Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid | Hacker News Reader

Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

theatlantic.com

475 pointsJimmc414842 comments

From 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...

That's true of nearly everything in this space. You'll find lots and lots of comments below about PFAS and Teflon pans, for example, ranging from factual-but-misleading (e.g. "Teflon pans can emit harmful gases when overheated") to bald assertions (multiple variations on "Teflon pans are harmful to your health") with no context or specificity to the claim.

Setting aside the fact that the purported harms (if specified at all!) are nearly always based on confounded observational studies and/or animal models at doses that may not bear any relationship to the doses you're being exposed to in real life, the claims for any particular item are usually presented out of context. For example, is exposure at X<10 parts per billion compound Y meaningful, as a human who lives in the real world? Typically, nobody knows, but you can nearly always find an "expert" who will confidently claim that any exposure is "dangerous."

Skepticism and awareness of risk magnitude is essential when reading stuff like this. Academics who specialize in obscure areas love to get their name in the press, and the easiest way to do that is to go to a reporter and make vague and irresponsible claims about risks to human health, even if those risks are very, very small. [1]

For what it's worth, I have a Teflon pan, I've used black plastic spatulas in the past, and I'm not worried about it. Compared to the reasons I already know that I'm likely to die, these things are irrelevant.

[1] Case in point: I knew a tenured professor at a prestigious university who was absolutely convinced that if we all continued to eat beef, we'd be looking at an epidemic of vCJK (aka Mad Cow Disease). Saw a lecture from this person on the subject over a decade ago now, where the risks were presented as looming and absolute. We're still eating beef. Guess what hasn't happened since then?

> Academics who specialize in obscure areas love to get their name in the press, and the easiest way to do that is to go to a reporter and make vague and irresponsible claims about risks to human health, even if those risks are very, very small.

I won't deny that many such academics exist. And yet...

The numerous successful academics at reputable universities that I know (including me) are uniformly mortified when our names are associated with mistaken interpretations in the press. Some of us (including me) simply stop doing press interviews because it happens so often.

If you want to find an incentive to get undeserved attention, I recommend you look at economic incentives within the press itself. Too much time pressure, not enough training, desperate need to gather attention to sell ads. All the opposite of the academic world.

Agreed. So much hyperventilating about risks that, in context (e.g., driving, open water swimming, alcohol, tylenol), are infinitesimally small. Risk is a difficult subject for lay people to understand, and there are many professions built entirely on that human weakness.

An overheating Teflon pan nearly killed my pet birds. I don't see how that's a factual but misleading statement.

Teflon pans are shit even if they don't poison you because they are too easy to break and even if you treat them carefully they never last very long.

But you should also consider that only one or a few people championing for change is how safty has historically improved. We have had too many cases of industries knowingly poisinging people for profits while funding studies that say everything is fine and marginalizing the few reasearches who have morals and don't just go after the biggest profits to discard concerns like this just because there is only one person championing them.

It’s similar to climate scares, a decade ago people were saying that various coastal cities would be underwater by now and they aren’t even close. It’s alarmist propaganda from bored people. Sure, the climate is important, just as PFAS and mad cow all are, but pushing what amounts to conspiracy theories doesn’t solve it. And, personally, “climate change” isn’t even the big issue when we have unimaginably large trash islands in the ocean. First we have to solve multinational corporate pollution before we can worry about terraforming our planet.

> irresponsible claims

Worst case scenario here is people throw out their relatively harmless spatulas and buy new ones. Big whoop.

It’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.

To be fair to people, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to cope with the fact that a plurality or even most papers that come out may be found to be completely un-reproducible. For low stakes things like getting rid of a plastic spatula or cutting board, there is a sub-$20 cost to get rid of them and believe it is right (even if it ends up being wrong), while the cost of not believing and the paper being right is a massively increased chance of cancer. Science will likely never have its reckoning with reality, people will just believe in it less and less until it becomes background noise like everything else.

> 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!

It would be funny if it was done by same people but are we sure it is the case? Is 'HN' homogeneous crowd?

Gell-Man amnesia effect! (Or very similar ...)

But why take the chance? Just buy a metal spatula next time and there’s nothing to worry about if it turns out to be true

Metal spatulas cause damage to frying pans. How do I know which is worse, the plastic melting off my black spatula or the non-stick coating scraping off my frying pan?

I suppose I could go cast iron, but I'm sure I can find a study saying those are terrible too.

Seriously lol, the effort vs risk ratio is insanely in favor of getting rid getting rid of plastic spatulas. Though, it should be pretty obvious even before this study that plastic, heat, and ingesting the result do not go together.

metal spatulas scrape. there's non-stick dishes to worry about.

and I thought of the sunny episode when I read your comment.

"just in case is as good a reason as any to believe in something", whether it's monkey paws, throwing salt over your shoulder, knocking on wood, etc.

Why not wood?

Only if you don't care about not ruining your non-stick pans (or don't use any).

It's important to understand that coloring plastics change their characteristics, though (I'll add the link if I can find it again).

