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PlasticList – Plastic Levels in Foods

(www.plasticlist.org)
450 points homebrewer | 3 comments | 24 Jun 25 14:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.707s | source
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dredmorbius ◴[24 Jun 25 15:42 UTC] 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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kylebenzle ◴[24 Jun 25 16:56 UTC] No.44368266[source]▶
We 100% know and are well aware that food items like cutting boards, plastic-ware, etc. are all sources of plastic we ingest.

We are doing it on purpose, eating plastic that is, the only question is why!

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1. llm_nerd ◴[24 Jun 25 17:21 UTC] No.44368515[source]▶
The why is that plastic is an extremely convenient, cost effective way to make lots of things. And the evidence that it was deleterious to human health was negligible.

And to be fair, it's still fairly uncertain. We demonstrated endocrine problems with BPA, but aside from that microplastic consequences on health still seems uncertain. At best we're mostly doing the correlation/causation thing that leads people down a confusing path of cure-alls and snake oil.

If there was a smoking gun for the consequences of this in our day to day living, surely it would be regulated out of existence[1], but thus far that evidence doesn't exist.

[1] - ha ha, who am I kidding. In reality industry groups would muddy the waters, try to pretend it's "political", finance astroturfing groups, and soon enough a certain segment of society will be proudly clutching onto their microplastics, demanding higher dose services, and ascribing it with magical cure-all powers.

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2. dylan604 ◴[24 Jun 25 19:38 UTC] No.44370151[source]▶
> surely it would be regulated out of existence[1], but thus far that evidence doesn't exist.

surely, it's not so sure, especially with the current administration reversing so many existing policies. for example, reversing the restriction of asbestos is currently in the works. so adding new regulations on plastics use seems like something that the current policy makers will absolutely not be considering. at this point, I would not be shocked if they said they were reversing the bans on lead in gasoline or paints

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3. rubslopes ◴[24 Jun 25 23:59 UTC] No.44372342[source]▶
> reversing the restriction of asbestos is currently in the works.

I really, really hoped you weren't being serious...

But https://web.archive.org/web/20250624143349/https://www.nytim...