we don't use pods because me and all my roommates have seen the Technology Connections video on dishwashers. we use powder detergent, which comes in a cardboard box
I watched that video and switched and the liquid soap definitely did not get my dishes nearly as clean and I ended up switching back (and I bought the same brand and best version they had to offer)
I straightaway drink firewater out of the bottle and been doing it for years! Now u just shown me the excuse im gonna use going forwards! Thank you! Ehe
I'd be less worried about the consumers of things using black food plastics and more worried about the people working in the factories with the stuff day-in and day-out.
@@Hooorse I'm sure it varies a lot, but even in the most automated factories there's still going to be people physically running some machines or making sure everything is running smoothly. Same with people making the plastic itself that gets shipped off to make other products.
@@FIGHTTHECABLE Slavery has never been abolished. It has been outsourced to the impoverished third world countries, shifted to immigrants and in the USA, private prisons use prisoners as slaves.
OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) in the US sets Threshhold Limit Values (TLVs) for workplace exposures based on an 8-hour per day, 40-hour per week basis. They are quite conservative and meant to be protective of accute and chronic health effects. Many of these products, however, are not manufactured in the US. American companies making products offshore may opt to adhere to US standards voluntarily, especially if a fully owned subsidiary, but I have no information how strict other countries are with industrial exposure standards even in this day and age. (I trained in toxicology.)
@@batya7Even in the US there’s no way to know that a factory follows the standards until an employee makes a complaint, and often times that doesn’t happen until someone is in the hospital or a casket. Especially considering chemical exposures like these often aren’t super obvious like missing handrails.
Always preferred wood/bamboo/metal not for any health concerns but because if I accidentally left one of those on the heat for too long at worse you get some burnt coloration while a plastic version would need to be replaced.
Yeah I left a plastic container too close to an open flame in the kitchen and it melted… whereas a wooden utensil got slightly charred but was otherwise fine. It’s ironic we had wooden/metal tools that were better for us, and we just replaced it with cheaper, worse plastic tools.
@@danebultemeier6639 Metal can dissolve in acids, so bits of it will be getting into your tomato sauce. Probably still beter than the microplastics, but I'd go with wood
If you're attempting to remove plastic. Be careful when considering bamboo or other resin impregnated wood utensils. Resin is plastic. So a bamboo/wood tool or board which is formed with resin may not end up be the solution you're looking for.
Im a little surprised that a cooking youtuber is a good source of science education, but i fact check everything he says and ive never seen any misinformation, he does a really good job 😂
Yes Adam puts in the work looking up information for his videos. He's not looking for popular headlines like some You Tubers do. They use those popular headlines that matches what they think it is.
I remember in the 1990s when non-stick became default stove pans, and everybody insisted (back before we has silicone) that you had to use a plastic pancake turner. And I watched as the sharp edge of the implement melted into a brûlée crust. And I said, "Are you sure about this?" And everybody shrugged.
and then in the late 90's everyone figured out it was also the non-stick pans at high temps and chipping that's horrible. Stainless steel/cast iron with non seed oils is the way to go... until it isn't
just dont use cookware that leeches forever chemicals into your food everytime you cook The widespread use of plastic utensils and teflon coated cookware is insane to me,because no one uses it correctly Leave a teflon coated pan on the stove for 2mins and all birds in the room will just drop dead - no way that shit is good for you @@JeffreyMorse775
Seed oils are a nonissue. The evidence is really flimsy and largely based in hypotheticals from in vitro studies. In humans, there is no particularly credible evidence that seed oils are in any way harmful.
I think the takeaway (slowly phase plastic cookware out of your daily use rather than immediately tossing everything into landfill) is spot on. Adding “new wooden spoon” to my birthday wish list.
Agreed. We can use those as garden or non-cooking tools. I am sure those can be used to scrape or move stuff we don't want to directly contact with our hands.
The error seems to indeed be in the 42 000 ng/kg bw/day as you said: If you go to the source linked in the article via the Reference section for the value, you see that the United States Environmental Protection Agency find a Reference Dose for Oral Exposure of 7 x 10^-3 mg/kg bw/day A mg is 10^-3 g so the dose is 7 x 10^-6 g/kg bw/day. Multiply by 10^9 to convert to ng and you fing 7 x 10^3 ng/kg bw/day = 7000 ng/kg bw/day So yeah, for an adult of 60 kg the lowest 'dangerous' dose is 420 000 ng / day.
@@2dfx they probably used nanograms because other products in the paper had much smaller values. I didn't read the paper though, so I can't say for sure
You mean 7x10^3ng/kg/day, not g (you explain the unit change, but then keep using g). Otherwise math checks out, thanks for making me not have to dig up that original 7,000 number to see if that was the actual typo.
11:00 - you say the reference dose is "the minimum acceptable" dose. I'm pretty sure you mean the MAXIMUM acceptable daily dose - the amount beyond which it becomes unacceptably high.
Or rather, the smallest dose that could be considered to be a maximum acceptable dose. That is some may be more loose woth it but this is the minimal, maximum acceptable dose
When you speak of "something we created that is coming back to destroy us and that may in fact be a good thing." I feel the need to point out that the kind of people who decided it wasn't worth the cost to screen these plastics out of their products are generally not the sort who will be eating with plastic utensils or eating microwave meals.
You touched on something here briefly, which is my biggest concern. Yes, these studies show that exposure to these individual compounds is below acutely toxic levels, for a normal person. The problem is, we're chronically exposed to *so damn many* things exactly like that, and most people are exposed from birth. Hell, most of the time we're being exposed BEFORE birth. And every time scientists try to measure microplastic exposure, the numbers seem to turn out way bigger than we thought. It's this compounding, chronic effect that I find deeply, deeply troubling.
I know. It would be funny, if it wasn't so tragic. Of all the possible 'civilisation ending' things, our careless use of *plastic*, might just be what does us in.
Exactly. We live in a world filled with micro plastics (especially from polyester clothing), dissolved plastics (like BPA), pesticides (organophosphates, neonicotinoids), herbicides (roundup), fluorinated stuff like Teflon, PFOA and GenX, air quality problems from burning petroleum (gas, diesel, fuel oil), chemical manufacturing waste, and the remnants of previous contamination from decades before us like lead and arsenic pesticides, DDT, and whatnot. Hell, they found micro plastics in the damn clouds and a soda bottle at the bottom of the Mariana trench.
Already seeing a step away from black plastic food packaging in the UK- and opaque plastic in general, a lot of disposable trays etc are now clear, so I assume it's an ease of recycling thing.
Recyling is an issue easy to pass legislation on, too. Recyling plants made everyone aware that the black plastic is effectively not recyclable and it gets changed, but the poor guys at the sewer treatment plant are still fighting "flushable" wipes.
Tesco have committed to not-using black plastic in food packaging. (Not sure if that extends to non-Tesco-brand suppliers.) Carte D'Or have replaced their black plastic coffee jar lids (which were actually 2 lids, one was just decoration) to gold plastic lids.
Idk, in my experience many clear plastics are made with very low quality plastic that can't be recycled; but it is cheap. I would bet it has much more to do with costs than recycleability
@@lyrablack8621 You'd be wrong then, it's pretty rare nowadays for there to be any clear plastics in the UK that aren't recyclable, plus most supermarkets have schemes to recycle plastics that are not taken by recycling centres for domestic waste, chiefly plastic bags and crisp packets. These changes also predate the cost of living crisis, and if they're easier to recycle and cheaper to produce then it's still a net good. Going from a hard to recycle plastic to non-recyclable would cause enough backlash and an eventual need for a backpedal that it doesn't make financial sense to do.
@@vulcanfeline your inability to recycle doesn't mean the plastic isn't recyclable. and the improperly labeled products can still be thrown away safely.
@@lm13eddfsPlastic films (like plastic bags) are much harder to recycle than hard plastics. It's possible but so expensive it's only done in like a few big cities in the whole country
1:10 Carbon black is carbon soot. It's inert as long as it's been fully pyrolyzed. 2:00 Modern Infrared spectrometers can ID dyed plastic. 3:45 Electronics need to go to an eco station because they are mixed material goods that often have batteries in them, Making them a hazard on the belt and impossible to sort into a single material for baling in a recycling center. 8:00 bisphenol flame retardant contamination is only an issue in something like a sushi tray if the tray is heated to the point the retardants vaporize or bits of it flake off into the food. 9:00 This one is some misinformation, Those pods are wrapped in polyvinyl alcohol, A very unstable polymer that degrades quite quickly once it dissolves in water since tons of microbes can eat it, Making it as safe as bioplastics and not something worth worrying about unlike say polyethylene or polypropylene or really nasty ones such as halogenated plastics like PVC or fluorocarbons.
You speak with such certainty for someone who is so wrong. Even a few google searches seem to quickly refute some of your points. It's good that you're trying to add to the conversation, but there are more productive ways than simply pasting a few wrong opinions in the RUclips comments. Happy Thanksgiving
Regarding the bisphenol flame retardant contamination - wouldn't spatulas be an issue, then? I use my spatulas in very hot pans that are full of food I am about to consume. Seems like a legit concern.
@@farrahupson In a spatula it is an issue. A company making something like that or other plastic goods in warm environments where leaching can more easily happen should not be using any flame retardants in the plastic recipe.
I unironically love these talking head videos because I can just put them on and listen to them on my transit to campus. It's so much high-quality information that I can just absorb, so I hope that we see more of these videos - it's the closest thing we can get to the original Ragusea podcast, as long as Adam isn't being overworked.
2:18 as a controls and instrumentation technician, I can tell you that there are more ways to tell if a material is plastic or not than an infrared photoeye. We also have sensors in the industry that can tell what material it’s reading by how well it holds a capacitive charge when going by this sensor. They’re called capacitive sensors and they’re commonly used when you need to know you’re looking at a specific material, I.e. you need to know plastic is passing by the sensor and not something like wood.
I'm a bit tired of research into major sources of plastic ingestion being couched with this framing of 'well they are already everywhere, so who cares if they are in this thing as well'. Seems like some circular reasoning to me. If you are surrounded by flames in a house fire, the solution is to not accept that there's fire everywhere, the solution is to get out of the house. We are decades out from longitudinal research that indicates how much exposure leads to negative health outcomes. Until that time, it is a perfectly reasonable strategy to mitigate sources of exposure under our control. If anything, this rational 'throwing up of our hands' just provides a convenient out to the regulatory bodies who actually have the power to reduce this pollution right now.