Also, plastics have quality grades from "that's good stuff" to "this thing smells funny in a bad way". We have some IKEA food tweezers which use black plastic molded on steel prongs. It's stamped with "+150 degrees C" and the black is hazy, like it's colored with a dye or pigment, and plastic is hard like bakelite.

OTOH, I have used other "black" spatulas which are uniform in color, but neither as sturdy, nor smell neutral.

We have silicone counterparts to these items too. They're more rubbery, but they have hard plastic spines inside so, they don't flex.

Why do you trust gidmkhealthnerd, a psuedonym who likely knows nothing about it and offers nothing but a personal opinion, over the post of someone who studied it and gathered actual experimental evidence?

it's a weird hill to die on when you can get an almost-exact item made from silicone instead of that gross plastic

...until next week, when the prestigious scientific journal "The Atlantic" publishes a hot take on the dangers of silicone!

Stupidity has always bothered me. Strident pseudo-intellectual stupidity bothers me almost more than cruel ignorant stupidity.

At least now I'm angry in a constructive way.

How do you know which person is the pseudo-intellectual. At least one gained professional expertise in chemistry and did an actual scientific experiment. The other posted their 'opinion' on Threads saying it is all wrong.

"I don't find the data personally convincing" is a poor retort. And that's all he says, without any further information.

Is his post supposed to be taken seriously?

If this person is a fact checker, he's probably run into plenty of people who would say "I don't find the data personally convincing" to explain why they don't trust vaccines.

This 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.

The 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.

The problem is that even when there are easy, safe alternatives trying to avoid every little risk in your life will drive you crazy.

This is a clear case where a regulator should step in and just ban these black plastic utensils in favor of their safe alternatives.

That way you're not just protected from exposure in your own kitchen, but also when joining your friends for dinner.

Indeed, panicking about everything little thing like this is a psychological nightmare— it leads to the same mental fatigue as the infinite list of item known to the State of California to cause cancer.

Sure, but this is pretty low hanging fruit. Moving to only metal and wood spatulas, cooking spoons, etc. has been a pretty cheap and easy switch. I would love to ALSO see regulation, but in the meantime I can at least improve things for myself.

I don't really understand that POV. It is easier to never have to worry about it if you simply decline to use plastic cooking utensils. You never have to revisit the topic, never had to read any Atlantic articles at all coming out with "new risks" because you just decided to use wood long ago.

Agreed. I don't have the time to pay attention to every 'maybe this is bad' thing. Figure it out for sure then ban it.

Being deliberate about the materials you choose for your cookware is not the same as stressing out over every little risk in your life. For some people these are the materials that they use to prepare their food literally every day and one purchase will last years.

> The problem is that even when there are easy, safe alternatives trying to avoid every little risk in your life will drive you crazy.

Not really, just avoid them as they come up. Case in point: Throw out your black cooking utensils and use an alt. Simple simple. No crazy to it.

"Should I risk this?" is the wrong question in life. The burden of proof, as it were, is on those who are alleging a risk. I'm not gonna go through life worrying about every little thing just because it might be a problem. That goes double because people are constantly finding new things to worry about, most of which amount to nothing in the end.

Holding its probability constant, if the cost of avoiding a risk is sufficiently low and the potential harm sufficiently high, avoiding it is more rational than both looking further into it or taking it.

That would make sense in a just society. Here in the USA, I would factor evidence in such as, do corporations have a habit of using chemicals that are later shown to be toxic? Do corporations prefer to let people die rather than recall, say an exploding car? Do corporation put out armies of lawyers and doctors to convince everyone that their product does not cause lung cancer? Do corporations now use automation to brigade and create the appearance of a majority?

Obesity 5% to 42%, Alzheimer’s 0% to 33% in the last century.

I think there’s a balance between being neurotic and being blissfully ignorant, but given the high level health data in the west it’s probably time to be more neurotic.

Maybe a stupid question, but how can I tell the difference between plastic and silicone? We use a black spatula that's flexible (shapes a bit to the curvature of what you're wiping, super convenient) and doesn't scratch the pan while not being porous like wood (where I always wonder how many bacteria live in these crevasses). It seems perfect and is being sold specifically for cooking so I assumed this plastic, if that's what it is, is safe for that. Now, reading the article, it says it's not, but then in the comments I read it may be yet another material. How can one tell what's what?

Side note: If you regularly and promptly clean your wooden utensils, bacteria and germs won't set in. Bacteria only becomes an issue when the wood splinters or is damaged in some way.

Also "capillary action" takes place in wood, meaning water and/or bacteria on the outside of the wooden surface essentially diffuses into the wood, "choking out" the surface bacteria and therefore not providing them with a good environment on which to grow. Additionally, wood has antimicrobial properties.

Plastic isn't as heat tolerant, so you could subject the utensils to high heat (200°C should do it) and see if they start to melt. Whilst it's a destructive test, it's probably worth destroying and replacing plastic utensils as silicone ones are much better.

Edit: apparently you can tell the difference by squeezing them too - silicone will feel rubbery.

