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Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- seltzered_ 2y agoPaper link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653524022173?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... Press release: https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/first-ever-study-finds-cancer-causing-chemicals-in-black-plastic-food-contact-items-sold-in-the-u-s/ https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/first-ever-study-find... Personally, I just got afraid of ever buying takeout sushi, put a label on the black spatula and hope to use it for garage experiments but you do you...
- mitchbob 2y agohttps://archive.ph/2024.10.30-145843/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-plastic-spatula-flame-retardants/680452/ https://archive.ph/2024.10.30-145843/https://www.theatlantic...
- nine_k 2y agoOr a gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-plastic-spatula-flame-retardants/680452/?gift=Exty0c37iBapZfMrmNPU4nkweYEoQNzFWI_sq-z8jTk https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-pla... (@dang, please consider using it as the main link.)
- Tomte 2y agoNot working for me. It loads, but still with paywall.
- Mattwmaster58 2y agointeresting, does work for me
- em-bee 2y agoit works, but it is covered to 90% with a "subscribe now" popup that i can't seem to close. perhaps for your browser size the popup covers the whole screen. reader mode makes it all go away and reveal the article text and pictures
- kylehotchkiss 2y agohttps://www.target.com/p/oxo-silicone-spatula/-/A-80221533 https://www.target.com/p/oxo-silicone-spatula/-/A-80221533 Here you go. Replace it with this one.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoThat's not the kind of spatula they're talking about, I've rarely seen that kind be black. I'm pretty sure they mean the flat offset kind you'd use to flip eggs or pancakes.
- cassianoleal 2y agoWhy would GP suggest that spatula if it was the one they're saying is bad in the article?
- fsckboy 2y agoin english in america, can't speak for other lanuguage/locales and too lazy to look, the word spatula is used for two different tools: one tool is for scraping food (generally solid) inside a hot frying pan the other tool is for scraping foods (generally liquidy generally cold) from the sides of a bowl or other container. in the first case you want to flip your pancake and it's sticking to the pan in the second case you want to get all of the pancake batter to pour into the frying pan. The picture is the article is of a hot frying pan black plastic scraper. GP's picture is a silicone cold bowl scraper. is the disconnect it is potentially true that you should eliminate all such spatulas made of "plastic" hot or cold, and it is potentially true that in all cases substitutions with silicone is the right move, but I'm not sure if that's what is being suggested
- cassianoleal 2y agoGot it, thanks for the explanation!
- BrandoElFollito 2y agoWe have the same word for both in France, like you. However we have an extra word for the silcon one to get all the pancake batter: marise. It is not used very much, though, outside of some cooking books or shows.
- ninininino 2y agoJust cook with stainless steel, it's not that hard. Add and warm fat before adding your other ingredients to prevent sticking or if you don't want additional fat, then add liquid to reduce at the end (the same way you do a wine reduction you can just use a bit of water) if your food sticks and you need to scrape it off the bottom.
- bilsbie 2y agoI want to but my eggs stick like crazy. I’ve even tried all the tips too like oil when droplets float, etc.
- ninininino 2y agoTips: 1) use more oil 2) get the oil to the right temp 3) try cooking the egg at a lower temp 4) stir the egg more while cooking 5) don't overcook
- chomp 2y agoCast iron? My eggs slide around great every time, and I scrub it with Dawn and a sponge after every cook (it is a myth that you cannot do this)
- CodeWriter23 2y agoIJS no harm comes from isolating hot food from plastics altogether.
- erie 2y ago'Researchers from Harvard Chan School found that three types of flame retardants, called TDCIPP, TPHP, and mono-ITP, can have a major impact on pregnancies. The study followed 211 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), and found that 80% of them showed evidence of the chemicals in their urine. Women with the highest levels of exposure fared the worst, with a wide range of effects:10% lower chance of a successful fertilization31% lower chance of the embryo implanting in the uterus41% fewer clinical pregnancies (where fetal heartbeat is confirmed by ultrasound)38% fewer live births https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/flame-retardants/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/flame-retard...
- scohesc 2y agoThere's a bottom of the barrel, dollar store brand under the Betty Crocker name brand in Canada - all black plastic cooking utensils, cheapest you can get in all varieties. Every time I go over to mom's place it's so shocking to see these utensils being used for high heat applications they were never meant to be used for. Flipping burgers in a pan, moving fries on a baking sheet - the ends of them are all warped and disfigured, bits carved out of them from scraping something and a piece of plastic chips off and ends up in the food. Same with the pots and pans, she's been using the same teflon coated set for the better part of a decade and to her it doesn't matter that there's a spiral from the stovetop element burned into the inside of the pot where the teflon's overheated and chipped off. I've tried buying her new pots and pans, utentils, etc. and educating her about how much plastic and teflon she has (and by extension I have) been eating over the years but it's in one ear and out the other. We really need to stop making plastic cooking utentils. I've moved mostly to glass or metal bowls for storing, microwaving, baking foods - silicone for utensils (which I've heard is still somewhat risky even though it's inert?) Microplastics are the leaded gasoline of my generation it seems like.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>Every time I go over to mom's place it's so shocking to see these utensils being used for high heat applications they were never meant to be used for. >educating her about how much plastic and teflon she has (and by extension I have) been eating over the years but it's in one ear and out the other. I have much the same problem, though luckily I haven't lived with her for ages. According to her, eating plastic and teflon isn't a problem because she's so old that it's not going to make a difference.
- idiotsecant 2y agoIs she wrong?
- shiroiushi 2y agoWell she's been saying this for at least 10 years now I think, so she's lived longer than she expected to. She also has guests and visitors, so even if she doesn't care about ingesting microplastics herself, she should worry more about them I should think.