The thing is that all the doors are locked and the windows are barricaded You can either suffer trying to open the door to leave, or just accept your fate within it
"Studies have shown that and even in newborn babies. When babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero. They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them. 59 minute mark in this video: No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
The more research that comes out about plastics, the more apt Kurzgesagt's analogy of plastics being similar to the myth of Midas seems to be. We made a spectacular material that will end up destroying us.
I have to say I really appreciate your even-handedness when it comes to these science explainers. Cause for avoidance, not panic, thoughtful consumption vis-a-vis the environment rather than inflammatory language, great all around. Thanks for everything
Here in Canada, WEEE is typically accepted for recycling at major electronic retailers, e.g. Best Buy. Old cell phones, TVs, even things like spare power or connecting cables, chargers, etc. In Toronto, we can put them out curbside, separate from the regular waste / recyclables. When the regular collection truck empties your bin, they see the box of electronics & call it in to their dispatcher. Later, a truck comes by & takes it away. People like me, in apartments with dumpsters, can also drop WEEE off at transfer stations, but Best Buy smells better.
I noticed higher end restaurants tend to use aluminum trays for leftovers around these parts. They have a clear plastic lid, but that usually doesnt contact the hot food.
Yet aluminum atoms DO come off the surface and have bad health effects, there's still the issue of cause or effect that Alzheimer's sufferers have excess aluminum in their brains. Just look at how Teflon coated aluminum is considered nowadays, if the coating gets scratched, your supposed to stop using it. And there's a big drive to educate people of the dangers of food in contact with aluminum foil. Turns out the plastic might have less long term risks than the aluminum container
Just figure I'd add that YT pays like garbage nowadays, especially on quasi-educational content. I at least respect creators who don't continue take sponsorships from the 'usual suspects' like nord, or known scams like raid shadow or betterhelp. It's ip to you to research your own health, but this at least doesn't seem to be a scam, and creators need tp make SOME cash; you can br annoyed but ending the video because he had a sponsorship is a bit ridiculous, given YT is shoving more and more crappy ads down our throat by the second yet continue to pay like trash.
What is the purpose of using sub optimal unit multipliers like 34700 nanograms... ooooh that sound like a scarily big number, why not just say 34.7 micrograms?Screw this, I'm gonna walk 8 000 000 000 000 picometers from my bedroom to my kitchen and make a 300 000 microliter cup of coffee by heating it in my 1000 000 000 000 nW microwave.
It could be because of other units in a paper being measured in nanograms, for which it is the appropriate unit. I would personally opt for scientific notation, something like 34.7E3 nanograms. This allows you to compare orders of magnitude between various quantities, and it is less prone to reading errors. Granted, nano/micro/milligrams are relatively easy to convert, but for surface area's or volumes, I appreciate consistency in units when evaluating results.
If you notice in the graph at 8:14, some items are measured at very very low concentrations and others at relatively high. It's normal to use one unit for all measurements.
I'm from London 🇬🇧. For electricals, We have special bins all over the city, we can also go to our libraries or some supermarkets or community centre to dispose of our electrical waste. It's a little bit more effort than simple throwing it in the trash. But definitely doable.
I'm also from London. We have a special area at the end of my road where there's lots of broken glass on the floor. We put all our unwanted furniture and electronics there and they all get taken away eventually, it's very convenient. They even put up a "no fly tipping" sign to make sure nobody blocks that area with their rubbish.
Oof. The math error isn't addressed until 13 minute in. I'm glad you spotted the error and pointed it out, but I don't expect everyone to get that far before freaking out about black plastics.
Honestly should have opened with that, it's kind of important to the overall narrative. A quick look through the comments shows who finished the video before speaking their opinions, and the number of people who reached 13 minutes seems to be pretty small.
But the error might be a typo and not a math error, and it's possible that the reference dose is actually 10 times let, and there was an extra 0 by mistake. It's hard to guess where the error was.
I mean he does say right upfront that there probably isn’t a reason to freak out so if someone freaks out instead of watching to the end that is kind of on them
I saw this story and looked at my plastic utensils. Some of them freyed and worn and I tossed them all in the trash. I got stainless steel and wood utensils to replace them all. It costed less than I expected.
I feel like I should point out, there is nothing poisonous about carbon black in and of itself. It's just elemental carbon after all. It's the classification thing that makes it a problem. I don't understand how other colors wouldn't have the same amount of fire retardant, since the fire retardant is not what colors the plastic black.
you know even if there isn't an immediate danger, I was happy to have a reasonable excuse to replace some crap I bought in college and replace it with stuff I enjoy using.
Yeah I don't understand at all these people are are like "oh it's slightly below the levels that would give me cancer immediately so that means it's safe for me to continue ingesting it at safe levels for another 30 years until it eventually accumulates and gives me cancer"
There's also the option of long term storage of these black plastic products in your own home when you replace them. This solves the recycling problem by putting it off and solves the exposure problem if you're concerned about that. Maybe not ideal to put things off for the future, but if it's not in a landfill, or being improperly recycled, then that's a better alternative I'd think. You don't necessarily have to throw bad things away if they don't break down, or cause problems if stored properly.
What a weird ending argument. The whole point of toxicological studies is that if you don’t know the risks, you can’t make informed decisions. You make it sound like you carefully weighed all the options and chose the health risks of the flame retardants, but surely the person who bought the medallion for their kids Halloween costume didn’t and couldn’t weigh the risk because they didn’t know there was one.
Not really. SO much reporting now is fear mongering to the extent that people are getting terrified of something that _might_ kill them in 320 years worth of exposure. Starving people in Africa not eating GMO crops for fear that it will immediately kill them. Polio vaccines being refused because there _might_ be a 1:100,000 chance of a complication. Ragusea is just being a voice of reason.
Adam, i straight up blocked all American news stations (which is most of them) from my news feed after the recent election, so this is totally new to me. Thank you for both introducing and educating me! ❤
3:30 - you don't bring it to the faciliuty yourself, you can usually throw it away at the nearest electronic/household appliances store, and sometimes you can find a bin next to the sidewalk that is a designated recycling bin for everything with a plug (at least in Poland)
I can taste black plastic. That took some years to find out. Sometimes the food was fine, sometimes it was unedible. The food was fine for others. I tried to eliminate and change so many ingredients before I figured out it was heating up black plastic. I don't use black plastic anymore. I try to use wood and metal as much as I can.
I could be the carbon black leaching into the food, it probably tastes very bitter. But, as I've never noticed such a taste from black plastics, even after I left one in hot oil and partially melted it, my concern is that you're tasting these impurities from recycled electrical waste. Mine are so old I'd be surprised if there was any recycled material in them. Which makes me wonder just how bad of a job they're doing at purifying the materials if you can literally taste the impurities even at the low levels that would leak into food. Either that or you've just got an unusually sensitive tongue.
@@RaunienTheFirst welcome to cheap products made in China, where safety and durability are optional. Hell I even wonder if my stainless steel stuff is 100% safe given it's also made in China, and could be contaminated with other chemicals than what's strictly needed to make stainless steel.
Most of the "dust" in a house is shed skin cells. In windy and dry environments, some fine mineral dust also creeps in. Very, very little will be derived from plastics. Reference dos is also an involved concept, and is the result of dividing the No Observed Adverse Effect Level dose by an uncertainty factor which is adjusted by a weighting factor. The RD is usually much smaller than the NOAEL, which "appears" to be a safe level of exposure. If the uncertainty factor were 100, and the weighting factor was 1, then the RD is 100 times smaller than the NOAEL. That might be the cause of some of the arithmetic confusion. Note also that as the weighting factor increases, the RD becomes even smaller. You might want to try and find out the LD 50 dose is, and compare that to the RD.
@@robinc.5077 agreed. further down on the website though it does say 7*10-4 for the "oral slope factor" which has to do with the risk of developing cancer from a known carcinogen. iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=35
Thank you for explaining! I was just trying to decide whether I needed to replace my black spatula, but I was having trouble finding a non-metal alternative. So glad to have this laid out rationally!
YES YOUR DISHWASHER AND LAUNDRY PODS CONTAIN PLASTIC. The entire casing isn't plastic, but the outside is coated in a thin layer of plastic. Just like how your paper cups are lined with a thin layer of plastic. And your aluminum cans.
Just buy the box of wash powder and the jug of liquid detergent. It's cheaper anyway and it takes seconds to measure out. I buy store brand dish powder and as long as I add some extra outside the soap dispenser for the pre wash my dishes come out clean.
@@thanatosignis5702eh. Less capitalism more so heavily ‘regulated’ capitalism (it doesnt actually regulate anything except the pockets of the companies that fund the government)
0:27 didn't the plastic researcher you interviewed say there's no such thing as an acceptable dose of plastic? It's poison all the way down. That saying was coined when only organic and "natural" (whatever that means) compounds existed.
There may be no acceptable dose of plastic but obviously since it's in everything and in all of us.... Practically we should concern ourselves more with stuff that's worse than what we've already got going on on average
A quick note on the "NO TRASH" symbol and europe. It's not really incentivized for you not to just trash your old electronics because while, yes, there are free services that will pick up your electronics they don't actually move them. So your options are "Lug an over 100kg CRT down from the 4th floor (no elevators) and call a company to pick it up" or "Drag it it 40m to the trashcan that's right there".
I very much understand the need to reassure folks to not worry on an individual level, but I'm worried that we dont have a means to drive public health policy without it - let me explain. If we keep at this narrative of "this is concerning, but you shouldn't be concerned" we end up only relying on underfunded public servants+scientists or dubious special interest groups to change things for us. It seems to me that the 'concerned mother's groups' of the country are the only ones with the stomach to keep fighting when it gets hard, possibly due to misguided opinions like that their kid got autism from flame retardants or whatever. Someone with a more measured view may want change but isnt willing to truely fight for things that feel like small potatoes. Thus I feel like we still need a source of motivation to kick the 'measured folks' butts into action, and I think that'll have to be the public health angle, and i think thats where your motivational force ought to be directed after reassuring individual health. Kick my booty into action dood, don't let me accept this status quo!
unfortunately, most of those Concerned Mothers Groups are just money-laundering operations for the oil industry, and also run by weird christofascist types.
