recycling became an earnest effort. I’m just not sure we actually have the infrastructure to support such an endeavor. Even something like carting a load of groceries out to your car and loading them up suddenly becomes quite a lift.
- chrisco255 3y agoThat's a good thing, many Americans are in need of a regular workout anyways.
- washadjeffmad 3y agoWe've got sets of Indian brass, Korean steel, and Japanese lacquered wood food containers that we use in addition to ceramics and glass. The glass chips, and once it does we tend to avoid using it for food. Because all of these things last or compound over a lifetime, it's only expensive to be healthful if you wait.
- idiotsecant 3y agoWhat is with putting superfluous place names in front of things? Are you trying to sound fancy? You have steel and wood food containers.
- lostlogin 3y agoThose containers have a shape and style and the place names allow me to visualise what they look like.
- idiotsecant 3y agoNobody else knows what your country of origin status symbol words are supposed to mean, so using them to communicate has one clear motive and it isn't clarity
- cybervaz 3y agonah, you're just being overly reactive about things. You're not contributing to the main topic
- kwhitefoot 3y agoPerhaps no one knows but once it is specified they can at least look them up if they feel inclined.
- ajmurmann 3y agoI didn't know what a Korean steel container looked like, but Google gave me clarity and now I want some.
- balaji1 3y agoWhat are the concerns about the “plastic” carpets in American homes? They are pretty much everywhere. They shed fibers all the time. We’re in contact with it all the time.
- ericd 3y agoYeah, polyester/nylon/polypropylene are everywhere. There are some really good, reasonably priced all wool ones available here: https://hookandloom.com/browse/undyed-natural-wool-rugs/loom-hooked-wool-rugs/ https://hookandloom.com/browse/undyed-natural-wool-rugs/loom... They’re so much nicer than the plastic type, and seem durable so far (the thick flat weave type has been holding up well on our stairs).
- rootusrootus 3y ago> They’re so much nicer than the plastic type Unless you have kids or pets, or live somewhere especially humid, in which case you will regret not getting nylon.
- ericd 3y agoWe live somewhere humid and have very young kids, their playroom is covered with a very big one of those loom hooked ones, it’s awesome for that because it’s so soft. Spills tends to come out of it pretty easily, the wool seems to be at least mildly hydrophobic.
- hinkley 3y agoPolypropylene is probably the least nasty of the bunch. Probably. When the BPA scare came I saw so many people switching to a different kind of plastic instead of stainless steel or glass. I just could not understand what people were thinking.
- m463 3y agocarpets also have PFAS
- posterchild7382 3y agoI think the bigger problem can be that it is present in drinking water. Both bottled and tap water. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9103198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9103198/ Of course it cannot be positive to store food in plastic containers either. But difficult to avoid.