I read somewhere that if you bend/squeeze silicone, it shouldn't turn white. If it does, it's plastic. You may need to really bend/squeeze it.

Buy something that is silicone and use it as a reference. Silicone is distinct, but a lot of the words that one would use to describe it can also apply to plastic, strictly because language is vague. But once you have a reference it becomes pretty clear what is and isn't silicone.

The black part in plastics is due to the addition of cheap carbon black to recycled plastic which is usually pale and unappealing grey, it is a form of 'soot produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, petroleum or vegetable matter. It is added to plastics as a reinforcing substance, the same reason for which it finds widespread use in tires' .https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/environment-did-you-know/d...

Silicon is rubbery, but unlike rubber it is normally not sticky to either your hand or food.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

I have wood spoons that go in the dishwasher multiple times per week for years and they're fine.

It's why I like wood. You don't need to baby it, and if it breaks down, you throw it out and it returns to the earth.

For what it's worth, I stopped using non-stick cookware in favour of carbon steel and haven't missed it.

If we're talking about health and cookware, you're not going to want nonstick cookware.

Wood is technically not dishwasher safe, but I have wooden spoons that I’ve inherited from my grandma and they still hold up despite being in the dishwasher regularly.

Sincere question - my mom always told me to never put wooden utensils in the dishwasher, but I never got a great answer as to why. I put my wooden spatulas in there. My question is, is it just because it's destructive to the wood? Or is there something else that I should be concerned about?

A lot of wood is dishwasher safe. But you should ask / check before hand. If it is made a several pieces glued together, it will probably not be.

For cookware with PTFE non-stick coating, it is basically the only solution, with silicone, but I personally don't like silicone utensil.

In any case, I also started to avoid PTFE coated cookware, because no matter how well you treat them, the coating will eventually get damaged (and PTFE is supposedly not very good for you). Now I just use stainless steel for anything that is not too sticky, and carbon steel for everything that need a bit of a non-stick surface to be cooked properly. They are not too hard to maintain and they don't get damaged like PTFE non-stick pan.

> Wood is not dishwasher safe...

Maybe, but they're so easy to clean without a dishwasher. And even easier to clean later if you rinse them off immediately after cooking so stuff doesn't stick.

Use a carbon steel or cast iron pan and learn how to season properly. They are very nonstick if you cook correctly in them, and their surface is incredibly durable (I use metal spatulas and I primarily cook on carbon steel and a cast iron griddle.) you can also incorporate stainless steel pots, although stainless pans are not nonstick and very hard to use for beginners.

Silicone's flavor leaches into your food, which some people can notice.

The only unsafe thing I've ever experienced with wood in the dishwasher is a fire risk from a spoon getting blown off the top rack onto the heating element at the bottom.

Silicone is not rigid, which is sometimes a problem.

Glass...which is silicon I guess.

In 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/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19680914/ [3] https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/teflon-flu-r... [4] https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1941959/replace-...

I can relate to your distrust of the various click-baity headlines of papers, but Teflon flu is a real thing. It's easily avoided by not over-heating pans - keep them under 260°C and don't heat them when empty as that can result in hot spots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever

The part that really drives me up the wall is that the demographics who decades ago decried plastics to be superior because they don't harbor bacteria like wood or break dangerously like glass are roughly the same ones who are now complaining about plastic.

I don't have a cultural analogy for this situation but whatever it is is worse than "boy who cried wolf".

i only use wooden spoons and spatulas and i almost never had them crack or splinter. if an edge does break off i can use a knife or sandpaper to make it smooth. the only downside is that some spatulas are not thin enough on the front edge, making them more difficult to use for things like pancakes or omelettes. i always keep an eye out for good wooden spatulas. i had some quite nice ones over the years. and when i move i take them with me, just in case i can't get another good one in the next location.

A well made point, but you won't get through. When you're in the fad, it's the center of the universe. Plus there will be an endless number of presently unknown medical worries and niggles. It all comes out in the wash, the best bet is diversification.

Dismissing the papers as lies is very different from considering your usage of the studied tools/materials, and deciding you're not actually recreating the failure-modes studied in the papers enough to worry about your current tools.

in California, every metal utensil is marked with "causes cancer"

I'll add to that.

18/0 stainless steel is the best. No nickel etc.

I appreciate your skepticism. This article has that feeling of almost being designed to create a panic. First, there's the headline, which is written in the same tone as someone warning you that you're about to step on a snake—a tone which does not invite critical thinking. Then there's the fact that since most people aren't subscribers to The Atlantic, they'll just see the first couple paragraphs and make their decisions based on that. I currently do not know how much weight I should put on what this article says, but I'm certainly scared by it, and I have enough media literacy to know that's when I should be really careful not to be fooled.

The 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.

You 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.