@@HMPerson2 Oh look a climate change whacko using clever language to call for illegal action because they watched a documentary. As far as OP goes, the best solution is not to remove all danger. As an example, it's highly likely that the peanut allergy epidemic was largely caused by anti-peanut crusades and fear campaigns. Also referring to these people as "public servants" and pretending they are underfunded is a good joke. "Concerned mothers groups" seem to be causing more problems than they are fixing, no offense intended, but I wouldn't go to the average suburban mom for help with anything except for dealing with other women.
Years ago i worked on a plastic food packaging factory. When we made the black container we used all the trash plastic we had around, because the dark color cover everything. Nasty stuff
this year, I've slowly started to replace plastic stuff from my kitchen. I still have a non stick pan because I had it and don't want to waste it but for the most part I have replaced everything with glass, wood, metal or silicone. I have metal pans for when the time comes I'm looking at metal and glass electric kettles atm and still need more tupperware replacements but slowly getting there. stuffs expensive but if I get less micro and macro plastic, that's worth it. I can't get away from it but I can try to reduce it
I've also been replacing all my pans and pots with stainless steel. My girlfriend has a bit of a habit of burning the bottom of pots because she assumes that if it's got water in it it's not going to burn, but that doesn't work if the water is sitting on top and all the heavy stuff settles on the bottom because there's too much of it. When she burns a stainless pot all that happens is the metal discolors and, in the case of a really crappy and thin pot that we have, you get a small amount of surface rust that starts to develop. The pot is still perfectly usable and the rust is not going to hurt anything, especially if you quickly scrape it off with a metal scrubber before use. A thick-bottom stainless pot will last you a lifetime. If you overheat a non-stick pot ONCE you've effectively destroyed it. Also, i've always found that "non-stick" cookware isn't nearly as non-stick as it claims to be. If you don't have some oil in there things like eggs will stick no matter what.
What's wrong with ceramic based non stick pans? Ceramics are inert and can take a lot of heat. I would be more worried about aluminum metal reacting with food based acids.
@justinw1765 you don't want the non stick part. Metal, as long as you don't injest it, doesn't react in a way that is harmful. Heavy metals from industry is something to have an eye on but cooking on it doesn't seem to have an effect, really.
@@RatedX29 But why, when it comes to ceramic? I get not wanting teflon, but the ceramic pans (which is a misnomer, as the material is more like glass) are made of very inert material. Actually more inert than stainless steel. Just as safe as glass, and ceramic bowls. And again, not all metals are the same. Stainless steel is fine, but aluminum reacts with acids and leeches measurable amounts of aluminum into the food. Aluminum is highly toxic btw. It seems like you're just repeating dogma and points that you've heard from others, rather than thinking deeply, critically, and holistically. You've got in it in your mind as a belief that nonstick=bad, even though there is a worlds of difference between a teflon plastic type non stick, and an inert glass type coating.
I think one reason so many companies use black plastic for food containers is the visual impact? Especially for things like sushi where freshness matters, black makes anything in it look fresher and more vibrant. Black and white are the most universally neutral colors we have (I don't consider clear a "color"), and most foods tend to have more light ingredients than dark ones so there's a better contrast.
This reminds me of the problems with teflon. MinuteFood made a video about it and, from what I recall, their "verdict" is that you shouldn't buy frying pans made with teflon, but if you have one, it's better to use it than to throw it in the trash and get a new one right now.
I use mostly glass to store food in, switched to cast iron and stainless steel pots and pans, and recently have begun to buy all wood or metal utensils and cooking tools. I bought a bunch of really fancy vintage stainless steel spatulas, tongs, serving spoons, etc. for less than $2 each at an antique mall.
I'm wondering. Does the study cited at 12:00 start to refeer to the value als "close to the maximum acceptable dose" or is it just a typo and they refer to it correctly as 1/10 of the dose? The first would be catastrophic for the study. I assume its the second, but I'm honestly too lazy to check.
@Adam Ragusea I completely respect how you are objective in your reporting of facts. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear a true reporter of facts that doesn’t inject opinion into your research. Even if you have a personal opinion, you state it is your opinion. Thank you!
@ i don’t use non stick, just stainless steel pans. Wood is okay to clean once you learn how to do it. There is really no other reason to use plastic apart from that is cheap. The reason why you can buy it almost everywhere is because it has the highest markup for the company selling it.
These Adam Ragusea videos are legit my fave, I found his channel so many years ago due to recipes but I become such a fan because of these informative videos!
I feel like the real cause for concern is the variability of the chemical in recycled black plastics, it probably makes the whole concept that much more concerning to many people because there's no (affordable to the average household) way of knowing how much of a dose you're getting with it. I feel like this should bring greater concern to the efficacy of the recycling centers and of course to make electronics recycling easier for the American public specifically. I can corroborate how strangely mystical tech recycling feels sometimes. Keep an eye on emails from your local counties for anything about tech recycling drives (or maybe call them and ask about it).
I remember seeing a 60minutes episode years ago about these electronic “recyclers” who ultimately were selling in bulk to India where electronics were melted over open fire to extract the trace amount of gold/copper/etc
Adam, the world would so appreciate the first ever comprehensive video on the Hefty Renew program and recycling. Right now it's not well known at all but has pretty solid adoption so far.
Very thoughtful, balanced take - as usual. I particularly appreciate how you point out that all choices involve trade-offs, and while there’s no obvious downside to using wooden spoons instead of black plastic ones, in other cases (e.g., cutting boards) we could potentially be trading one risk for another. Final thought - if carbon black provides benefits, then recycling issues aside wouldn’t the food safety risk be eliminated if manufacturers only used virgin plastic?
"I will take the slight risk of elevating health risks by accepting that TV plastic has high levels of fire retardant." But is it an actual binary choice, with no alternatives? I would rather demand more and better instead of being reduced to accepting that these are my only choices.
In this moment of time it probably is a binary choice. Of course we should fund research for alternative materials that are both functional and non-toxic, but that is likely a long way away.
Worrying is probably worse for your health than black plastics. There is no reason to worry about it, if you think it might harm your health, just don't use them. Use other products instead, it's the best part of capitalism, Choice.
Are you *sure* we shouldn't flip out about basic arithmetic errors making through peer review into mainstream publications? Maybe there's a lesson in there about not asking scientists to review papers for free while the greedy publisher laughs all the way to the bank?
@@UserName-xc4el Presumably you'd compensate them for their time, not pay them for approval? How is the most corrupt possible version of this the first thing you thought of?
Probably worth noting: Every professional kitchen I've ever worked in has used stainless steel utensils for their cooking. I used to have a collection of black plastic cooking utensils, but after working in kitchens I changed over to stainless; Not so much from a health risk related mindset, but because they tend to be a lot more durable, and plus you don't have to worry about them melting if you accidentally happen to set them down someplace hot.
the packaging on diswasher pods isn't plastic, it's kind fof like dried school glue. Sources of micro plastics in a dishwasher might include plastic cutting boards and plates. Maybe even cups and bowls that have been washed a lot at high heat even though they've never had knives used on them.
Cutting boards - or damaged plastic surfaces in general - I'd agree. But intact plastic food-grade containers, the ones with BPA-free markings and rated for 100C max temp should be fine, no?
Chips of plastic can be embedded in that material. Supply chains use plastic to manufacture goods, so even if the good itself isn’t intended to have plastic in it, plastic can be there whether you like it or not
Once upon a time you did some of the best cooking videos on RUclips. Could we get back to that instead of chasing click-bait culinary related fads? I really do love your actual cooking videos.
Something i think should be harped on more when talking about this kind of thing is how it compares to other dangers we never think about, like how the leading cause of death in people under 45 (in the USA at least) is injuries, of which the leading causes are collisions on roads and poisoning, followed by homicide or suicide by firearm. (according to the CDC) Before anyone spends energy worrying about plastic they should make sure to spend as little time in a car as possible, figure out how to avoid poisoning (i can't find what on earth people are being poisoned by so much), avoid firearms and learn how to prevent suicides, and as a bonus for those who want to live beyond 45: build a healthy diet you can follow your entire life and work exercise into your daily routine as much as possible.
Getting something like cancer is very different than just dying of injury though. You have to deal with the actual having cancer part. Health problems are horrible. Some are scarier than death for people.
What they should do, is make black plastic food products that are not recycled. State mandated recycling is a forest that actually ends up being bad for the environment, anyway. In the rare cases where things are actually recycled, since of course it has turned out that mostly our governments lie and ship the supposed recycling overseas to be dumped into the ocean in some foreign country or whatever.
Don’t worry about the recycling part!! Plastic is unrecyclable. The tiiiiny portion that gets semi-recycled sheds way more microplastics. The landfill is better
You see, I’ll still avoid black plastic from now on. Not because this in itself is a thing one should panic over, but because we’re exposed to so many different dangerous substances and carcinogens. Even if the black plastic isn’t enough to be a big concern, I am sure there’s ten other carcinogens that I don’t even know I’m consuming at the moment. My policy is that one should probably avoid as much as one reasonably can. Less carcinogens tend to be a good choice.
"Studies have shown that newborn babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero. They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them. 59 minute mark in this video: No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
Adam, your sponsor is contributing to plastic waste. As a journalist you HAVE to know that it seems a bit hypocritical to not even mention it? And if it’s a case of ‘they won’t sponsor me if I do’, maybe they aren’t a sponsor worth taking.
I keep wondering if the quilt on the wall in the background is representative or symbolic of anything. The sets of parallel lines remind me a lot of the reclaimed lathe art piece Brant Freeman presented you with a few years ago. By the way, did that come with you to the new place, or did it stay behind as part of the old home and kitchen's own history?
I work in a school cafeteria my employer is actually a catering company that the school has a contract with. We actually do have separate disposable black utensils for catering purposes. We also have black plastic Hotel pans that we use an a daily basis in our steam tables. I occasionally enjoy a Marie Callender's microwavable meal and I noticed they even switched to white plastic.
The "incentive" for trying to recycle or get rid of electronic stuff that no longer works and all that is to take it somewhere like the recycling place and pay them to take it, depending on how much it weighs etc. Thus so many people just throw it in the trash because "why would I pay someone to take something thats broken when I already can throw it away" basically. I try to avoid plastic stuff when it comes to food but you can't really avoid it these days since most companies go towards plastic cause it's cheaper to use than glass etc.
I saw the study on reddit a month ago and immediately threw out every black plastic utensils we had. With two small children in the house, i felt horrible that I've been cooking food with those.