- sshine 2y agoWhat about black rubber spatulas?
- pipeline_peak 2y agoAnyone know if I should ditch this thing before thanksgiving? Oxo makes great stuff, this is food grade plastic but who knows what that’ll really mean in 50 years… https://a.co/d/3IND56X https://a.co/d/3IND56X
- dole 2y agoALL my black plastic utensils are OXO and I'll be damned if I'm throwing them all out. They'll have to pry them from my room temperature dead carcinogenic fingers.
- ggggggreat 2y agoBarista: you want a lid? Me: what color is it?
- DoingIsLearning 2y agoFYI most coffee cups which appear to be paper are also plastic lined. The real solution is sunsetting single-use anything for any other applications outside bio labs or medical procedures. But $$$
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoIt will solve itself, nature adapts fast, if you have enough dice throws- and plastic is everywhere. A million evolutionary dices roll everywhere out there- and one day all the plastics get a mold and that building block of civilization just drips away.
- latexr 2y ago> It will solve itself, nature adapts fast Indeed. The first step is for the planet to get rid of the pesky pollutants, perhaps by way of launching several “natural disasters” such as mighty strong winds, excessive floods, and particularly pesky deathly organisms. Then it can deal with plastic at its leisure. https://youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c https://youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
- hhdhdbdb 2y ago[flagged]
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThat's what happened at my workplace, we now have plastic screw-closed cups with silicon seals that stain easily. Blue though, not black.
- khafra 2y ago> The real solution is sunsetting single-use anything...but $$$ Those $$$ correspond to real-world costs. For examplee, we also want to lower car usage. Do you imagine that people who commute by bicycle or train are going to carry around durable versions of every single-use item they currently encounter? Cups, straws, plates, utensils, napkins, takeout containers, grocery bags, produce bags, tissues? Carrying around dirty versions of all the above until they get home to clean them? Even if they do, detergent is also single-use, and damaging to aquatic environments. I'm not some kind of hyperlibertarian, but I think we need to properly tax externalities (such as poisoning customers and destroying the viability of the biosphere), use the proceeds of that for mitigation, and let the market take care of the rest.
- onnnon 2y agoA lot of coffee makers run hot water over black plastics too.
- jowdones 2y ago[dead]
- extraduder_ire 2y agoMy read of this article is that the main problem comes from black plastic that claims to be made of recycled material being contaminated.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kylebenzle 2y ago[flagged]
- exmadscientist 2y agoThe article is nonsense. Only engineering plastics carry UL94 ratings (and if it's got flame retardants in it, it's got a UL94 rating... otherwise no one would go to the expense!) and there are just not a lot of engineering plastics in the waste stream compared to consumer single-use plastics.
- nine_k 2y agoThe point is that these plastics with flame retardants would go to recycling, and would eventually find their way into cooking utensils made of recycled plastics. Nobody adds the flame retardant there intentionally, but nobody removes the flame retardants from the recycled mass either, at least not in places where plastic recycling is normally done (not the richest countries). Frankly, the idea of using recycled plastic with no control for its origin for cooking utensils looks weird to me. OTOH it should look like a great opportunity to cut costs, and shoppers very often try to save that last cent as a matter of principle and sport, so... Coffee machines from reputable makers should be safe, I think.
- tmnvix 2y ago...and take the opportunity to ditch the teflon pans while you're at it. They're toxic. https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluoroethylene-poisoning-in-birds https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluor...
- positr0n 2y ago> They're toxic * When heated to high temperatures Below 450F or so they don't react with anything. PTFE won't react with your egg you're frying, or the inside of your knee. (PTFE is used in surgical implants, among other things that can safely go inside your body)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cies 2y agoWhen you scratch them, and bits PTFE come loose, and you eat those bits, will they simply bee excreted, or will your body absorb (some of) it and never excrete it?
- GrantMoyer 2y agoMany medical implants are made of PTFE because of how inert it is.
- positr0n 2y agoIt'll slide through your intestines smoother than basically anything else you could possibly swallow :-)
- ars 2y agoThis myth needs to die. Teflon is only an issue at temperatures you're just not going to encounter in a kitchen. And if you did encounter such temperature, and you had oil on the pan - well you've poisoned yourself more than the Teflon would!
- andrewstuart 2y agoI threw out all my pots and pans that have non stick surfaces and replaced them with stainless steel. Same with most kitchen cooking implements. Stainless steel pots and pans are much cheaper, last longer, you can scrub and scrape them and the big upside is you don’t have to consume DuPont non stick chemical coating nor feed it to your children. Despite all the celebrity chefs in the world attempting to sell you their name brand chemical coated fry pans.
- tylerflick 2y agoI did the same. I still use cast iron and ceramic though.
- esperent 2y agoI have, very regretfully, stopped using cast iron. Being a man, in a country where I can't easily donate blood, iron load is something that I want to be careful of. It is possible to cook with cast iron in a way that won't leech too much iron into food, just as it is possible to cook with nonstick in a way that won't leech Dupont chemicals. But I'd much rather just use foolproof stainless or ceramic cookware that doesn't have these issues.
- alexey-salmin 2y agoSorry, I can't understand the idea, why iron is bad and what does it have to do with blood donations? I mean I know iron and blood are related but this particular statement just won't compute
- nine_k 2y agoToo much of anything is bad. A quart of table salt would kill you. A bucket of water force-fed into you could kill you. Hemoglobin in blood contains a lot of iron; it's used to bind oxygen. Too much iron intake apparently can result in its overproduction, and too much is no good. Donating blood rids you of excess iron, while also benefiting other people. I suppose you should first check if your levels of iron are indeed excessive.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- kazinator 2y agoHow about, don't fry with any color plastic spatulas.