It is about the money:" The “black” in plastics is due to the addition of carbon black, which is basically a form of soot produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, petroleum or vegetable matter. It is added to plastics as a reinforcing substance, the same reason for which it finds widespread use in tires. Another benefit is that carbon black absorbs ultraviolet radiation that can cause plastics to degrade. Now for the problems. Carbon black contains numerous compounds, some of which, like the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), have carcinogenic properties and have led the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to categorize carbon black as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” Whether this is an issue in the containers used for many prepared foods, including those that are to be microwaved, is not clear, since the carbon black is locked within the matrix of the plastic and may not leach out in any significant amounts. Prepared food marketers like the black containers because they are cheap and are visually more appealing than their clear counterparts. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/environment-did-you-know/d...

Carbon black is why the black nylon zip ties have a reputation for aging better all the other colors (like for like, not comparing a $20/100 hipster zip tie to a $2/100 cheap one).

It's a tricky subject to get solid numbers on as most studies focus on just a limited number of the thousands of PFAs now in our environment. There's also the issue of identifying the source of the PFAs as they're in our water etc. Also, due to their very slow breakdown, PFAs are likely to accumulate in our bodies over time.

There's more information on our current understanding here: https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human-hea...

There may be no investigation of your specific question, but is there evidence of known dangerous chemicals. If it was covered in dog poop, would you use it unless there was evidence that the use of dog-poop-covered spatula at the exposure level of domestic cooking caused significant physiological effects?

A more fundamental error is say 'there's no proof, therefore I assume it's false'. There's no proof that it's safe either. We make almost all decisions without mass longitudinal studies.

And worse, IMHO, is the poison rhetoric: 'If I can shoot their plane, I'm smarter than the person trying to fly.'

Journalists I get. They're paid to attract eyeballs and they're not above being a little misleading in pursuit of that goal. "When a man's salary depends..." and all that jazz. I see it the same way I see cops who are misleading on the stand, despicable but understandable.

The people who's moral compass seems far more faulty are the people in the comments who are doing the same thing but who have no comparable motive to behave in such a way. Generally, though there are a couple minor examples in here today.

I 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-a...

Oxo claims they use Eastman Tritan Renew recycled plastics [1] which are FDA and EFSA certified for food use[2].

That said, I’ve personally been to multiple cookware factories in China and Taiwan and saw bags of Dow thermoplastic resins next to various cheaper-by-half China brands. The reason name brands go with Dow is the consistency in Pantone color matching colored parts. For black, it would be trivial for the contract manufacturer to cost-down to (toxic) China brands without the client (Oxo) ever knowing. It would also be trivial to spot check these products on a mass spectrometer for heavy metal contamination but I never saw that done.

If this kind of thing is important to you, I wouldn’t stop at just using Oxo but Oxo made in Asia. And if that’s your threshold you may as well use silicone.

I have worse stories about non-stick pan factories.

[1] https://www.oxo.com/corporate-responsibility/better-products

[2] https://www.eastman.com/en/products/brands/tritan/about/safe...

Where can I read all of your stories about all of it? I do a lot of work in food production but none in cook tool production and find it very interesting

>it would be trivial for the contract manufacturer to cost-down to (toxic) China brands without the client (Oxo) ever knowing. It would also be trivial to spot check these products on a mass spectrometer for heavy metal contamination but I never saw that done.

Aren't these contradictory statements? If it's "trivial" to spot check their product that is otherwise indistinguishable from the competition using mass spectrometry, why wouldn't QA do that? It -doesn't- sound like it's trivial for the supplier to rip off Oxo if it's "trivial" to use an industrial tool for quality control.

What am I missing here? Do you somehow have internal knowledge that Oxo does not do that "trivial" QC step?

Some corollary to Murphy's law? Whatever is not independently tested / audited will go wrong? I've known plenty of people in my own country who don't take trivial steps, because they didn't feel like it.

These are not contradictory.

Just don't use plastic for cooking.

Metal 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.

Nonstick pans are covered with plastic; that’s what PTFE is.

The answer is wood and metal tools with stainless steel, carbon steel, cast iron, glass, stoneware, and enameled cast iron cookware and bakeware. Aluminum bakeware is also great once you put a layer of seasoning on it to protect the aluminum from corrosion.

Wood spatulas are great. They are also cheap. If you have a fireplace, you can even burn them at the end of life so very little waste!

I've been a fan of using stainless steel spatulas on cast iron for years now and it doesn't seem to scratch or degrade the "seasoning" on the cast iron in any apparently meaningful way.

Yes, wood is one. Why not wood?

the scratch non-stick pans, which also are horrible for your health.

cast iron, stainless steel.

Lodge cast iron pans are like $20 and will outlast your grandchildren. You can get a set of them for < $100. Carbon steel are more expensive, but are easier to handle and I think are worth investing in at least one for daily use. They'll also last generations.

Metal. I haven't noticed scratches, and have been using exclusively my whole adult life. I suspect my pans are covered in superficial scratches, but I don't notice.

They only scratch nonstick pans. Just use stainless steel, it's not that hard to clean.

Why not silicone ?

Use cast iron pans. I used to love my non-stick pans but I would never go back.

Where I'm from wooden are norm for stirring while cooking. Plastic are used as well but after the food is already cooked.

Using non-stick pans and worrying about plastic spatulas is wild, imo.

How do you find a non-Teflon waffle iron?