You did get the point of the video that it isn't aa bad (like 1/10th as bad as was published) as the popular media made it out to be? So you didn't have to throw out everything after all. I find PAUSING a bit before making decisions when confronted by "new discoveries" helps because then revisions or clarifications FREQUENTLY remove the crisis everyone thought it was.
Poor people can't afford anything else. Knowledge can be power or a sledgehammer: unless you can recommend something people can afford, all you do is scare them.
Thank you for these videos. They give a real fresh perspective on 'toxic' stuff. News outlet always forget its the dose that matters - looking at actual papers and reference doses is what suspects' articles completely lack.
And we haven't even touched on the topic of nanoplastics, the smaller brother of the already ever present microplastics. Microwave something in a plastic container? Yeah, nanoplastics will leech into your food. (Is it of concern for your health? Maybe? Do you WANT to add more plastics to your body or the environment? Probably not.) Glass is so much better in every aspect.
Unless your clothes are always wrinkly, you are likely wearing a lot of synthetic fibers, all the time, every day. These fibers break apart and come off in the form of dust, like the lint in your washer dryer. Every breath you take you are inhaling this dust directly from your clothing or indirectly from latent dust floating around your environment. This mostly gets trapped in your mucus membrane, much of which drains into your stomach. We are literally eating our clothing every day. I would guess most of it passes right through us but you have to assume there is some amount of contamination.
Before I found out about this black plastic flame retardant issue, I accidentally melted a bit of a container. I was SO SICK. Stuffy nose, projectile vomit, body aches,sweating....I lost 3 days and felt like death. Done with plastic when possible.
In a few weeks, a video like this may be taken down for informing the public of possible health concerns. A dictatorship doesn't want information not approved to get out. The Covid anti-science madness was a fair example of what's in store for our foreseeable future. Good luck. Be safe, Adam.
Videos calling into question the safety of plastics, particularly in dining, have been around for years and le hecking DiCtAtOrShIp isn't going to be able or willing to create a thought-police unit for this. Besides, RFK is likely big on reducing plastic use if he's half as paranoid about microplastics as he is about high fructose corn syrup.
Not a day goes by about something new, we're supposed to worry about. I'm so tired of being afraid of this or that or the other. I want to live in a world, where companies aren't constantly trying to poison their customers 😭
the scary thing is that plenty of companies dont even try to. Most of the time the company is either completely unaware of the issue, too powerless within to curtail it, or too greedy throughout to stop it.
@@AidanNaut0and sometimes they keep recreating new versions of the poison to then pretent they aren't poisonous and do the whole cycle again - like teflon
I definitely see where you're coming from, and I hate the way big corporations work as much as the next guy, but Adam makes a good point in this video. A possible risk of chronic health problems is almost always preferable to a certain risk of immediate danger, like fire. There are so many things that have to be considered in cases like this; plastic seems to be bad, but what's better? Paper isn't as durable, and a damaged container can lead to food poisoning. Metals are good, but they might also leech in, which can cause other health problems. And in both cases, the cost of production needs to be weighed (paper means a lot of wood, metal means a mine). Really we just gotta hope that the people in control are at least TRYING to move towards better things, and in cases like this we do what we can to avoid the hazards as we find them
Too late: "Studies have shown that and even in newborn babies. When babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero. They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them. 59 minute mark in this video: No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
Next time you buy an electrical device, look carefully at all the labeling, stickers, instructions, etc. The last time I bought lights for the Christmas tree, it said “wash hands after handling.” A garden hose was labeled with the same message, including a warning not to drink water coming out of the hose, and not to use the hose for water toys that kids would play with. I called the company and asked them about the warnings. They said that it was because the hoses are made from purchased recycled material, so they can’t guarantee its safety.
Good case in point. Lead is insoluble in water, provided the people running your public utilities aren't total dubmasses. A phenomenon known as "passivation" occurs, where oxides of lead (and mineral deposits) physically isolate the lead from the water. I'd have zero qualms about drinking from lead water pipes, so long as the pipes are at least a year or two old. (In fact, I probably do...the city I live in is over 100 years old, and SOP at the time was lead pipes for water.)
The lead water pipes were not even CLOSE to the main vector for lead exposure in Roman times. Your wife probably used lead based cosmetics to color her skin...
Just use wood... It's been around for billions of years, and it grows on trees. Non-scratch, non-toxic, biodegradeable, and it's made from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
@@DigitalChurchCultist It just so happens that our current global economy was made possible by several unsustainable practices, and overuse of plastics is one of them. When the adverse effects of their use become impossible to ignore any longer, people will realise that there is no alternative that we can use instead of plastic that would ensure the continuation of our current economy. Unless we invent new wonder materials and new technologies that can replace them, we will only have two options. Either keep using the flawed technology, or people will die.
Outside of the manufacturing issues of wood (it's flexible when thin, it scratches, it's heavy, it's hilariously uneconomical for a variety of reasons), it has one major problem compared with this plastic: It, very famously, is not fire retardant.
@@DigitalChurchCultistfor who? I'm pretty sure creating 8 billion spoons and distributing them to everyone would not be that expensive Bad for the company trying to sell utensils? Yes
A big flaw in these studies is that they don't consider other factors which are potentially extremely important. For example, when we analyze risks of a drug, we look at interactions with other drugs as well. Never just solely focus on the one drug, but these studies tend to focus on just one thing.
Dude I've watched so much youtube now that I can tell when people are uncomfortable on camera. So when they force themselves to do something they don't want to do, it's pretty obvious. Adam here has found a way to be comfortable with presenting us the information without forcing himself to be on camera so much. His calm makes me calm. Thanks again Mr. Ragusea for showing us the way.
we don't use pods because me and all my roommates have seen the Technology Connections video on dishwashers. we use powder detergent, which comes in a cardboard box
That, and the fact that my roommates eat them too fast.
@@randalalansmith9883 I can't help it bro they're just SO TASTEY
When are we getting an Adam Ragusea and Technology connections crossover
I watched that video and switched and the liquid soap definitely did not get my dishes nearly as clean and I ended up switching back (and I bought the same brand and best version they had to offer)
@@CAepicreviews the way they POP in your mouth 🤤
to balance out the fire retardant in my diet I am adding an equal amount of kerosene to my coffee.
i add cayenne, i suspect kerosene tastes just as good. will have to try that one day!
My doctor said I can only handle premium ethanol free
#wisdom
I straightaway drink firewater out of the bottle and been doing it for years! Now u just shown me the excuse im gonna use going forwards! Thank you! Ehe
kerosene? red vox?
This is why i spray paint all my black cooking plastics a different color. Problem solved
🤣
Perfect solution. No notes.
I started with this but changed to hand painting to reduce the amount of aerosolized products I use. Otherwise, I am with you.
Chrome is the best!
“Why I spray paint my tongue instead of my cooking plastics”
I'd be less worried about the consumers of things using black food plastics and more worried about the people working in the factories with the stuff day-in and day-out.
@@Hooorse I'm sure it varies a lot, but even in the most automated factories there's still going to be people physically running some machines or making sure everything is running smoothly. Same with people making the plastic itself that gets shipped off to make other products.
We best not talk about the jeans industry in India.
Maybe its gotten better, most likely not.
@@FIGHTTHECABLE Slavery has never been abolished. It has been outsourced to the impoverished third world countries, shifted to immigrants and in the USA, private prisons use prisoners as slaves.
OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) in the US sets Threshhold Limit Values (TLVs) for workplace exposures based on an 8-hour per day, 40-hour per week basis. They are quite conservative and meant to be protective of accute and chronic health effects. Many of these products, however, are not manufactured in the US. American companies making products offshore may opt to adhere to US standards voluntarily, especially if a fully owned subsidiary, but I have no information how strict other countries are with industrial exposure standards even in this day and age. (I trained in toxicology.)
@@batya7Even in the US there’s no way to know that a factory follows the standards until an employee makes a complaint, and often times that doesn’t happen until someone is in the hospital or a casket. Especially considering chemical exposures like these often aren’t super obvious like missing handrails.
Always preferred wood/bamboo/metal not for any health concerns but because if I accidentally left one of those on the heat for too long at worse you get some burnt coloration while a plastic version would need to be replaced.
Yeah I left a plastic container too close to an open flame in the kitchen and it melted… whereas a wooden utensil got slightly charred but was otherwise fine.
It’s ironic we had wooden/metal tools that were better for us, and we just replaced it with cheaper, worse plastic tools.
Especially metal. There’s not a lot I can think of that would wreck a solid metal cooking utensil. They’ll last forever.
Not to mention the ruined meal and having to clean plastic goo off of whatever unfortunate pot or pan it was
@@danebultemeier6639 Metal can dissolve in acids, so bits of it will be getting into your tomato sauce.
Probably still beter than the microplastics, but I'd go with wood
If you're attempting to remove plastic. Be careful when considering bamboo or other resin impregnated wood utensils. Resin is plastic. So a bamboo/wood tool or board which is formed with resin may not end up be the solution you're looking for.
Im a little surprised that a cooking youtuber is a good source of science education, but i fact check everything he says and ive never seen any misinformation, he does a really good job 😂
He was a journalist before and a college professor. His background is not being a cooking RUclipsr 😂🎉
Not every RUclipsr rose from mom's basement. 😅
Adam clearly understands and uses the Scientific Method. Most people don't.
Personally I keep my vinegar leg on the left, but other than that he's been pretty solid.
Yes Adam puts in the work looking up information for his videos. He's not looking for popular headlines like some You Tubers do. They use those popular headlines that matches what they think it is.
I think that flame retardants found in sushi trays are from fish, it's a little sus that there are so few fire disasters in the ocean
I remember in the 1990s when non-stick became default stove pans, and everybody insisted (back before we has silicone) that you had to use a plastic pancake turner.
And I watched as the sharp edge of the implement melted into a brûlée crust. And I said, "Are you sure about this?" And everybody shrugged.
and then in the late 90's everyone figured out it was also the non-stick pans at high temps and chipping that's horrible.
Stainless steel/cast iron with non seed oils is the way to go... until it isn't
Well you can't scrape metal against a nonstick pan surface it will completely ruin the pan and put teflon in your food
just dont use cookware that leeches forever chemicals into your food everytime you cook
The widespread use of plastic utensils and teflon coated cookware is insane to me,because no one uses it correctly
Leave a teflon coated pan on the stove for 2mins and all birds in the room will just drop dead - no way that shit is good for you @@JeffreyMorse775
@@JeffreyMorse775 What about wood?