- shiroiushi 2y agoThe main problem here is that many people use non-stick cookware, and metal spatulas will scratch them up badly. Plastic or rubber spatulas don't do that. Of course, you can say that they shouldn't use non-stick cookware, but they are, so...
- kazinator 2y agoI have a Japanese electric fry pan, non-stick. I use a bamboo spatula for it. It was not originally intended for the purpose, but I took a rasp and file to it to give it a sharp edge. I usually don't need the spatula. I flip things with chopsticks. I mean that's why you use a non-stick pan! If you have to peel the food off it with a spatula, what good is the non-stick surface? I mostly use the bamboo spatula for lifting things that are delicate, like sunny side up eggs.
- anon291 2y agoI honestly cannot understand the appeal of non stick. Cast iron is so much simpler and the food comes out better. And the pans are indestructible and cleaning is so much easier (just wipe usually). I have three cast iron pans with which I cook for large numbers of people regularly and I'm flabbergasted when I visit other people's homes and find endless stacks of speciality pans. What are people possibly using these for?
- mattdesl 2y agoI love my cast iron, but usually choose a nonstick for eggs and crepes/pancakes in the morning. - I tend to re-season my cast iron every time I use it and it’s a chore to do this for my early morning meals. - Non-stick is just more non-stick, with cast iron I am constrained to using a certain heat and/or fat content to create the non-stick property which I might not want for a certain dish.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- exmadscientist 2y agoThe correlation-causation in this article is really rather screwed up. The way it really works for plastic is this: almost all bad plastic is black, but not all black plastic is bad. That's it. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with virgin black plastics. (Well, at least, nothing more than is wrong with plastics in general.) So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources. The trouble comes in when plastics get recycled. There may be sourcing issues for black resins, but the root of the matter is this: black plastics are typically pigmented with carbon black. Carbon black as a pigment is cheap, safe, and very effective. That's good! But that also means that when you throw together a pile of recycled sludge mix and it comes out beige, greige, or worse, you can't sell that (who would buy greige resin?? wait, don't answer that)... so you color it, cheaply... which means carbon black. So almost all random crappy recycled plastic resin ends up black. That's the real problem with black plastic.
- nine_k 2y agoThis is correct. Sadly, this is also unhelpful. As long as you can't guarantee that the cooking utensil is from newly-made and clean black plastic from a reputable source, there is still risk. Think about a random convenience store item. OTOH e.g. a green or red utensil is free from that particular risk (unless a new investigation finds something for these types). That is, a reputable source, e.g. an established cookware company, may proclaim that their existing black plastics are fine, safe for cookware, and have been tested. But a smart move for them would be to stop using black plastics for cookware, because a customer will just remember one highly reductionist association: "cookware + black plastic = poison". It's not always true, but it may sometimes be true, and that's enough. Even if the particular research will be found lacking by new investigations and reproduction attempts, a lot of people will still remember this association for years, due to its shock value, simplicity, and trust to The Atlantic (which is generally a really good resource).
- dmichulke 2y ago> because a customer will just remember one highly reductionist association: "cookware + black plastic = poison". It's not always true, but it may sometimes be true, and that's enough. This and the fact that it's a high risk / low reward scenario. There's no reason to not forgo black plastic now
- andy_ppp 2y agoOh dear my kettle is made from black plastic…
- arnejenssen 2y agoDoes it count if the black plastic part is not in contact with the water/food? The inside of my kettle is stainless steel, but the lid is black plastic (not directly in contact with water)
- andy_ppp 2y agoPlastic inside and out…
- pbmonster 2y agoIn your case, the lid of the kettle is effectively in contact with the water. It sits exposed to hot steam, the steam condenses at the lid, and drops fall back into the water you're boiling. Since the article repeatedly made a point to talk about cooking spatulas and hot oil, our only hope is that those flame retardants don't dissolve well in water - but dissolve very well in oil. But if they do dissolve in water, it's safe to assume you're boiling them out of your kettle lid every time that thing runs.
- cchi_co 2y agoAwareness is the first step
- andy_ppp 2y agoMy induction hob is pretty fast anyway. What are the morals of gifting it to the charity shop?
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agoIf you're speaking of an electric water kettle, my advice is throw it out. At least where I live (Germany) you can buy good quality electric water kettles with seamless stainless steel container for well under €50,— (I bought mine a quarter of a century ago for €25,—), so there's very little incentive to save money. I once had an impossibly cheap water kettle with open heating coils. That thing not only smelled of plastics but the water was ruined, too. Add to that that open heating coils have a reputation of shedding nickel into the water. Just say no.
- MengerSponge 2y agoMy Aeropress filter cap is the only remaining black plastic in my kitchen. The Aeropress is pretty much the only plastic that remains in my kitchen. I'd pay good money for a replacement cap made out of white nylon, PMMA, PEEK, etc.
- amiantos 2y agoThey make a glass aeropress that comes with a stainless steel cap now.
- keane 2y agoWow, had no idea. $150 / ships in February. I hate that I might grab it at that price. https://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-coffee-maker-premium https://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-coffee-maker-premiu...
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoWhat's wrong with the Tritan one instead?
- MengerSponge 2y agoTritan is still plastic. It's BPA free, but there are lots of other estrogenic compounds in the world.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoWhat issues does Tritan have? Tritan is used in the medical industry for passing blood and other fluids safely without contamination. HN seems to have huge unfounded FUD around anything plastic related even when there's no scientific evidence.
