First off, there are silicon sous vide bags.
Second… if you are at the level that a bag with meat in it for 2 hours at 140 degrees is too risky… you had better get working on that cabin in the woods.
Second… if you are at the level that a bag with meat in it for 2 hours at 140 degrees is too risky… you had better get working on that cabin in the woods.
Second, this is coming from someone that works in a research lab in plastics. So pretty well educated.
Anything else you want to be condescending and dismissive about? I'm sure we'd all appreciate hearing more about how you know better than the rest of us and please - make sure you lecture us about how much better you are with your logic and understanding of the world. We early await your amazing contributions. <3
Sorta like those construction workers that are full of bravado at 25, and can barely get out of a chair at 50 because they wrecked their body with improper lifting technique.
A good technique and steady approach goes a long way and there are many jobs in construction that don't break the body - crane operator, bobcat | front end loader | etc. operator.
Push up slab building have been around for decades now, if you can avoid being squashed under a giant mass of concrete (not that common) you're not going to be putting your back out (unless you're running at jobs like a bull at a gate).
Anybody that stays in such an industry for 20+ years has (generally) worked smarter and not destroyed their body - they're still in the industry but moved onto machine operations, management, supervision, health and safety, etc.
The fact is the science has not looked at risks of sous vide plastics. There's maybe no money for such research, unless like in this article the professor became a father and had to microwave food for his newborn baby. In their research, they showed that those particular nanoplastics cause kidney damage, but only in vitro (EDIT: Ah yes, a quick Google shows a horrifying 2023 study that says nanoplastics do get absorbed into the bloodstream...). That's like a doubly indirect argument for concerns about sous vide.
I think a more nuanced answer is that we just don't know, and so it is reasonable to invoke the precautionary principle. Other people, when made aware of the risks, might go ahead but that's their informed choice to do so.
So unless there's a series of studies that shows, "Sous vide produces X amount of polyethylene nanoplastics, and adult/child/rat consumption shows measurable harm", the best we have is precautionary principle and informed risk. It would be nice to have something definitive like "Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer", or more recently from WHO "Drinking alcohol causes breast and gastro/rectal cancer", but we don't have that scientific closure to an open question for sous vide yet.
...where you use a wood stove and inhale far more proven carcinogens instead?
In genernal there does seem to be little discussion of relative risks, trade-offs - plus a tendency towards romanticizing older tech as well as a big dose of the naturalistic fallacy.
However I think research into microplastics is important and I'm personally reducing plastic use when it's easy and low-effort.
I also rather enjoy a nice wood fire when I'm camping.