Seed oils are a nonissue. The evidence is really flimsy and largely based in hypotheticals from in vitro studies. In humans, there is no particularly credible evidence that seed oils are in any way harmful.
I think the takeaway (slowly phase plastic cookware out of your daily use rather than immediately tossing everything into landfill) is spot on.
Adding “new wooden spoon” to my birthday wish list.
Agreed. We can use those as garden or non-cooking tools. I am sure those can be used to scrape or move stuff we don't want to directly contact with our hands.
@@JohnSmith-kw6beNew toilet spatula acquired
@@JohnSmith-kw6be
I may or may not have used kitchen implements to re-pot some plants a while ago. Don't tell my roommate 😆
@@JohnSmith-kw6be Yeah I’ve used it similarly to scoop ashes from my grill or in the garden. Totally repurpose-able.
Wooden spoons are just fun anyways, let’s you feel like a witch
The error seems to indeed be in the 42 000 ng/kg bw/day as you said:
If you go to the source linked in the article via the Reference section for the value, you see that the United States Environmental Protection Agency find a Reference Dose for Oral Exposure of 7 x 10^-3 mg/kg bw/day
A mg is 10^-3 g so the dose is 7 x 10^-6 g/kg bw/day.
Multiply by 10^9 to convert to ng and you fing 7 x 10^3 ng/kg bw/day = 7000 ng/kg bw/day
So yeah, for an adult of 60 kg the lowest 'dangerous' dose is 420 000 ng / day.
You made me read math on Thanksgiving.
/s Hope your day was as pleasant as possible.
So 420 micrograms? nanograms was an interesting and confusing notation choice.
Thanks for clarifying. My brain rejects math on principle.
@@2dfx they probably used nanograms because other products in the paper had much smaller values. I didn't read the paper though, so I can't say for sure
You mean 7x10^3ng/kg/day, not g (you explain the unit change, but then keep using g). Otherwise math checks out, thanks for making me not have to dig up that original 7,000 number to see if that was the actual typo.
11:00 - you say the reference dose is "the minimum acceptable" dose. I'm pretty sure you mean the MAXIMUM acceptable daily dose - the amount beyond which it becomes unacceptably high.
I was thinking the same
This
Or rather, the smallest dose that could be considered to be a maximum acceptable dose. That is some may be more loose woth it but this is the minimal, maximum acceptable dose
Yeah the context clues make this clear enough, but possibly he could insert a few frames with a text correction on screen to avoid any confusion.
if we don't get the minimum dose, we will get cancer!! That's why I make sure to smoke some plastic before I go to sleep!
When you speak of "something we created that is coming back to destroy us and that may in fact be a good thing." I feel the need to point out that the kind of people who decided it wasn't worth the cost to screen these plastics out of their products are generally not the sort who will be eating with plastic utensils or eating microwave meals.
Good point. It was a good video, but his misanthropic quip was annoying. Why even worry about such things if humanity deserves it?
You touched on something here briefly, which is my biggest concern. Yes, these studies show that exposure to these individual compounds is below acutely toxic levels, for a normal person. The problem is, we're chronically exposed to *so damn many* things exactly like that, and most people are exposed from birth. Hell, most of the time we're being exposed BEFORE birth. And every time scientists try to measure microplastic exposure, the numbers seem to turn out way bigger than we thought. It's this compounding, chronic effect that I find deeply, deeply troubling.
You're right..all true. Diseases and mental health issues started at the umbilical cord.
Cumulative exposure is considered in toxicology studies.
Perhaps they can take a note from cannabis studies and claim a negative "entourage effect" from multiple unrelated toxins.
I know. It would be funny, if it wasn't so tragic. Of all the possible 'civilisation ending' things, our careless use of *plastic*, might just be what does us in.
Exactly. We live in a world filled with micro plastics (especially from polyester clothing), dissolved plastics (like BPA), pesticides (organophosphates, neonicotinoids), herbicides (roundup), fluorinated stuff like Teflon, PFOA and GenX, air quality problems from burning petroleum (gas, diesel, fuel oil), chemical manufacturing waste, and the remnants of previous contamination from decades before us like lead and arsenic pesticides, DDT, and whatnot.
Hell, they found micro plastics in the damn clouds and a soda bottle at the bottom of the Mariana trench.
This is the only cooking channel that teach me about recycling electronics
It's a crunchy casserole topping with corn flakes!
"Something called Carbon Black, which is exactly what it sounds like."
Me: "It's a Power Ranger!"
Already seeing a step away from black plastic food packaging in the UK- and opaque plastic in general, a lot of disposable trays etc are now clear, so I assume it's an ease of recycling thing.
Recyling is an issue easy to pass legislation on, too. Recyling plants made everyone aware that the black plastic is effectively not recyclable and it gets changed, but the poor guys at the sewer treatment plant are still fighting "flushable" wipes.
We really need government enforcement not the ”the individual have to make the correct choice” on these kinda of things
Tesco have committed to not-using black plastic in food packaging.
(Not sure if that extends to non-Tesco-brand suppliers.)
Carte D'Or have replaced their black plastic coffee jar lids (which were actually 2 lids, one was just decoration) to gold plastic lids.
Idk, in my experience many clear plastics are made with very low quality plastic that can't be recycled; but it is cheap. I would bet it has much more to do with costs than recycleability
@@lyrablack8621 You'd be wrong then, it's pretty rare nowadays for there to be any clear plastics in the UK that aren't recyclable, plus most supermarkets have schemes to recycle plastics that are not taken by recycling centres for domestic waste, chiefly plastic bags and crisp packets. These changes also predate the cost of living crisis, and if they're easier to recycle and cheaper to produce then it's still a net good. Going from a hard to recycle plastic to non-recyclable would cause enough backlash and an eventual need for a backpedal that it doesn't make financial sense to do.
It hurts me that the plastic-wrapped vitamin pack contains a bunch of smaller plastic sachets. I assume none of that is recyclable...
why assume it's not recyclable
@@lm13eddfs because, mostly, plastics just aren't recycled. even if labeled as recyclable, they usually aren't and, therefore, aren't recyclable
@@vulcanfeline your inability to recycle doesn't mean the plastic isn't recyclable. and the improperly labeled products can still be thrown away safely.
@@lm13eddfsPlastic films (like plastic bags) are much harder to recycle than hard plastics. It's possible but so expensive it's only done in like a few big cities in the whole country
How about we just don't use plastic excessively?@@sarkaranish
1:10 Carbon black is carbon soot. It's inert as long as it's been fully pyrolyzed. 2:00 Modern Infrared spectrometers can ID dyed plastic. 3:45 Electronics need to go to an eco station because they are mixed material goods that often have batteries in them, Making them a hazard on the belt and impossible to sort into a single material for baling in a recycling center. 8:00 bisphenol flame retardant contamination is only an issue in something like a sushi tray if the tray is heated to the point the retardants vaporize or bits of it flake off into the food. 9:00 This one is some misinformation, Those pods are wrapped in polyvinyl alcohol, A very unstable polymer that degrades quite quickly once it dissolves in water since tons of microbes can eat it, Making it as safe as bioplastics and not something worth worrying about unlike say polyethylene or polypropylene or really nasty ones such as halogenated plastics like PVC or fluorocarbons.
Soot has lots of impurities, carbon black has way less.
Thus they are distinctly different
You speak with such certainty for someone who is so wrong. Even a few google searches seem to quickly refute some of your points. It's good that you're trying to add to the conversation, but there are more productive ways than simply pasting a few wrong opinions in the RUclips comments. Happy Thanksgiving
Research presented in video: "When using this you consume x amount of fire retardant". You: "Nah"
Regarding the bisphenol flame retardant contamination - wouldn't spatulas be an issue, then? I use my spatulas in very hot pans that are full of food I am about to consume. Seems like a legit concern.
@@farrahupson In a spatula it is an issue. A company making something like that or other plastic goods in warm environments where leaching can more easily happen should not be using any flame retardants in the plastic recipe.
I unironically love these talking head videos because I can just put them on and listen to them on my transit to campus. It's so much high-quality information that I can just absorb, so I hope that we see more of these videos - it's the closest thing we can get to the original Ragusea podcast, as long as Adam isn't being overworked.
Sponsor segment ends at 7:23
What's a sponsored segment? #revanced ;)
all hail sponsorblock
thx
@@Lvvcasssssame here 😎
@@Lvvcassssbased
2:18 as a controls and instrumentation technician, I can tell you that there are more ways to tell if a material is plastic or not than an infrared photoeye. We also have sensors in the industry that can tell what material it’s reading by how well it holds a capacitive charge when going by this sensor. They’re called capacitive sensors and they’re commonly used when you need to know you’re looking at a specific material, I.e. you need to know plastic is passing by the sensor and not something like wood.
I believe the test was looking for bromines in the plastic
I'm a bit tired of research into major sources of plastic ingestion being couched with this framing of 'well they are already everywhere, so who cares if they are in this thing as well'. Seems like some circular reasoning to me. If you are surrounded by flames in a house fire, the solution is to not accept that there's fire everywhere, the solution is to get out of the house. We are decades out from longitudinal research that indicates how much exposure leads to negative health outcomes. Until that time, it is a perfectly reasonable strategy to mitigate sources of exposure under our control.
If anything, this rational 'throwing up of our hands' just provides a convenient out to the regulatory bodies who actually have the power to reduce this pollution right now.
how do you propose we get out of the house
The thing is that all the doors are locked and the windows are barricaded
You can either suffer trying to open the door to leave, or just accept your fate within it
The point is that even if you get out of your house, you realize that the world is also on fire and whelp that was a lot of effort for nothing.
"Studies have shown that and even in newborn babies. When babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero.
They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them.
59 minute mark in this video:
No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids
RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
The more research that comes out about plastics, the more apt Kurzgesagt's analogy of plastics being similar to the myth of Midas seems to be.
We made a spectacular material that will end up destroying us.
I have to say I really appreciate your even-handedness when it comes to these science explainers. Cause for avoidance, not panic, thoughtful consumption vis-a-vis the environment rather than inflammatory language, great all around. Thanks for everything
Here in Canada, WEEE is typically accepted for recycling at major electronic retailers, e.g. Best Buy. Old cell phones, TVs, even things like spare power or connecting cables, chargers, etc. In Toronto, we can put them out curbside, separate from the regular waste / recyclables. When the regular collection truck empties your bin, they see the box of electronics & call it in to their dispatcher. Later, a truck comes by & takes it away. People like me, in apartments with dumpsters, can also drop WEEE off at transfer stations, but Best Buy smells better.