- MengerSponge 2y agoTritan uses TPP, which may be as bad as BPA? Toxicological evidence takes a long time to acquire. By it's very nature it's a lagging indicator. Remember when everybody freaked out about BPAs? That's because good studies showed the accumulation of those compounds in the body, and the potential health issues it could drive. And what about now that we have all these BPA free plastics? Most of them have replaced the BPA with other compounds. They haven't been studied, so there isn't evidence against them. But the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Finally: what, in their long and storied history, has led you to believe that 3M, DuPont, or Eastman are acting in the best interest of your health? Because their incentive structure favors wealth creation, not population health.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoDoes silicone rubber count as plastic? I think we need a more precisely defined villain here.
- SapporoChris 2y agoAccording to https://www.greenmatters.com/p/is-silicone-recyclable https://www.greenmatters.com/p/is-silicone-recyclable I wouldn't worry about it. If it's recycled, doesn't appear to be recycled into cooking utensils.
- adrian_b 2y agoSilicone rubber itself is much more inert than carbon-based polymers, but it could always contain undesirable additives. Hopefully such additives would not be used in food-contact products and silicone does not need at all some of the additives frequently used in plastic products, like flame retardants. This said, the parent article recommends silicone utensils among the safer alternatives.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIt was called out at the end of the article as an alternative to black plastic, so I think it is fine?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoNo - silicone isn't a plastic and is much better for food preparation.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoOk, but why? It's a synthetic molded polymer, so I think it fits all the definitions that I can find. Are we saying that plastics are bad and then redefining "plastic" as the subset of the previous classification which are bad? That's the kind of language trickery that duped us into making utensils out of an industrial waste product in the first place. If we're going to protect future generations from whatever harm comes after plastic we're going to need to stop being so vage.
- cchi_co 2y ago[dead]
- metalman 2y agofriend then later girlfriend got sick,bad. Before that she was jammin along through life,A listed and having lunch with our now PM,dustin? bustin? anyway she was sick and I put it upon myself to do what I could,she was in a bad way,couch bound,out of breath when walking,bad.So I started researching everything she was eating and drinking and bieng medicated with, and researched all of the indivual ingrediants and "additives", hundreds of substences, and of all of those additives and substances,not one was written up anywhere,ever as HEY WOW THIS STUFFF is so great,the best thing for humanity.....no it was all dry ,often void of any actual descriptive reason for bieng in food. So we got rid of all that,and started eating food and her change in health for the better was dramatic. Along side the additive free diet,a plastic ban was implimented,*nonplastic touches humans internaly or externaly,as long as a.viable alternative exists(feed packaging which is removed) The reversal of symptoms was dramatic.This was an A list'r with very extensive medical access,and she was planning her own palitive care when I interviened with my simple method,of removing things where there can be no (health/physiological) down side.It was a huge effort to research the bad and inexplicable additives and find viable implimentable alternatives,ongoing. But there is no write up/study anywhere that lauds the benifits of plastic touching humans food or bodys.Its all bad, or they would brag.Simple as that.
- lostlogin 2y ago> when I interviened with my simple method,of removing things where there can be no (health/physiological) down side. Removing spaces after punctuation has the physiological downside of making my eye twitch.
- metalman 2y agoah do pologize fer that, havin as were my own twitch inducing triggers, hate to think of doing that to someone else
- altacc 2y agoThis article is brief and uses big numbers to make a scary point but I'd be interested in if there is proof of causation of significant physiological effects at the exposure level from domestic cooking. Often media will say "people exposed to Y have increased Z" but fail to mention that in studies those people worked in industrial settings with Y and the exposure level is hundreds or thousands of times higher than in a consumer setting.
- cogman10 2y agoThe difficulty here is that the diseases happen years or decades after the exposer, sometimes. The industrial setting offers the hints that there might be a problem but, as you rightly point out, also might just be a case of too much exposure. An example of this is radiation exposure, it took an embarrassingly long time for society to link radiation to cancer, and that was a somewhat obvious link. Radioactive beverages were literally marketed as health beverages because of their radium content.
- lupusreal 2y agoYou can still find radioactive trinkets being sold for their alleged health effects. Thorium in pendants and that sort of shit. They don't disclose their radioactive nature but they market with some new age woo like "emits vitalizing energy waves using crystal technology." Most of it comes from China, presumably from people who see waste byproducts of rare earth metal processing as a business opportunity.
- MrSkelter 2y agoThe precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.
- michaelt 2y agoIn my country we have some ridiculous newspapers that will publish any story with "may cause cancer" in the headline. So for a lot of people these stories are a boy-who-cried-wolf situation. Precautionary principle? I'm sorry to say stainless steel may leech heavy metals into food during cooking [1] And also silicone may leech potentially harmful chemicals into food [2] Nonstick coatings? Teflon flu "could be a real concern" [3] Wooden spoons are porous and can crack, making them a breeding ground for germs, and they can splinter [4] - and good luck finding a wooden spatula that doesn't suck. So personally I don't think it's churlish to take these warnings with a grain of salt. Especially for rarely-used pieces of cookware. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284091/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284091/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19680914/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19680914/ [3] https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/teflon-flu-risks-safety-tips-and-nonstick-alternatives-for-cooking/ https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/teflon-flu-r... [4] https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1941959/replace-five-kitchen-tools-immediately-health-hazards-expert-advises https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1941959/replace-...
- amanda99 2y agoI thought this was going to be about clean cooking fuels. One of the significant projects of the WHO is transitioning the world towards cooking with clean fuels that reduce indoor air pollution. In the worst case certain populations are burning plastics to heat their water, food, and homes, and as you can imagine this is incredibly destructive to health.
