> If he “was on a deserted island and [plastic] was all that was available,” Rogers says he’d opt for types two [High-Density Polyethylene] and five [Polypropylene]. These are both higher density formulas, used to contain liquids and manufacture items like the rigid plastic forks dispensed at your local takeout restaurant. They have a higher melting point, “and they also don’t tend to chip or shatter as much,” says Rogers. (Still, Hussain’s team found these types of containers shed plenty of microplastics when heated.)
This the part I feel should be focused on. HDPE is notable for being safe to handle during its entire lifecycle, from production to use to recycling. Even when pushed well past its softening point, it does not create any hazardous fumes. A sustainable future does not mean avoiding the use of plastics entirely, it means identifying which are the most useful in the long-term.
Nalgene make HDPE water bottles now. They’re really durable. I’ve had two as my daily use bottles for about 4 years and they’re as durable or more durable than the hard plastic Nalgene bottles I used before.
Most jails and prisons only have plastic containers for microwaving your food, because anything else would be a "security risk."
When I was inside the only "cup" you could buy was a plastic storage container that was not food- or microwave-safe but was used for everything from drinking coffee to cooking noodles.
> “Personally, I avoid heating food in any plastic with an automatic default to glassware.” Beyond never microwaving food in plastic, Vandenberg hopes people simply stop using it. She says, “The market will provide us with alternatives if we just don’t buy plastic.”
I find really astonishing how the article demonizes plastic and ends recommending glassware use, placing a product referral that have PLASTIC lids. Shouldn't we stop using it?
Or have you considered the more likely possibility that it’s simply their site policy to place ads wherever they can, which is not necessarily the original author’s intention? Most likely the site just wants to make whatever they can from possible places to insert affiliate links regardless of the article, and that’s it. For all we know it might well even be an automated process to some extent.
Having an affiliate link is unfortunate and very much not smart on their end I would say, but automatically drawing the conclusion that the whole article must have the single purpose of serving as a Trojan horse for this one random link that they also know only a small amount of people will click on is another logical fallacy, and IMO resorting to attributing to malice when things can be explained otherwise.
I opted for Ikea glass containers partly for wanting to avoid plastics (except the lids) and partly to not have to deal with tomato sauces staining the pristine white plastic containers after a single use
Micro/nanoplastics are a secondary consideration overall, primary was just to reduce my usage of plastics a bit, even how infinitesimal it really is. I only realized how much plastic packaging I go through once I moved to an apartment with plastic "recycling", I still separate out most plastics but not everything.
I personally am not really swayed towards ditching whatever plastics I still have, given how ubiquitous it is and I am already happy with my Ikea glassware.
They're expensive, too. At least when epicurious ran a similar article, they also recommended wide-mouth ball jars.
The biggest problem for me is cabinet space. The jars don't stack compactly, and the glass lock tend to live up to their name if you try to stack them.
you can find a slew of papers about not using plastic in the microwave, for a couple decades now. I mean you can believe what you want, but if you think microplastics in your food is bad then you should be able to find plenty articles in how they leach into your food, especially when they're hot.
As others mention already, the problem is the plastic, not the microwave, even the article ends with "Go with glass".
There have to be many alternatives but I happened upon cookanyday and never looked back. I almost never used the microwave oven before but these make it not only convenient, I actually like the results. Well, most times.
Like many products (pressure cooker, air fryer) they want you to just do _everything_ in your new toy, but everything has its sweet spot. I use all at least once every week.
It’s important to keep health articles like this in context.
Sure, try to mimimize risk, but if you’re feeling too anxious remember that human beings are, currently, living longer, healthier lives than they ever have.
I have my doubts that microplastic/nanoplastic exposure is something that the average person in industrialized countries can individually lifestyle-choice their way out of. This is just one vector out of dozens (if not hundreds), most of which haven't been studied so closely. Plastic pollution is a systemic problem, and has been for decades.
This falls into the category of "the tiny bit of extra safety I may gain is not worth the huge amount of inconvenience that it causes."
Even if I were to stop putting stuff in the microwave, that won't account for all the other foods I eat outside the home that may have had microwaving as part of their preparation process. I mean, I'll take a frozen package of ribs out of the freezer and microwave it for a minute so the surface softens enough for me to cut the plastic and peel it off before thawing or brining the meat.
No, I think I'll just take my chances and not have yet one more thing to stress out about.
You (the average person) can't choose your way out or really be safe - but you can at least avoid doing the equivalent of putting your head in the lion’s mouth. At least most of the time. It's not that difficult to use non-plastic kitchenware, or learning to not put plastic in a microwave (or come to think of it: any cooking) at least 99% of the time.
>can individually lifestyle-choice their way out of
>Plastic pollution is a systemic problem, and has been for decades.
Sorry, this gets uncritically repeated so much that it's bordering on propaganda. Like it's just doing free work for oil companies at this point. This kind of stuff is exactly what I'd say as someone working for an oil company's social media team after realizing that individual choice is not something that happens in a vacuum. Corporate propaganda on the personal-carbon-footprint issue backfired - they thought they would be able to demoralize people, but it slowly grew into a movement that continues to grow. It's honestly kind of funny they thought people wouldn't attach their morality to decisions about environmental destruction.
"individual lifestyle choices don't cause systemic change" is a bastardization of the original concept. And it's actually doing the original intent of corporations - to demoralize people about seeking an oilless future.
The original concept was that one should not feel guilty if they can't make an individual lifestyle choice because something is preventing them from doing so. It was never meant to demoralize people from using their own moral compass to decide not to participate in certain behaviors. I don't get why "I want to use less petroleum-derived products and eventually none at all" is exempt from spreading through the social network as a worthwhile idea when literally everything else does.