I noticed higher end restaurants tend to use aluminum trays for leftovers around these parts. They have a clear plastic lid, but that usually doesnt contact the hot food.
Yet aluminum atoms DO come off the surface and have bad health effects, there's still the issue of cause or effect that Alzheimer's sufferers have excess aluminum in their brains.
Just look at how Teflon coated aluminum is considered nowadays, if the coating gets scratched, your supposed to stop using it. And there's a big drive to educate people of the dangers of food in contact with aluminum foil.
Turns out the plastic might have less long term risks than the aluminum container
In my area the restaurants that know use paper packaging only one uses aluminum because they are a BBQ place.
@caseysmith544 and acidic sauces (which most bbq sauces usualy are) are the WORST for picking up aluminum.
@@bobjoatmon1993 They use it more for the Mac & cheese part or the meat on its own before you add the sauce knowing the sauces are bad for aluminum.
5:35 these segways into ads are getting me down. Would prefer if it was clearly labeled as such like a commerical break.
"segways into ads" lol Yes, he rides a scooter into the ads. I think you meant "segues".
Sorry about that.
Ending the video here because I’m so tired of watching salesmen.
Yea it’s pretty ssd
Just figure I'd add that YT pays like garbage nowadays, especially on quasi-educational content. I at least respect creators who don't continue take sponsorships from the 'usual suspects' like nord, or known scams like raid shadow or betterhelp. It's ip to you to research your own health, but this at least doesn't seem to be a scam, and creators need tp make SOME cash; you can br annoyed but ending the video because he had a sponsorship is a bit ridiculous, given YT is shoving more and more crappy ads down our throat by the second yet continue to pay like trash.
@@RandomDudeOne How do you thing all those Segways got recycled? All that hype had to go somewhere.
What is the purpose of using sub optimal unit multipliers like 34700 nanograms... ooooh that sound like a scarily big number, why not just say 34.7 micrograms?Screw this, I'm gonna walk 8 000 000 000 000 picometers from my bedroom to my kitchen and make a 300 000 microliter cup of coffee by heating it in my 1000 000 000 000 nW microwave.
I don't disagree, but sometimes it is industry-standard to use a specific unit
15 hundred sounds bigger than 1500
It could be because of other units in a paper being measured in nanograms, for which it is the appropriate unit. I would personally opt for scientific notation, something like 34.7E3 nanograms. This allows you to compare orders of magnitude between various quantities, and it is less prone to reading errors.
Granted, nano/micro/milligrams are relatively easy to convert, but for surface area's or volumes, I appreciate consistency in units when evaluating results.
Just like a typical external battery pack is 20,000mAh. So 20Ah then, it's just crazy to talk of thousands of thousandths.
If you notice in the graph at 8:14, some items are measured at very very low concentrations and others at relatively high. It's normal to use one unit for all measurements.
I'm from London 🇬🇧. For electricals, We have special bins all over the city, we can also go to our libraries or some supermarkets or community centre to dispose of our electrical waste.
It's a little bit more effort than simple throwing it in the trash.
But definitely doable.
I'm also from London. We have a special area at the end of my road where there's lots of broken glass on the floor. We put all our unwanted furniture and electronics there and they all get taken away eventually, it's very convenient. They even put up a "no fly tipping" sign to make sure nobody blocks that area with their rubbish.
Oof. The math error isn't addressed until 13 minute in. I'm glad you spotted the error and pointed it out, but I don't expect everyone to get that far before freaking out about black plastics.
Honestly should have opened with that, it's kind of important to the overall narrative. A quick look through the comments shows who finished the video before speaking their opinions, and the number of people who reached 13 minutes seems to be pretty small.
Would think a concerned person would watch the whole video
@@Puzzlesocksyou can't protect stupid from stupid. You can certainly try, but people be people.
But the error might be a typo and not a math error, and it's possible that the reference dose is actually 10 times let, and there was an extra 0 by mistake. It's hard to guess where the error was.
I mean he does say right upfront that there probably isn’t a reason to freak out so if someone freaks out instead of watching to the end that is kind of on them
I saw this story and looked at my plastic utensils. Some of them freyed and worn and I tossed them all in the trash. I got stainless steel and wood utensils to replace them all. It costed less than I expected.
Frayed plastic is probably nylon. And that’s not a concern.
I feel like I should point out, there is nothing poisonous about carbon black in and of itself. It's just elemental carbon after all. It's the classification thing that makes it a problem. I don't understand how other colors wouldn't have the same amount of fire retardant, since the fire retardant is not what colors the plastic black.
Black is by far the most common color used in plastic cases for electronics.
you know even if there isn't an immediate danger, I was happy to have a reasonable excuse to replace some crap I bought in college and replace it with stuff I enjoy using.
Yeah I don't understand at all these people are are like "oh it's slightly below the levels that would give me cancer immediately so that means it's safe for me to continue ingesting it at safe levels for another 30 years until it eventually accumulates and gives me cancer"
There's also the option of long term storage of these black plastic products in your own home when you replace them. This solves the recycling problem by putting it off and solves the exposure problem if you're concerned about that.
Maybe not ideal to put things off for the future, but if it's not in a landfill, or being improperly recycled, then that's a better alternative I'd think. You don't necessarily have to throw bad things away if they don't break down, or cause problems if stored properly.
What a weird ending argument. The whole point of toxicological studies is that if you don’t know the risks, you can’t make informed decisions. You make it sound like you carefully weighed all the options and chose the health risks of the flame retardants, but surely the person who bought the medallion for their kids Halloween costume didn’t and couldn’t weigh the risk because they didn’t know there was one.
Not really. SO much reporting now is fear mongering to the extent that people are getting terrified of something that _might_ kill them in 320 years worth of exposure. Starving people in Africa not eating GMO crops for fear that it will immediately kill them. Polio vaccines being refused because there _might_ be a 1:100,000 chance of a complication. Ragusea is just being a voice of reason.
This is why I cover all of my utensils and pans in a thick layer of lead
The weee joke got me. The essence of humor is surprise. Good work.
Adam, i straight up blocked all American news stations (which is most of them) from my news feed after the recent election, so this is totally new to me. Thank you for both introducing and educating me! ❤
3:30 - you don't bring it to the faciliuty yourself, you can usually throw it away at the nearest electronic/household appliances store, and sometimes you can find a bin next to the sidewalk that is a designated recycling bin for everything with a plug (at least in Poland)
I can taste black plastic. That took some years to find out. Sometimes the food was fine, sometimes it was unedible. The food was fine for others. I tried to eliminate and change so many ingredients before I figured out it was heating up black plastic.
I don't use black plastic anymore. I try to use wood and metal as much as I can.
I could be the carbon black leaching into the food, it probably tastes very bitter. But, as I've never noticed such a taste from black plastics, even after I left one in hot oil and partially melted it, my concern is that you're tasting these impurities from recycled electrical waste. Mine are so old I'd be surprised if there was any recycled material in them. Which makes me wonder just how bad of a job they're doing at purifying the materials if you can literally taste the impurities even at the low levels that would leak into food.
Either that or you've just got an unusually sensitive tongue.
@@RaunienTheFirst welcome to cheap products made in China, where safety and durability are optional. Hell I even wonder if my stainless steel stuff is 100% safe given it's also made in China, and could be contaminated with other chemicals than what's strictly needed to make stainless steel.
4:33 "We can or cannot be recycled depending on the particular kind of 'we' that you got there." -Adam Ragusea out of context
Most of the "dust" in a house is shed skin cells. In windy and dry environments, some fine mineral dust also creeps in. Very, very little will be derived from plastics. Reference dos is also an involved concept, and is the result of dividing the No Observed Adverse Effect Level dose by an uncertainty factor which is adjusted by a weighting factor. The RD is usually much smaller than the NOAEL, which "appears" to be a safe level of exposure. If the uncertainty factor were 100, and the weighting factor was 1, then the RD is 100 times smaller than the NOAEL. That might be the cause of some of the arithmetic confusion. Note also that as the weighting factor increases, the RD becomes even smaller. You might want to try and find out the LD 50 dose is, and compare that to the RD.
which is why the dose numbers derived from dust were so small
There's a Veritasium video waiting for you
12:10 They messed up. Should be 700 ng not 7000ng. EPA cites it as 7*10^-4 mg which is 700ng not 7000ng. So just a typo and the conclusion is correct.
EPA lists it as 7*10^-3 mg/kg-day though, not 7*10^-4. Source: iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=35
I'm finding 7*10^-3 mg on the EPA website
^ yeah the source from the paper is this epa page which puts the RfD at 7e-3 mg which is 7000 ng
iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/%26substance_nmbr=35
@@robinc.5077 agreed. further down on the website though it does say 7*10-4 for the "oral slope factor" which has to do with the risk of developing cancer from a known carcinogen. iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=35
Please cite your sources.
I'm seeing 7x10^-3 mg / kg-day in IRIS.
iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=35
Thank you for explaining! I was just trying to decide whether I needed to replace my black spatula, but I was having trouble finding a non-metal alternative. So glad to have this laid out rationally!
YES YOUR DISHWASHER AND LAUNDRY PODS CONTAIN PLASTIC. The entire casing isn't plastic, but the outside is coated in a thin layer of plastic. Just like how your paper cups are lined with a thin layer of plastic. And your aluminum cans.
There's little reason to use pods over powder or liquid detergent
@@zockertwins but the companies LOVE hyping up shiny new ideas to make people think it's somehow better. It's never gonna change.
Just buy the box of wash powder and the jug of liquid detergent. It's cheaper anyway and it takes seconds to measure out. I buy store brand dish powder and as long as I add some extra outside the soap dispenser for the pre wash my dishes come out clean.
@@zockertwinsthey make for the perfect snack size tho
@@mgkleymdon't even need to measure it, eye balling is usually fine
This is why I only microwave food in glass bowls.
@@td_kdname5197 just make sure there's no uranium in that glass.
@@LethologicaGaming or lead.
We've been completely screwed by capitalism haven't we 😅
@@thanatosignis5702eh. Less capitalism more so heavily ‘regulated’ capitalism (it doesnt actually regulate anything except the pockets of the companies that fund the government)
0:27 didn't the plastic researcher you interviewed say there's no such thing as an acceptable dose of plastic? It's poison all the way down. That saying was coined when only organic and "natural" (whatever that means) compounds existed.