- user3939382 2y agoWe also need trash collection, otherwise people are forced to burn plastic to get rid of their trash. The whole city of Kinshasa is nauseating due to this.
- ahoka 2y agoEven in developed countries like the US a lot of people burn fossil fuels for indoor cooking, even when they could choose a better alternative.
- bluGill 2y agoWhat better option? resistance electric is clearly worse in other ways. I've heard induction is good but it is an expensive luxury option and not common even in that niche. i've heard it is reasonable priced in other countries but not the us.
- everdrive 2y agoIt's a tale as old as time: "I don't want to poison myself, but I also cannot bear a minor inconvenience." This is honestly one of the main reasons I believe that environmentalism will never meaningfully succeed.
- bluGill 2y agoThere are many options to make environmentalism also the better choice. My electric is 104% from wind last year (which is to say for every 100kwh my entire city used last year, my utility claims they generated 104kwh from wind - I don't know what they did when the wind wasn't blowing or what happened to that other 4kwh) Cooks tell me induction is better, but there are enough roadblocks that shouldn't exist such that I can't try it. My real rant though is there is no reason why induction should be an expesnive niche. There is no reason I should pay extra for features that don't cost extra.
- cianmm 2y agoI went through my drawers and I have a bunch of black nylon Joseph Joseph spatulas and fish slices and things [1]. ChatGPT tells me that nylon is not frequently recycled because it's tough to do so - so I'm hoping that these are safe. They also say: > All of our food contact products comply with EU regulations which states that materials do not release their constituents into food at levels harmful to human health. [2] and they aren't some no-name brand that wouldn't suffer from lying about that. [1] https://www.josephjoseph.com/products/elevate-carousel-utensil-set-with-tongs-grey https://www.josephjoseph.com/products/elevate-carousel-utens... [2] https://us.josephjoseph.com/pages/faq?search=recycle https://us.josephjoseph.com/pages/faq?search=recycle
- whoitwas 2y agoAfter I learned about the harmful effects of Teflon, I became much more cautious about consumption. It's nearly impossible to avoid the toxins when eating out because wax has been replaced with synthetics that leach into food from packaging. Just use metal wood or glass. One thing I'm not aware of is if Pyrex or the other tempered glasses are safe or if they also contain plastic. That would be good to learn.
- burnt-resistor 2y agoModern Pyrex is ordinary glass, mostly, and sometimes strengthened glass. Old Pyrex was borosilicate glass.
- moolcool 2y agoPyrex the brand switched to soda lime glass in North America, but you can still find borosilicate glass kitchenware from different vendors.
- quesera 2y ago> Modern Pyrex ... Old Pyrex Most conveniently differentiated by the branding on the product. All caps "PYREX" is the classic (high quality) borosilicate stuff. Titlecased "Pyrex" is the modern ordinary glass stuff.
- methyl 2y agoFrom what I know, Teflon is neutral as long as you don't overheat it and breathe in the gas. Can you point some sources stating otherwise?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoTeflon itself is not the issue (unless it goes over about 260°C), but the PFAs which should have been phased out of modern non-stick coatings. The problem is if the surface is scratched from using metal utensils or scourers as this can cause PFAs to leach into the food. https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/you-cant-always-trust-claims-on-non-toxic-cookware-a4849321487/ https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/y...
- andai 2y agoWhen I was a kid everyone told me never to burn plastic, because it produces tons of hazardous chemicals.
- riskable 2y agoAs far as I know, burning a clear PET water bottle is harmless as it only releases carbon dioxide (and water vapor). PET is the opposite of flame-retardant, BTW. Light the top of a clear PET water bottle and it'll often burn like a candle (though much faster).
- andai 2y agoBit more than that. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00268970802077876 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/002689708020778...
- regularfry 2y agoIt strongly depends on which plastic. PVC is the really nasty one.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoAnother thing to think about is the pigment used is often "carbon black" instead or in addition to some of the other colorful powders that are opaque enough to provide a full pallette, when starting from virgin white or clear polymer pellets. Similar to its use in car tires, carbon black can impart strengthening and durability properties to the final product that other pigments do not exactly match. Now if the final product is always going to be black anyway, then you wouldn't really need to start with clean virgin plastic, you could actually use some pretty ugly stuff and cover up unsightliness or inconsistency better in black. Well the carbon black is made from a "special" oil scientifically known as CBO. I know the chemical jargon can be confusing most of the time so just take my word for it that the "full chemical name" is Carbon Black Oil. Unintuitive nomenclature, but aren't they all ;) CBO is from some real dregs of petroleum refining, it is raw material that is going to be coked further and it does not need to pass the kind of testing that is required for black fuel oils. Shady operators have targeted these heavy black oil stocks as diluents for their non-refinery chemical byproducts that would otherwise end up as "chemical waste" in some cases. In the heavy oil lab where people are checking things like viscosity or flash point, you need good ventilation all the time everywhere and never turn off the hoods. It has to be below acceptable levels without a respirator when an H2S-bearing crude is being handled. You still smell it because H2S is just that rough, but at least it doesn't linger and it's not enough to give you a headache. Tolerable now, not like it was decades ago before they started certifying fume hoods. CBO doesn't have any H2S but it is never tolerable. It bears quite a variety of disagreeable notes that do not resemble any characteristic form of crude or refined petroleum, and it is often described as "weird smelling" by experienced oil chemists. The variety is amazing and hard not to notice, some batches are just so different and others so repulsive. This is when the most sensitive people reach for their respirators, even though they are just fine handling pure benzene without, because the ventilation really is that good. Bon appetit !