I have a cast-iron waffle maker from like the 20s that works very well and is very fun to use. Added bonus, you can bring it on a camping trip and make waffles in the woods.

I did not pay $400 for it, but it looks like this: https://www.hardmill.com/products/griswold-8-waffle-iron-wit...

A superficial web search reveals a handful of options; I'm sure if you spent a little time, like 10-15 minutes, you'd find dozens. If you only look at what's on offer in stores, and aren't in a place with a lot of variety, then you're not going to have many options.

If you're really and truly concerned about this, you have to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, "what's more important to me, my health or waffles?"

It might be time to look for a johnnycake recipe, and that's OK.

If you go after buying the waffle iron THE RIGHT WAY, spending few days researching, reading reviews etc., you'll see that it's hard to buy a good one that still uses teflon.

Or if you're lazy, copy me and get Åviken Elegance.

https://www.pieiron.com/products/old-fashioned-waffle-iron-o...

Look— simply. People were making waffles in the Iron Age.

I mean this in jest but this is the least compelling unironic retort that I can imagine here. How important are waffles in your diet?

is silicone ok?

Get enough researchers to train their metaphorical microscopes on it and it's interaction with any dimension of human biology for long enough and I have to think the answer will eventually be no.

We need to eliminate plastic wherever possible, especially where it might come into contact with food.

What I hate is even paper containers have plastic lids. I worry the plastic snap-off lid is shedding microplastics into my orange juice, or by beef is getting plastic strands when I cut in to the vacuum sealed packaging.

Dispose of it ASAP.

You sure are leaning-in to that username...

Another 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 !

Carbon 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

Are you sure this is the same thing? The word ‘petroleum’ is not in the paper you link.

Naively, I would think the paper you linked is about carbon (the charcoaley substance) derived from vegetables being used as a black food coloring, and the poster above is talking about “carbon black oil”, a type of oil derivative that looks black - two completely different things.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_black

> Carbon black (with subtypes acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid catalytic cracking tar, and ethylene cracking in a limited supply of air.

"Carbon black" refers to both types, but "carbon black oil" is referencing the petroleum derived one which is not allowed to be used in foods as far as I know.

https://archive.ph/2024.10.30-145843/https://www.theatlantic...

Or a gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-pla...

(@dang, please consider using it as the main link.)

Not working for me. It loads, but still with paywall.

it 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

interesting, does work for me

I 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.

We 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.

Even in developed countries like the US a lot of people burn fossil fuels for indoor cooking, even when they could choose a better alternative.

What 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.

Is $59 for a single hub, or $849 for a full cooktop really that much of an "expensive luxury"? These things last for decades and cost less than most mobile phones.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/induction-cooktops-20813/

It'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.

You can get an induction hob for 50 bucks at IKEA.

So spending more than a 200 $ premium over a resistance stove with 4 hobs means you're being ripped off or spending on luxury.

In the US and other developed countries, they burn clean fuels like natural gas or propane. These emit minimal soot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_fuel#/media/File:Access_...

Unfortunately perhaps not as clean as you would hope: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9819315/#:~:text=5.....

A lot of coffee makers run hot water over black plastics too.

Your coffee maker is exposed to at most 100 degrees C. Spatulas are exposed to temperatures over 200 C.

Instinctively, I'm much more worried about the latter, though I admittedly don't know anything about the science behind what temperatures flame retardants or other undesirable contaminants might leach out of the plastic.

Might not matter:

The article also speaks of a black necklace for children that was found to be 3% flame retardant chemicals by weight, saying

> Those flame retardants migrate into toddlers’ saliva and into the dust in our homes

Perhaps it's fine if you don't lick your coffee machine, or perhaps not. I guess being less worried makes sense but I'm not sure that we need not be worried about boiling our drinks in fire retardants (assuming they're present in these materials)

Ugh you reminded me how much I hate flame retardants and the horrible laws we have in America that have us spray it everywhere.

I was just recently looking at bicycle seats for small kids and the one I found interesting happened to recently have a recall (Thule) as they grossly over applied the flame retardant to a point where it was immediately toxic. I am guessing it was in the foam pieces but such a depressing idea that we need to make outdoor bicycle seats flame retardant.

My read of this article is that the main problem comes from black plastic that claims to be made of recycled material being contaminated.

There is no way to tell, as stated in the article.

"Of the more than 200 black plastic products Liu bought at retail stores for her study, hardly any were labeled as being made from recycled materials, she said. Consumers have no way to tell which black plastics might be recycled e-waste and which aren’t. “It’s just a minefield, really,” Turner said."

I was under the impression that labelling something as "recycled" was a value add, and it would be done where possible. I suppose that is not actually the case.

It's admittedly been a while since I've looked but there don't seem to be any (automated) drip makers whose use doesn't result in plastic coming into contact with hot water.

I'm well aware of and own many of the more manual options that don't have this issue. However, the automatic feature is killer (heh) and this seems like an obvious miss by manufacturers.