There may be no acceptable dose of plastic but obviously since it's in everything and in all of us.... Practically we should concern ourselves more with stuff that's worse than what we've already got going on on average
Radium is all natural and there's not really a 'safe' dose of radionuclides.
Acrylamide is “natural” every time you cook food. Natural doesn’t mean it’s not harmful
A quick note on the "NO TRASH" symbol and europe. It's not really incentivized for you not to just trash your old electronics because while, yes, there are free services that will pick up your electronics they don't actually move them.
So your options are "Lug an over 100kg CRT down from the 4th floor (no elevators) and call a company to pick it up" or "Drag it it 40m to the trashcan that's right there".
I very much understand the need to reassure folks to not worry on an individual level, but I'm worried that we dont have a means to drive public health policy without it - let me explain.
If we keep at this narrative of "this is concerning, but you shouldn't be concerned" we end up only relying on underfunded public servants+scientists or dubious special interest groups to change things for us. It seems to me that the 'concerned mother's groups' of the country are the only ones with the stomach to keep fighting when it gets hard, possibly due to misguided opinions like that their kid got autism from flame retardants or whatever. Someone with a more measured view may want change but isnt willing to truely fight for things that feel like small potatoes.
Thus I feel like we still need a source of motivation to kick the 'measured folks' butts into action, and I think that'll have to be the public health angle, and i think thats where your motivational force ought to be directed after reassuring individual health. Kick my booty into action dood, don't let me accept this status quo!
unfortunately, most of those Concerned Mothers Groups are just money-laundering operations for the oil industry, and also run by weird christofascist types.
if all you want something to motivate you to action, watch Climate Town and then go [in minecraft] a fossil fuel executive
@@HMPerson2 Oh look a climate change whacko using clever language to call for illegal action because they watched a documentary.
As far as OP goes, the best solution is not to remove all danger. As an example, it's highly likely that the peanut allergy epidemic was largely caused by anti-peanut crusades and fear campaigns. Also referring to these people as "public servants" and pretending they are underfunded is a good joke. "Concerned mothers groups" seem to be causing more problems than they are fixing, no offense intended, but I wouldn't go to the average suburban mom for help with anything except for dealing with other women.
Alternatively, you create panic fatigue and people tune out or they become distrustful of research.
Yeah, we can't let the conspiracy nuts control the narrative.
Years ago i worked on a plastic food packaging factory. When we made the black container we used all the trash plastic we had around, because the dark color cover everything. Nasty stuff
this year, I've slowly started to replace plastic stuff from my kitchen. I still have a non stick pan because I had it and don't want to waste it but for the most part I have replaced everything with glass, wood, metal or silicone. I have metal pans for when the time comes I'm looking at metal and glass electric kettles atm and still need more tupperware replacements but slowly getting there. stuffs expensive but if I get less micro and macro plastic, that's worth it. I can't get away from it but I can try to reduce it
I've also been replacing all my pans and pots with stainless steel. My girlfriend has a bit of a habit of burning the bottom of pots because she assumes that if it's got water in it it's not going to burn, but that doesn't work if the water is sitting on top and all the heavy stuff settles on the bottom because there's too much of it.
When she burns a stainless pot all that happens is the metal discolors and, in the case of a really crappy and thin pot that we have, you get a small amount of surface rust that starts to develop. The pot is still perfectly usable and the rust is not going to hurt anything, especially if you quickly scrape it off with a metal scrubber before use.
A thick-bottom stainless pot will last you a lifetime. If you overheat a non-stick pot ONCE you've effectively destroyed it.
Also, i've always found that "non-stick" cookware isn't nearly as non-stick as it claims to be. If you don't have some oil in there things like eggs will stick no matter what.
Inb4 someone just calls this far right fear mongering
What's wrong with ceramic based non stick pans? Ceramics are inert and can take a lot of heat. I would be more worried about aluminum metal reacting with food based acids.
@justinw1765 you don't want the non stick part. Metal, as long as you don't injest it, doesn't react in a way that is harmful. Heavy metals from industry is something to have an eye on but cooking on it doesn't seem to have an effect, really.
@@RatedX29 But why, when it comes to ceramic? I get not wanting teflon, but the ceramic pans (which is a misnomer, as the material is more like glass) are made of very inert material. Actually more inert than stainless steel. Just as safe as glass, and ceramic bowls.
And again, not all metals are the same. Stainless steel is fine, but aluminum reacts with acids and leeches measurable amounts of aluminum into the food. Aluminum is highly toxic btw.
It seems like you're just repeating dogma and points that you've heard from others, rather than thinking deeply, critically, and holistically. You've got in it in your mind as a belief that nonstick=bad, even though there is a worlds of difference between a teflon plastic type non stick, and an inert glass type coating.
I think one reason so many companies use black plastic for food containers is the visual impact? Especially for things like sushi where freshness matters, black makes anything in it look fresher and more vibrant.
Black and white are the most universally neutral colors we have (I don't consider clear a "color"), and most foods tend to have more light ingredients than dark ones so there's a better contrast.
This reminds me of the problems with teflon. MinuteFood made a video about it and, from what I recall, their "verdict" is that you shouldn't buy frying pans made with teflon, but if you have one, it's better to use it than to throw it in the trash and get a new one right now.
Why I season my microplastics
I just remembered I used to have a black plastic spatula that always melted a bit when I used it in a hot pan. Cool product
How hot you cooking at buddy. I think that's a bigger problem here
I use mostly glass to store food in, switched to cast iron and stainless steel pots and pans, and recently have begun to buy all wood or metal utensils and cooking tools. I bought a bunch of really fancy vintage stainless steel spatulas, tongs, serving spoons, etc. for less than $2 each at an antique mall.
I'm wondering. Does the study cited at 12:00 start to refeer to the value als "close to the maximum acceptable dose" or is it just a typo and they refer to it correctly as 1/10 of the dose? The first would be catastrophic for the study. I assume its the second, but I'm honestly too lazy to check.
@Adam Ragusea I completely respect how you are objective in your reporting of facts. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear a true reporter of facts that doesn’t inject opinion into your research. Even if you have a personal opinion, you state it is your opinion. Thank you!
Just use wooden or metal cooking utensils and the problem is solves. The Plastic utensils are usually terribly flimsy anyways
Metal would scratch your non stick. Wood is good, but is harder to clean.
@ i don’t use non stick, just stainless steel pans. Wood is okay to clean once you learn how to do it. There is really no other reason to use plastic apart from that is cheap. The reason why you can buy it almost everywhere is because it has the highest markup for the company selling it.
These Adam Ragusea videos are legit my fave, I found his channel so many years ago due to recipes but I become such a fan because of these informative videos!
I feel like the real cause for concern is the variability of the chemical in recycled black plastics, it probably makes the whole concept that much more concerning to many people because there's no (affordable to the average household) way of knowing how much of a dose you're getting with it. I feel like this should bring greater concern to the efficacy of the recycling centers and of course to make electronics recycling easier for the American public specifically. I can corroborate how strangely mystical tech recycling feels sometimes. Keep an eye on emails from your local counties for anything about tech recycling drives (or maybe call them and ask about it).
I remember seeing a 60minutes episode years ago about these electronic “recyclers” who ultimately were selling in bulk to India where electronics were melted over open fire to extract the trace amount of gold/copper/etc
3:10 Best Buy will recycle most electronics at no cost
Adam, the world would so appreciate the first ever comprehensive video on the Hefty Renew program and recycling. Right now it's not well known at all but has pretty solid adoption so far.
Huh, I wondered what happened to all the black plastic tv dinners. They are now mostly white, or some kind of cardboard paper.
Very thoughtful, balanced take - as usual. I particularly appreciate how you point out that all choices involve trade-offs, and while there’s no obvious downside to using wooden spoons instead of black plastic ones, in other cases (e.g., cutting boards) we could potentially be trading one risk for another. Final thought - if carbon black provides benefits, then recycling issues aside wouldn’t the food safety risk be eliminated if manufacturers only used virgin plastic?
"I will take the slight risk of elevating health risks by accepting that TV plastic has high levels of fire retardant."
But is it an actual binary choice, with no alternatives? I would rather demand more and better instead of being reduced to accepting that these are my only choices.
You could just not watch TV. It's about choices and risk management.
Definitely not a binary choice, because all the choices have some financial trade-off.
In this moment of time it probably is a binary choice. Of course we should fund research for alternative materials that are both functional and non-toxic, but that is likely a long way away.
Worrying is probably worse for your health than black plastics. There is no reason to worry about it, if you think it might harm your health, just don't use them. Use other products instead, it's the best part of capitalism, Choice.
Are you *sure* we shouldn't flip out about basic arithmetic errors making through peer review into mainstream publications? Maybe there's a lesson in there about not asking scientists to review papers for free while the greedy publisher laughs all the way to the bank?
compensation for peer reviews which are supposed to be unbiased? sounds like a great idea!
@@UserName-xc4el Presumably you'd compensate them for their time, not pay them for approval? How is the most corrupt possible version of this the first thing you thought of?
@@FireStormOOO_ because that is the world that we live in
The system of journals is already corrupt. For-profit businesses get to decide what is and isn't science that the public gets to see
@@jackmillar2857Just because you are extremely cynical doesn't mean you are correct
Probably worth noting: Every professional kitchen I've ever worked in has used stainless steel utensils for their cooking. I used to have a collection of black plastic cooking utensils, but after working in kitchens I changed over to stainless; Not so much from a health risk related mindset, but because they tend to be a lot more durable, and plus you don't have to worry about them melting if you accidentally happen to set them down someplace hot.
the packaging on diswasher pods isn't plastic, it's kind fof like dried school glue. Sources of micro plastics in a dishwasher might include plastic cutting boards and plates. Maybe even cups and bowls that have been washed a lot at high heat even though they've never had knives used on them.
I guess though one can use the dishwasher to wash and reuse disposable silverware they probably shouldn't because it may increase toxic exposure.
school glue is also plastic. most glues are.
Homie PVA- school glue- IS plastics haha.
Cutting boards - or damaged plastic surfaces in general - I'd agree. But intact plastic food-grade containers, the ones with BPA-free markings and rated for 100C max temp should be fine, no?
Chips of plastic can be embedded in that material. Supply chains use plastic to manufacture goods, so even if the good itself isn’t intended to have plastic in it, plastic can be there whether you like it or not
Once upon a time you did some of the best cooking videos on RUclips. Could we get back to that instead of chasing click-bait culinary related fads? I really do love your actual cooking videos.