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoCarbon black can also be produced from vegetable matter and is labelled as E153 in the EU for colouring food. It would appear that it's the PAH content of petroleum derived carbon black that is the carcinogenic component https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/2592 https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/2592
- lazylizard 2y agoim lost. whats a plastic? silicone is not plastic? why specifically black plastic? which black pigment? all black plastics use the same pigment?which plastic? is black silicone ok? how about rubber? other colors with same flame retardant is ok? or somehow only black (all plastics?) use 1 particular flame retardant? its strangely specific yet strangely vague?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoSilicone is a rubber, not a plastic and black silicone should be fine.
- lazylizard 2y agoso black silicones and rubber don't use the same pigment or flame retardant? or they don't leach out?
- agos 2y agoI'll add one: is nylon plastic?
- lazylizard 2y agoits clearly a plastic? polyamide?
- lazylizard 2y agook this is far more informative n coherent https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653524022173?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... "This study sought to determine whether black plastic household products sold on the U.S. market contained emerging and phased-out FRs and whether polymer type was predictive of contamination." and they do say its mostly abs, followed by hips , then pp; and do not say anything about other colors and other materials, plastic or not.
- lazylizard 2y ago
- chis 2y agoMaybe the most interesting takeaway from this article is that black plastic is dirtier than other colors because it’s easier to use recycled materials if you don’t care about color. Very good to know.
- crazygringo 2y agoI really wish OXO would put out a statement here. A lot of people use it's black plastic tools like this one [1] -- like a lot of brands, OXO calls its black plastic tools "nylon" to differentiate from "silicone" -- and it would be really, really good to know if OXO has always rigorously made sure never to use recycled plastics, or if testing shows that its own products contain flame retardants. In other words, when you pay premium prices for stuff like OXO as opposed to a dollar-store black plastic spatula, are you getting premium quality that avoids the kind of contamination described in the article? Or are the premium prices just going to the design and marketing, but not to the manufacturing? [1] https://www.oxo.com/shop/kitchenware/utensils/sets-holders-accessories/nylon-flexible-turner-black.html https://www.oxo.com/shop/kitchenware/utensils/sets-holders-a...
- SoftTalker 2y agoJust don't use plastic for cooking.
- spacemark 2y agoMetal spatulas aren't an option for most, either, as they scratch pans. So what's the suggested realistic alternative? Wood? Edit: wasn't trying to be snarky or anything. Honestly concerned for my family's health and trying to figure out the best path. Wood spatulas it is. Replacing all our PTFE pans with much more expensive cast iron pans isn't an option for our budget right now. Plus I haven't seen convincing scientific evidence that PTFE is as harmful as people here seem to imply. My understanding could be outdated though.
- bpodgursky 2y agoThey only scratch nonstick pans. Just use stainless steel, it's not that hard to clean.
- ebiester 2y agoIt's not about cleaning. It's about the increased amount of oil needed to prevent delicate foods like eggs and fish from sticking. That adds cost and calories.
- denvaar 2y agoI would like to know if the plastic used in my Moccamaster is subject to these hazards. I bought it specifically because they claim to use food-grade quality plastic that is supposed to be safe.
- asow92 2y agoJust checked my Moccamaster and it says that it uses PET 7 plastic, which supposedly designates "other" resin. Not sure what that means if anything for food safety.
- losvedir 2y agoI just went through a whole thing trying to get rid of plastic from my coffee setup, since I make coffee almost every day (sometimes twice). I couldn't find any plastic-free drip coffee makers, other than maybe the Ratio 8. In the end, I settled for a Chemex and doing pour over, which I've actually really enjoyed. So I recommend that if the plastics are giving you pause, although I can imagine giving up your Moccamaster is a hard sell! How do you like it, by the way?
- denvaar 2y agoYeah, I probably should just get good at pour-over. The Moccamaster is great, but I have a pretty low bar coming from a MrCoffee.
- newZWhoDis 2y agoMy problem with a pour over is how agonizingly slow it is, and it requires 3-4 refill interactions to actually make a decent “pot” of coffee even with the largest chemex they sell. I timed it once and I can literally get in the car and drive somewhere and get home with a 32oz coffee faster than my chemex can produce the same amount. I’d pay $3k or more for a coffee maker that 1) had water line hookup capability, or at least a large glass reservoir 2) integrated conical grinder 3) all stainless/glass internals/zero plastic 4) timer functionality I want to wake up and get ready finding a perfect pot of coffee on my schedule, with the only manual work being to remove the previous grounds each day and periodic maintenance. AFAIK no one makes this.
- toss1 2y agoI saw this report and the first place I thought of a LOT of black plastic being in contract with hot food preparation is coffee-makers - I recall seeing zero plastic filter-holders and pot lids that are not black plastic, and every drip of coffee goes through the black plastic filter funnel and lid, then across the black plastic carafe rim. IDK if these are part of the problem, but if so, that is a LOT of goods to replace. Anyone have any details on the type of plastic used in these coffee pots and if it is part of the problem set?
- quotemstr 2y agoOur society is the richest and most productive one ever to exist on planet Earth. We're at the cusp of another order of magnitude increase in both metrics. We can afford to take the slight efficiency of not using dubious chemicals to store and prepare our food. Bring back glass, wood, and untreated metal. No more cheap plastic microwavable crap. In the scheme of things, the incremental cost increase won't matter, and such a shift would at least give us peace of mind --- and maybe even improve our health.
