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450 points homebrewer | 4 comments | | HN request time: 1.622s | source
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dredmorbius ◴[] No.44367435[source]
One class of items not listed here, which I'd recently started to think might be less-than-optimal: pepper sold in jars with built-in, plastic, grinders.

I'd long since noted that as the jar emptied the grinders were increasingly ineffective. Thinking on why that might be ... I realised that this was because as you grind the pepper, you're also grinding plastic directly into your food.

There's surprisingly little discussion about this that I can find, though this 5 y.o. Stackexchange question addresses the concern:

<https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/103003/microplas...>

Seems to me that plastic grinders, whether disposable or sold as (apparently) durable products, are a class of products which simply shouldn't exist.

Searching, e.g., Walmart for "plastic grinders" turns up five listings presently, though it's not clear whether it's the body or the grinder itself which is plastic. In several cases it seems to be the latter.

<https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/plastic-grinders>

(Archive of current state: <https://archive.is/yIIX4>

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1. williamdclt ◴[] No.44367605[source]
The grinder itself is almost certainly always plastic in these. Even in refillable grinders, in the low-medium range the burr is often plastic
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2. dredmorbius ◴[] No.44367736[source]
It's (thankfully) still possible to buy all-metal grinders, ensuring one a reliable source of dietary steel.

Krell or otherwise.

3. jcattle ◴[] No.44374804[source]
Is it? I always thought the cheap ones were ceramic. Or is ceramic also somehow a type of plastic?
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4. williamdclt ◴[] No.44375275[source]
Ceramic are also a thing, but plastic burrs do exist afaik (don’t know which is more common). Plastic < ceramic < metal