We make coldbrew coffee in the fridge. No need to heat up the coffee until it is in your cup with some extra water and into the micro. And it taste a lot better than anything else I tried. And I didn't even drink coffee a year ago because it taste so bad. Now I can even drink it without milk! :-)

Some people like cold brew, others don't. I fall into the latter camp.

Then again, the only things in the cold-water path of my machine are:

- silicone gaskets

- silicone grease

- PTFE

- silicone tubes

- clear plastic water tank

As for the hot path:

- silicone gaskets

- silicone grease

- aluminium

- steel

- copper

- brass

- PTFE (in contact with steam)

There's quite a few, actually. They're all commercial units that are expected to make hundreds of pots a day and stay cleanable and serviceable. Bunn, for example, makes a bunch of machines for which everything in the 'wet' service is stainless. By default they use a black plastic grounds holder but you can pay extra for a stainless one.

They're substantially more expensive than consumer units.

The article does speak of black specifically, not just any plastic. Even if there aren't any that don't put the hot liquid in contact with plastic, it might be worth looking at the color (is my understanding from the article)

Yeah, sorry, that was implied. I would assume that's what they all use. Based on my recent personal experience, even the higher end options like Moccamaster and OXO use black plastic.

What do you mean by automated?

Obvious answer is to distinguish a drip coffee machine (think office coffee) vs just a drip filter, e.g. Hario V60 or Melitta.

The latter you can for instance get in porcelain.

There'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.

>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.

Is she wrong?

Well 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.

yes unfortunately mps are in the air from tires now.

Maybe 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.

Barista: you want a lid? Me: what color is it?

FYI 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 $$$

It 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.

> 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

> 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.

Straws are useless. Plates and ustensiles can be provided by and cleaned at the place you eat. Takeout containers don’t take more space than the non reusable container you will have to carry back anyway. They can also be provided by your place of work if you generally go for take out for lunch. Reusable tissue bags take no space or paper bags can be used for a cost.

Napkins and tissues are not made of plastics.

So, yes I fully expect people to carry around reusable things even when they bike. It’s not that hard. You know how I know? Because I do it every day.

Honestly stopping using single use items must be the easiest thing to do to limit the amount of trash you generate. It has absolutely no impact on your daily life.

At present, yes, I believe bicyclists are more likely to carry some reusable items with them.

Some of the reason being that they are planning their trips and know what they can carry, and know that they don't want to carry more. Reusable water bottles in a work backpack are an example.

The other aspect is you don't have to carry all of these things. If you eat in a restaurant or at a house you are more likely to have reusable options available (ie washable plates and dinnerware). In many ways, car culture is linked to takeaway culture, which causes single use culture.

Top of mind; it's easy to picture the American automobile with bags of fast food trash.

> 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?

Doesn't seem uncommon at all to me, that's what my colleagues and I do, same for my wife and her colleagues (and we work in very different environments and places, different countries even).

Some of my colleagues wash their dishes at work, I just bring them back and put them in my dishwasher a home. My wife has a dishwasher at work so they just put their stuff there. The products we use for washing at home or at work claim to be biodegradable and not harmful for the environment.

Properly taxing externalities is an obvious thing to do though of course.

That's what happened at my workplace, we now have plastic screw-closed cups with silicon seals that stain easily. Blue though, not black.

Just drink in a civilized manner from a porcelain cup in a civilized cafe then the whole problem is avoided.

While I get your point, unfortunately “civilised” means plastic cups. You don’t see people in poor countries with no industry going to coffee shops to drink expensive coffee from plastic, they drink from handmade reusable cups.

I wouldn't worry too hard about the coffee cup lid. It's almost certainly made of PLA (polylactic acid). Nobody's making flame-retardant consumer appliances out of PLA.

It's wild how something as simple as a coffee lid can become a point of scrutiny

it is.

and it absolutely won’t be limited to coffee lids. when we don’t hold creators and sellers of products to any kind of real standard, they over and over and over will cut corners. we know this is a fact.

when we don’t hold them responsible for the harms they directly or externally cause, we have to waste our fucking time scrutinizing ridiculous items like coffee lids. soon it will be each of the hundreds of items we buy during our regular trips to target—from toothbrush to laundry soap to shampoo to batteries.

we have to get some actual enforceable testing, standards, and holding bad actors to account soon or it’s going to be a very very real mess.

when we can’t trust companies to sell us safe spatulas or the lids on our coffee cups, we know we’ve gone off the rails.

no one has time to “do their own research” on the hundreds or thousands of random products they come in contact with every single day, “the market” has never fixed this, this requires regulations with teeth.

If we as a society leave "safety" to the producers, yes it is.

It's bizarre to see how new chemicals are basically "allowed because they are new" (maybe except in food additives), and the producers are expected to do inhouse undisclosed self-testing without being held to any standard.

The 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.

I 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.

I 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.

Seconding 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.

I 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.

people generally don't use metal tools on enameled cast iron, which is plenty strong

you can use wood on enamelled cast iron. Why would you use a spatula with enamelled cast iron?

to flip an egg?

im 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?