- dfxm12 2y agoFrom gidmkhealthnerd, a scientific fact-checker: Counterpoint: this seems to be the crusade of a single researcher - I don't find the data personally convincing and am still using my black spatula for cooking. https://www.threads.net/@gidmkhealthnerd/post/DBxbQERykRx?hl=en https://www.threads.net/@gidmkhealthnerd/post/DBxbQERykRx?hl...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snowwrestler 2y agoIt’s kind of funny to watch the following conversations both recur regularly here on HN: - The replication crisis means most science is bad and we should be extremely skeptical of scientific consensus. - This one single scientific paper changes everything and you are negligent if you don’t immediately change your life based on it.
- wnevets 2y ago> This one single scientific paper changes everything and you are negligent if you don’t immediately change your life based on it but it confirms my current bias so it must be true!
- 6510 2y agoThat is not how it works. You should ask if being for or against is more socially accepted. If everyone cooks in teflon it must be double plus good for your health.
- potato3732842 2y agoSurely by "everyone" you mean "demographics I identify with".
- timeon 2y agoIt would be funny if it was done by same people but are we sure it is the case? Is 'HN' homogeneous crowd?
- rc_mob 2y agopoop i use a black plastic as my primary spatula
- cynicalsecurity 2y agoWho uses a black plastic spatula when you can use a wooden one?
- vesche 2y agoI imagine most of us here likely follow well-known conventional kitchen wisdom: don’t use metal utensils on non-stick pans, wash your hands after handling raw meat, etc. And I suppose I can add, generally avoid black plastic kitchen gear to my list. However, how much does it even matter at this point? Does the kitchen of the restaurant I’m eating at care about that? Am I still going to drink 2 whiskeys tonight? Anyone got any tiny individually wrapped shitty Halloween candy? How do those synthetic made-in-x-country gym clothes feel against your skin? Wanna have a cigar? Are you breathing recycled air during an airline flight? When was the last time you stretched your legs? When’s the next time you’ll drink a plastic bottle of water? Got a k-cup? What’s the inner workings of that coffee machine do with the near boiling hot water? When was the last time it was cleaned? What chemical was used on your toilet that your buttcheeks are now sitting on? Want some bacon? How bout a hot dog? Been outside recently without sun screen? So many things are actively killing us or giving us cancer. I’ll try to remember the black plastic thing, but I honestly think I just might forget and continue living in my blip of existence.
- regularfry 2y agoThe difference for me is that this can easily be something I'm using every day, so it's believable that there might be a cumulative effect. The replacement cost is trivial, and I need to do it approximately once per decade, so I might as well chuck out and replace my battered plastic spoons and spatulas now while it's fresh in my mind then not think about it again. But the rest of your list... I don't think of myself as particularly healthy, or particularly observant in this regard, but I ran through it and honestly most of the answers are "no": > Does the kitchen of the restaurant I’m eating at care about that? I'd worry less about one-offs than I would about long-term exposure here. > Am I still going to drink 2 whiskeys tonight? Possibly, and if I was going out tonight there might be wine. I'm not, I haven't been to a sit-down restaurant since September, and I don't have anything like that in the calendar for a few weeks. > Anyone got any tiny individually wrapped shitty Halloween candy? Nope. None in the house. > How do those synthetic made-in-x-country gym clothes feel against your skin? Levi's and a cotton shirt. Probably terrible for other reasons, but today isn't awful on the synthetic-fibres front. That's not true every day, but coincidentally I'm getting away with it right now. > Wanna have a cigar? I don't smoke. > Are you breathing recycled air during an airline flight? Haven't been on a plane in over a year, haven't flown long-haul in five. > When was the last time you stretched your legs? 20 minutes ago. (purely by chance. Couple of hours before that, though). > When’s the next time you’ll drink a plastic bottle of water? This isn't something I regularly do. Might go months between them. > Got a k-cup? No. > What’s the inner workings of that coffee machine do with the near boiling hot water? The wonderful thing about pour-over coffee is that the inner workings are outer workings. It's slightly-less-than-boiling water on enamel into glass, and that's about it. > When was the last time it was cleaned? Lunchtime, when I gave it an extra rinse. > What chemical was used on your toilet that your buttcheeks are now sitting on? Mostly vinegar, as far as I can tell. Bleach for the ceramic, but I'm not sitting on that bit. > Want some bacon? How bout a hot dog? Yes. But sadly I do not have bacon. Or a hot dog. Nor can I exactly recall when the last time I had either was - over a month, certainly, probably more. > Been outside recently without sun screen? Yes, but given that I've been wearing a raincoat outside for the last month I don't think that's quite as relevant as it might be for others. > I honestly think I just might forget and continue living in my blip of existence. I'm not pointing any of this out as a superiority or a gotcha thing, but "continue living" pretty sums up my feelings about most of this stuff too. I'm not doing anything actively, really, to avoid pretty much all of the things you've brought up. Inevitably that's partially luck of the draw: I'm sure there are plenty of other examples you could give that I'd be equally at risk from, or worse. But it is striking just how alien that list of concerns is, from my point of view. I think that says a lot more about differences in culture and choice architectures than it does about our personal preferences. You evidently do feel that there's an overbearing weight of attentiveness needed on avoiding more bad stuff, whereas I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where the mental effort to rule out Yet Another Thing just doesn't register. And I'm not sure what the right solution to that is.
- keepamovin 2y agoSteel (cast iron) skillets. Wooden or stainless spatulas.