Something i think should be harped on more when talking about this kind of thing is how it compares to other dangers we never think about, like how the leading cause of death in people under 45 (in the USA at least) is injuries, of which the leading causes are collisions on roads and poisoning, followed by homicide or suicide by firearm. (according to the CDC)
Before anyone spends energy worrying about plastic they should make sure to spend as little time in a car as possible, figure out how to avoid poisoning (i can't find what on earth people are being poisoned by so much), avoid firearms and learn how to prevent suicides, and as a bonus for those who want to live beyond 45: build a healthy diet you can follow your entire life and work exercise into your daily routine as much as possible.
Every time i have to pass autobahn i make peace with my life
Cars r death machines
The "poisonings" are usually drug overdoses.
Getting something like cancer is very different than just dying of injury though. You have to deal with the actual having cancer part. Health problems are horrible. Some are scarier than death for people.
What they should do, is make black plastic food products that are not recycled. State mandated recycling is a forest that actually ends up being bad for the environment, anyway.
In the rare cases where things are actually recycled, since of course it has turned out that mostly our governments lie and ship the supposed recycling overseas to be dumped into the ocean in some foreign country or whatever.
I love these videos. Incredibly informative. Partly why i miss the biweekly research intensive topics in your podcasts. Thanks for the hard work!
Don’t worry about the recycling part!! Plastic is unrecyclable. The tiiiiny portion that gets semi-recycled sheds way more microplastics. The landfill is better
The black water-mark inside your coffee mug . . .
I’ve been wondering about the little black trays for a while to be honest. This is great news. I love getting poisoned indirectly through my food.
You see, I’ll still avoid black plastic from now on. Not because this in itself is a thing one should panic over, but because we’re exposed to so many different dangerous substances and carcinogens. Even if the black plastic isn’t enough to be a big concern, I am sure there’s ten other carcinogens that I don’t even know I’m consuming at the moment. My policy is that one should probably avoid as much as one reasonably can. Less carcinogens tend to be a good choice.
"Studies have shown that newborn babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero.
They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them.
59 minute mark in this video:
No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids
RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
Adam, your sponsor is contributing to plastic waste. As a journalist you HAVE to know that it seems a bit hypocritical to not even mention it?
And if it’s a case of ‘they won’t sponsor me if I do’, maybe they aren’t a sponsor worth taking.
I keep wondering if the quilt on the wall in the background is representative or symbolic of anything. The sets of parallel lines remind me a lot of the reclaimed lathe art piece Brant Freeman presented you with a few years ago. By the way, did that come with you to the new place, or did it stay behind as part of the old home and kitchen's own history?
I work in a school cafeteria my employer is actually a catering company that the school has a contract with. We actually do have separate disposable black utensils for catering purposes. We also have black plastic Hotel pans that we use an a daily basis in our steam tables. I occasionally enjoy a Marie Callender's microwavable meal and I noticed they even switched to white plastic.
Only about 5% of plastics are recycled in the US. And this number is going down over the last 10 years. So most of it is going to a landfill anyway.
plastic recycling was a bit of a sham to begin with. Programs found buyers, usually china who then burned it or landfilled anyway
The "incentive" for trying to recycle or get rid of electronic stuff that no longer works and all that is to take it somewhere like the recycling place and pay them to take it, depending on how much it weighs etc.
Thus so many people just throw it in the trash because "why would I pay someone to take something thats broken when I already can throw it away" basically.
I try to avoid plastic stuff when it comes to food but you can't really avoid it these days since most companies go towards plastic cause it's cheaper to use than glass etc.
I saw the study on reddit a month ago and immediately threw out every black plastic utensils we had. With two small children in the house, i felt horrible that I've been cooking food with those.
You did get the point of the video that it isn't aa bad (like 1/10th as bad as was published) as the popular media made it out to be? So you didn't have to throw out everything after all.
I find PAUSING a bit before making decisions when confronted by "new discoveries" helps because then revisions or clarifications FREQUENTLY remove the crisis everyone thought it was.
Not surprised that this minority of plastics is responsible for a disproportionate amount of societal harm.
Poor people can't afford anything else. Knowledge can be power or a sledgehammer: unless you can recommend something people can afford, all you do is scare them.
Thank you for these videos. They give a real fresh perspective on 'toxic' stuff. News outlet always forget its the dose that matters - looking at actual papers and reference doses is what suspects' articles completely lack.
And we haven't even touched on the topic of nanoplastics, the smaller brother of the already ever present microplastics. Microwave something in a plastic container? Yeah, nanoplastics will leech into your food. (Is it of concern for your health? Maybe? Do you WANT to add more plastics to your body or the environment? Probably not.) Glass is so much better in every aspect.
pawsome pfp
Unless your clothes are always wrinkly, you are likely wearing a lot of synthetic fibers, all the time, every day. These fibers break apart and come off in the form of dust, like the lint in your washer dryer. Every breath you take you are inhaling this dust directly from your clothing or indirectly from latent dust floating around your environment. This mostly gets trapped in your mucus membrane, much of which drains into your stomach. We are literally eating our clothing every day. I would guess most of it passes right through us but you have to assume there is some amount of contamination.
Before I found out about this black plastic flame retardant issue, I accidentally melted a bit of a container. I was SO SICK. Stuffy nose, projectile vomit, body aches,sweating....I lost 3 days and felt like death. Done with plastic when possible.
In a few weeks, a video like this may be taken down for informing the public of possible health concerns. A dictatorship doesn't want information not approved to get out. The Covid anti-science madness was a fair example of what's in store for our foreseeable future. Good luck. Be safe, Adam.
Videos calling into question the safety of plastics, particularly in dining, have been around for years and le hecking DiCtAtOrShIp isn't going to be able or willing to create a thought-police unit for this.
Besides, RFK is likely big on reducing plastic use if he's half as paranoid about microplastics as he is about high fructose corn syrup.
Not a day goes by about something new, we're supposed to worry about. I'm so tired of being afraid of this or that or the other. I want to live in a world, where companies aren't constantly trying to poison their customers 😭
the scary thing is that plenty of companies dont even try to. Most of the time the company is either completely unaware of the issue, too powerless within to curtail it, or too greedy throughout to stop it.
seriously. we shouldn't live in a world where corporations prioritize profits over the health and safety of the world and its people.
@@AidanNaut0and sometimes they keep recreating new versions of the poison to then pretent they aren't poisonous and do the whole cycle again - like teflon
I definitely see where you're coming from, and I hate the way big corporations work as much as the next guy, but Adam makes a good point in this video. A possible risk of chronic health problems is almost always preferable to a certain risk of immediate danger, like fire.
There are so many things that have to be considered in cases like this; plastic seems to be bad, but what's better? Paper isn't as durable, and a damaged container can lead to food poisoning. Metals are good, but they might also leech in, which can cause other health problems. And in both cases, the cost of production needs to be weighed (paper means a lot of wood, metal means a mine).
Really we just gotta hope that the people in control are at least TRYING to move towards better things, and in cases like this we do what we can to avoid the hazards as we find them
Too late: "Studies have shown that and even in newborn babies. When babies are born they have their first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the meconium micro-plastics have been found so that means babies are being exposed to micro-plastics in utero.
They're being born with Plastics in their body and what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away. Number one. And on a cellular level they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest these micro-plastic particles which everyone is-and they're in your tissues and your body cannot get rid of them-then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body. Unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them.
59 minute mark in this video:
No.1 Toxicologist: These Products Were Making Me Infertile And Are Harming Your Future Kids
RUclips Channel: The Diary Of A CEO
Next time you buy an electrical device, look carefully at all the labeling, stickers, instructions, etc. The last time I bought lights for the Christmas tree, it said “wash hands after handling.”
A garden hose was labeled with the same message, including a warning not to drink water coming out of the hose, and not to use the hose for water toys that kids would play with.
I called the company and asked them about the warnings. They said that it was because the hoses are made from purchased recycled material, so they can’t guarantee its safety.
"The dose makes the poison." Said the Roman as he drank his water from the lead pipe
erm !🤓 that phrase is actually from a 14th century german !
Ironic considering plastic water botles
Good case in point. Lead is insoluble in water, provided the people running your public utilities aren't total dubmasses.
A phenomenon known as "passivation" occurs, where oxides of lead (and mineral deposits) physically isolate the lead from the water. I'd have zero qualms about drinking from lead water pipes, so long as the pipes are at least a year or two old. (In fact, I probably do...the city I live in is over 100 years old, and SOP at the time was lead pipes for water.)
@@Augmentate Paracelcius?
The lead water pipes were not even CLOSE to the main vector for lead exposure in Roman times.
Your wife probably used lead based cosmetics to color her skin...
me watching this while eating thanksgiving leftovers from said black plastic container… 👀👀
Just use wood...
It's been around for billions of years, and it grows on trees.
Non-scratch, non-toxic, biodegradeable, and it's made from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
it is not very viable economically
@@DigitalChurchCultist It just so happens that our current global economy was made possible by several unsustainable practices, and overuse of plastics is one of them. When the adverse effects of their use become impossible to ignore any longer, people will realise that there is no alternative that we can use instead of plastic that would ensure the continuation of our current economy.
Unless we invent new wonder materials and new technologies that can replace them, we will only have two options. Either keep using the flawed technology, or people will die.
@@DigitalChurchCultist for who? The manufacturers or the consumer?
Outside of the manufacturing issues of wood (it's flexible when thin, it scratches, it's heavy, it's hilariously uneconomical for a variety of reasons), it has one major problem compared with this plastic:
It, very famously, is not fire retardant.
@@DigitalChurchCultistfor who? I'm pretty sure creating 8 billion spoons and distributing them to everyone would not be that expensive
Bad for the company trying to sell utensils? Yes
A big flaw in these studies is that they don't consider other factors which are potentially extremely important.
For example, when we analyze risks of a drug, we look at interactions with other drugs as well. Never just solely focus on the one drug, but these studies tend to focus on just one thing.
Dude I've watched so much youtube now that I can tell when people are uncomfortable on camera. So when they force themselves to do something they don't want to do, it's pretty obvious. Adam here has found a way to be comfortable with presenting us the information without forcing himself to be on camera so much.
His calm makes me calm. Thanks again Mr. Ragusea for showing us the way.
I could listen to you talk a about anything you care about for hours. Wish I knew anyone that was passionate about anything.