Silicone is a rubber, not a plastic and black silicone should be fine.

so black silicones and rubber don't use the same pigment or flame retardant? or they don't leach out?

ok this is far more informative n coherent

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.

abs is really a quite weird choice as a cooking spatula material?

Its glass transition temperature is approximately 105 °C (221 °F).[4] ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styr...

I'll add one: is nylon plastic?

its clearly a plastic? polyamide?

Years 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?

Glass Tupperware also just feels better, like more mature. Wished I switched sooner.

The 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.

This 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).

> So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources.

But how do you even judge that? My coffee machine is all black plastic. It has dozens of parts. The hot water runs by/over black plastic.

It's an expensive and reputable brand of coffee machine, but I have absolutely no illusions that some/most of the black plastic parts it contains are straight from different factories in China.

And I would be surprised if anybody QAs the chemical makeup of raw plastic input. As long as the parts mold correctly and hold up structurally, nobody would notice when the Chinese injection molder changes suppliers mid-batch.

The recycled plastic may, indeed, be worse than "virgin", but any plastic melting in your food seems ill advised. I'm not a zealot refusing to drink out of a plastic cup, but spatulas see a lot more heat than most cookware. My wife and I noticed our plastic spatulas (including one from a well known "reputable" brand) showing signs of melting years ago, and into the trash they went. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

I don't think it's worth nit-picking in this case.

Everyone wants to reduce their plastic intake, but nobody wants to throw 80% in their kitchenware in the trash. There's no obvious steps you can get people to follow to check if their spatula is one of the "good" ones, so tossing black plastic is a good concrete step to advise people to take.

Are you sure there's absolutely nothing wrong with virgin plastics? Maybe it'd be safer and simpler to just avoid plastic in e.g. cooking since the growing amount of research about effects of plastics doesn't seem very positive.

Does silicone rubber count as plastic? I think we need a more precisely defined villain here.

Silicone 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.

According to 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.

It was called out at the end of the article as an alternative to black plastic, so I think it is fine?

No - silicone isn't a plastic and is much better for food preparation.

My 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.

They make a glass aeropress that comes with a stainless steel cap now.

I had no idea either. Thanks! When I first got my Aeropress, really hot water being forced through all dark-colored hard plastic had me concerned. Still does. But after getting the routine down it takes only three minutes and my daily coffee is so much better since I got it, I don't want coffee any other way anymore.

The glass one is most likely going on my Christmas list (even though that is sort of expensive for what it is)

Wow, had no idea. $150 / ships in February. I hate that I might grab it at that price. https://aeropress.com/products/aeropress-coffee-maker-premiu...

The number of times that I've dropped a Aeropress makes that impractical for me.

The Aeropress is made in the USA. While not a guarantee it's safe it's much more likely to not contain contaminants.

I 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.

Even if you don’t care about chemicals, plastic does in my experience absorb a lot of “burnt/old” coffee flavor, especially if it goes through rubber/plastic/silicone tubing.

I can recommend porcelain pour over and paper filters. I fill up around 1L in the morning with hot water from the boiler. It’s very boring and non-fancy, takes about as much time as a coffee maker (pouring is slower but cleaning is faster). Use a thermos if you want it hot for longer. Great flavor for non-snobs.

I 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?

My 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.

Yeah, I probably should just get good at pour-over. The Moccamaster is great, but I have a pretty low bar coming from a MrCoffee.

Just 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.

I 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?

When I was a kid everyone told me never to burn plastic, because it produces tons of hazardous chemicals.

As 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).

It strongly depends on which plastic. PVC is the really nasty one.

Avoid 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..

You’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.

At least in the US butter comes in wax paper

If 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

you could buy oil in glass bottles. also if buying larger quantities it comes in some type of metal container.

I 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-utens...

[2] https://us.josephjoseph.com/pages/faq?search=recycle

Anyone 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

ALL 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.

Paper link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352...

Press release: 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...

Our 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.

I 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.

How about, don't fry with any color plastic spatulas.

The 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...

Wood is an option, but look for solid wood, I don't trust these bamboo ones that are made from laminated / glued slats. Bamboo "wood" will be the next major thing I'm sure, sold as co2-neutral and biodegradeable, but soaked in glues / resins to make it useful.

I 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.

Other than the hygiene argument of bacteria build up what is wrong with just using wooden spatulas for example?

> you can say that they shouldn't use non-stick cookware

Using metal spatulas with non-stick is a big no due to the scratching. Ideally, you should throw away any non-stick cookware that gets a scratch on it.

You should use silicone spatulas instead.

This entire discussion points me towards a conclusion that metal-on-metal is the conservative way to go. So what is the problem with this as a solution ? Do we have to worry about microbits of metal disrupting physiology ?

Use a wooden one? Has the added benefit of being part of the short carbon cycle.

I 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?

If you have a teflon frying pan, using metal damages the surface. I wouldn't think eating teflon bits is good either.

It is wild how well the old marketing worked, leaving consumers to think Teflon was something close to indestructible. In my industry, a lot of the machines I work on use Teflon bearings, and customers are almost always flabbergasted when I show them the bearing wore down considerably after 8 years of continuous use.