- aucisson_masque 2y agoAvoid plastic if you want to live long, whatever if it's cooking or drinking. Now I know that yet I drink water exclusively from plastic bottle, because ground water is contaminated with pesticides here. So it's either micro plastic in the water or pesticide, choose your poison. Because I don't use Teflon (plastic) covered pan, I need more oil to avoid food to stick to the pan. The oil comes in plastic bottle, category 1, that are known to transmit pollutants to liquids and especially oils because they're fat. I choose to go with butter then, so I can avoid the plastic bottle. Every butter comes in a soft plastic coating that definitely doesn't look natural. Didn't search internet for it but pretty sure it is also plastic and it exchange pollutants with the butter. Not even speaking about the cow milk used to make butter and it's different contaminants, mainly pesticide residues, metals, mycotoxins, hormones, and others reaching the cow through feeding or drug administration by producers. My rant could go on forever, the point is that plastic and pollution is absolutely everywhere. You can at best mitigate it by being proactive and wealthy enough but it's still not enough. Even if you buy good quality food from non pollutated area, you don't really know if it hasn't been tampered with. Findus sold beef lasagna that were made with Romanian rotten horse meat..
- shepherdjerred 2y agoAt least in the US butter comes in wax paper
- 11235813213455 2y agoIf you eat a lot of fruit (I guess not seeing your tastes), you almost don't need to drink extra water, or very few, and vegetable water is extra pure and super valuable. Trees should be so much protected, they're doing a hell of a job
- azinman2 2y agoYou’re falling down that slippery slope pretty fast there. You can filter your tap water; there are various ways to do so. I’m sorry your water is contaminated. That’s awful. I wouldn’t always assume the worst with the cows milk and butter. There is a wide range of product and conditions out there. Certain kinds of plastics and applications are known to leach chemicals far worse than others. Frozen peas in plastic? It’s minimal. Food pouches for kids? Awful - it’s liquid that’s heated in the plastic to pasteurize it. You can get olive oil in glass very easily. It’s usually the default. I order from the Napa valley olive oil company in bulk - glass jars with high quality oil that used to be excellent value. They’ve gone up in price but still decent value compared to the market.
- tonymet 2y agoA minor concern that will discourage families from cooking at home and maintaining a healthy diet
- hollerith 2y agoIf the family is thinking rationally, it will notice that restaurants have less of an incentive to get rid of black plastic cooking utensils than they themselves do -- and will react by tending to eat out less.
- tonymet 2y agoIt's foolish and backwards to expect families to make rational decisions. Nearly every sociological and behavioral study has proven this. Toxicity studies like this, which quickly make national headlines, will only result in deterring people from cooking at home. It's like the 1 or 2 stories of poisoned Halloween candy that killed community trick-or-treating Look at the actual health outcomes in the USA. Black spatulas are not a big problem. People are eating out at tremendous cost to their welfare -- the food is toxic, they eat too much of it, and it's 5x too expensive.
- kristjansson 2y agoThe only reason to use ever plastic spatula is to avoid damaging a 'fragile' nonstick pan ... that you probably shouldn't be using anyway. Just use carbon/stainless steel pans, wood turners, and metal spatulas. Your food will be better and the implements will last ~forever.
- dyauspitr 2y agoI minimize my use of nonstick pans to as little as possible but some things are pretty much impossible to cook in stainless steel pans. Like how would you go about making over easy eggs? That’s something I have a lot of.
- jmdeon 2y agoI cook over easy eggs a few times a week in my cast iron. Works great. I've also done it in stainless steel and while it does work there's a bit more of a learning curve imo. Have to heat the pan first then add the oil at just the right heat (when a drop of water glides around but doesn't evaporate too fast). All in all I'm glad I learned how to use and care for cast iron.
- kristjansson 2y agoI do fried and over-easy in my stainless all the time. My procedure: 1. heat empty stainless over med-high flame until a drop of water scatters and glides over the whole surface (leidenfrost). It should look like beads of mercury. 2. drop to a med flame, add a bit of oil (avacodo, ghee, ....). If you're going to a lower temp oil (butter, olive, ...) drop the flame even lower and let the pan cool for a minute before adding. 3. crack eggs into the pan, and don't touch them until there's a bit of fried edge 4a. if you want over-easy, turn the flame off well before you flip, and let the residual heat cook the top. 4b. alternatively, cover the pan with a pot lid to steam the tops. If they stick, a little bit of extra oil, or a few drops of water on the edge can help release.
- molave 2y agoSeconding steps 1-2. I don't do step 3 because I want to whisk the eggs. It takes some practice, but the end result is worth it. The eggs taste better when cooked on a stainless pan.
- genuinelydang 2y agoThis discussion is being monitored and steered by nameless PR companies doing paid damage control for multinational companies that rhyme with the expressions ”YouDont” and ”Lemurs”. Of course this is the perfect place to do it: if you can convince HN, HN will convince the rest of the world.
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoI use three types of tools in the kitchen: For anything that requires cooked goods to be intact, I use metal. Spatula, fish spatula, and a large spoon for serving. For anything that is going to be stirred, I usually use wood. It's hard enough to scrape fond off the bottom of the pan but it isn't going to damage non-stick, to the little extent that I use it. For viscous dishes, I use silicone. The ability to get the very corner at the bottom of the pot and actually get the stuff up is great.
- stonethrowaway 2y agoAnother reason to avoid The Atlantic.
- thumbsup-_- 2y agoYears back I took a "common sense" decision to eliminate plastic from my food storage and cooking and only use steel or glass. The basis for this decision was primarily that there have been many instances in world where after decades it was found that something generally used was harmful for humans. Steel and glass have existed longer than plastics and are generally known to be safe (also I have to use some products, can't leave everything). for people arguing about the quality of research, yes you can argue on research but use your common sense and ask yourself if plastics are really safe?
- therealdrag0 2y agoGlass Tupperware also just feels better, like more mature. Wished I switched sooner.