Using the dishwasher is what really damages the surface. Or just extended duration high heat and cooling.

Wood and bamboo are good options if you have to use a teflon pan

How about silicone ones?

After 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.

Does any of this matter in a normal life?

Will I actually see actual difference if I throw away all my cook ware and replace it with non-non-stick ones and wooden utensils?

What about pollutants in the air from car and industry exhaust? Is this cookware worse? Should we first consider moving somewhere else than worry about cookware?

What about just the ingredients you cook with? Is using teflon worse than buying highly processed foods? What about GMO vs non-GMO? What about grass fed/free range vs in-prison-meats? What about vegan vs meat?

What I am trying to say is that it is easy to point to something that is (or even might be) toxic and say that we should fix it, but we have to put things in context. You simply can not be afraid of everything. Like drinking out of plastic vs glass vs metal, I know people who swear that drinking from a plastic cup is about the worst thing you can do, but I have been doing it my whole life and at least aren't dead yet.

Tempered glass does not contain plastic. No glass contains plastic. The formula to make glass has been known for centuries. Tempering is a thermal process, it doesn’t change the chemistry of the product. Old school pyrex involved the addition of Boron —- no hydrocarbons in the mix.

Modern Pyrex is ordinary glass, mostly, and sometimes strengthened glass.

Old Pyrex was borosilicate glass.

From 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?

> One thing I'm not aware of is if Pyrex or the other tempered glasses are safe or if they also contain plastic.

They're glass. They don't contain this. In particular, oven-safe glass is supposed to be of the borosilicate variety... but about 20 years ago manufacturing was moved to China (haha!). They're not properly formulated or tempered anymore, and in many cases not oven safe. They tend to shatter with large temperature changes, spilling hot casseroles over people who aren't in the habit of having steaming hot casserole showers and then complain about those.

> Just use metal wood or glass.

I like those materials, but think of the damage you're doing to the CPI with your advice. How would we combat inflation if we weren't able to constantly substitute in cheaper packaging materials and so forth?

I never use glass for cooking. I've had two Pyrex dishes explode on me. One was contained in an oven, thankfully, so that all that was lost was a week's worth of chicken. The other, unfortunately, shattered in the "kitchen" of my studio apartment, 5 feet from my bed. I had to spend the next hour using a flashlight to try to find and pick up the tiny shards that had flown everywhere.

A lot of vintage glass things including Pyrex contain high levels of lead. I need to look into it more, but it seems to be from paint or colors added, and clear glass items are likely fine.

I 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.

> you can scrub and scrape them

Though you won't need to scrub very long if you use this:

https://barkeepersfriend.com/products/cookware-cleanser-poli...

Because of chemistry I don't understand, oxalic acid is amazing at removing burnt on food.

>> 50% more grease-cutting detergents

The chemicals don't appeal to me - I don't want them in the house, in the sewage water or as residue on the pots.

Soak pots in plain water for several hours and they'll clean easily.

I kept saying this for a decade but no one listens, even my mom.

Consider all outside food is toxic too.

I did the same. I still use cast iron and ceramic though.

Just 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.

>Just cook with stainless steel, it's not that hard

i've cooked a lot for a long time, and I have never gotten stainless steel to not stick absolutely everything (except water for pasta :)

I use cast iron and anodized aluminum and they are slippery AF

I want to but my eggs stick like crazy. I’ve even tried all the tips too like oil when droplets float, etc.

This - its super easy. I use an IR temp gun and once the pan is 170, add 1 tbsp. of butter, and it never sticks. I've showed friends and they still insist on their nasty Teflon/non-stick crap.

Oh dear my kettle is made from black plastic…

If 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.

Does 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)

what bothers me is the black plastic handles on pots and pans when cooking with gas. they get way to hot and produce a strong odor that makes me worry about what kind of gasses are released there that i am breathing in.

Awareness is the first step

A minor concern that will discourage families from cooking at home and maintaining a healthy diet

If 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.

It'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.

I 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.

The 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.

This 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.

Steel (cast iron) skillets. Wooden or stainless spatulas.

https://www.target.com/p/oxo-silicone-spatula/-/A-80221533 Here you go. Replace it with this one.

That'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.

As mentioned, the article is talking about plastic flippers, not silicone spatulas, but either way, I would recommend this [1] spatula set instead.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KSMBL26

Who uses a black plastic spatula when you can use a wooden one?

What about black rubber spatulas?

These days "rubber" could just be some synthetic plastic like in car tires. It's less likely to be natural rubber.

Most modern spatulas are silicone, those aren't typically recycled.

...and take the opportunity to ditch the teflon pans while you're at it. They're toxic.

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluor...

> 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)

This 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!

IJS no harm comes from isolating hot food from plastics altogether.

'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-retard...

poop i use a black plastic as my primary spatula

Another reason to avoid The Atlantic.

friend 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.

> 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.

ah do pologize fer that, havin as were my own twitch inducing triggers, hate to think of doing that to someone else

Reply on news.ycombinator.com