Again, people aren't individually responsible for the systemic results of their choices, but their individual choices do create signals that result in systemic change. Our choices don't operate in a vacuum, our peers, friends, and family all look at what we do; their peers, friends, and family do the same.
Why so binary? Are you one of those people who, during wildfire smoke, goes outside and smokes cigars because "well the air's already smokey so what's an extra cigar?". Yeah, and now you're breathing in wildfire smoke in addition to that cigar, that doesn't make it better.
I intentionally use stainless steel cookware, a stainless steel thermos (although there's plastic in the cap/spout), and glass containers for meal prep/food storage. I use this stuff on a daily basis, so any bio-accumulation will add up. Just because I can't 100% lifestyle-choice my way out of microplastics contamination doesn't mean I can't 20 or 40% lifestyle-choice my way out, and it's 99% as convenient.
I quit smoking about 20 years ago though I’m living in the city next to a major road. I don’t see your point.
I cook at least 50% of my warm meals myself and I learned to prepare meals in advance and to freeze or sterilize them. Not so much to save money but because I prefer good food with known ingredients.
I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to reduce my intake of microplastics by further phasing out the plastic containers I usually use and use relatively cheap glass containers.
The article suggests that heating certain plastics to the softening point significantly increases the amount of plastic shed into the food. Despite being only one vector, it could be a very high magnitude. So if you were to make any choice about it, this would be a good candidate, if the claim is true.
You can significantly reduce it easily. Don't heat things in plastic, don't buy hot food or beverages served in plastic or "bamboo / paper," stop using K-cups, etc.
What I am surprised about is that (please confirm if you know otherwise) microplastic contamination from microwaving plastics wasn't investigated decades ago. In the 80's we all knew that some plastics get soft in the microwave, it seemed exceedingly likely to the layman that it would leach out.
Microplastics, were they unobservable in the 80's? Were there no scientists interested in this? I am decidedly anti-conspiracy when I look for explanations on phenomenon, but I am having a bit more trouble avoiding it on this one. Or is this the case that the research existed, but the media finally cared?
> it seemed exceedingly likely to the layman that it would leach out
It seemed exceedingly likely to scientists too. I've been reading about the dangers of microwaving stuff in plastic containers, or using plastic wrap in the microwave, as long as I can remember. Here's a study from 1990, citing several others that go back to 1988.
I'm pretty sure there were earlier ones as well. What's important here is not to conflate leached chemicals with micro- or nano-particles. Scientists and consumer advocates (and many consumers) have been well aware of the former for a long time, while awareness of the latter is relatively new.
> Microplastics, were they unobservable in the 80's?
Sort of. The term is sometimes attributed to Richard Thompson in 2004.
Prior to that (or thereabouts) nobody knew to look for whole plastic particles as opposed to individual chemical components. Therefore tools to quantify or analyze them were not well refined, and likewise for methodologies. The specific issue of microplastics in microwaves is even newer than that. It's evolving science, which is practically redundant because that's what science always does. Cases of zero awareness to high awareness overnight are rare. More often it's increasing awareness, and correspondingly increasing sophistication in measurement or analysis, as each study takes years and someone to fund it.
Don’t put plastic in the microwave,” has been common advice in my circle for over a decade, maybe three or more? I feel like it either finally stopped getting suppressed, or it finally hit an emergent “critical mass” and broke through (probably the second one).
It should be noted in context that the labels and text "microwave safe" refer to the safety of the product, not the human. The label is added to products that will not melt in the microwave - there is no testing of volatiles emitted.
Given that the problem is not the microwave, but the combination of plastic and heat, this may also affect sous vide cooking. I wonder if there’s a specific temperature at which the plastic breaks down and if sous vide can stay beneath that?
What about all those foods that come wrapped in plastic that you put directly into the microwave. For example, you can buy countless vegetables that you are supposed to cook / steam in the package.
What about splatter guards which are almost universally made from plastic? Or glass containers with plastic lids? Microwaving food splatters the shit out of the walls and ceiling of the microwave. Is the problem any plastic in the microwave or just the plastic that touches the food?
The anti microwave comments in this thread are kinda wild considering if you put plastic in other cooking methods it's even worse. Microwave is just the less obvious one.
Especially considering the studies that show how microwave keeps more nutrients in your food (I think the studies I have seen have been particularly for vegetables but I would imagine that is true for others but I don't know).
Would be great if we could find an alternative to plastic covers you have to piece for frozen meals (or plastic steam bags) but I have yet to see an alternative.
But this is a good reason to at least when storing leftovers or sauces to put them in a glass container instead to minimize exposure.
> The anti microwave comments in this thread are kinda wild considering if you put plastic in other cooking methods it's even worse.
What other cooking methods involves using plastic?
I use glass for everything microwave, not because I'm worried about plastic, but mostly because a) I have mostly glass storage containers, b) I feel that it contain the heat better, and c) they keep heat _out_ better.
The latter is probably the most important thing. Easier to handle, and have a shorter cool-down time before putting it into the fridge.
Toothpaste itself often contains microplastic beads that are intentionally added as scrubbing agents. It's a myth that they were phased out. More than half still contain the stuff!
Plastics in cooking has probably caused an ecological and human disaster. The teflon and other plastic coatings scrape off into food, release chemicals when heated, and break down when holding acidic foods.
I'm on a quest to reduce microplastic ingestion but it's really hard. All the easy choices don't help at all.
In Netherlands we have the world's cleanest tap water, but my wife can't stand the tap water here, even getting stomach problems if she drinks it. So instead she drinks a particular brand of bottled water. However bottled water is apparently full of microplastics. Not only leeched from the bottle, vut also from the cap when you open it.
There doesn't seem to be a product on the Dutch market for removing microplastics from water. The best thing I've found is Brita filters. They don't advertise filtering out microplastics but it's plausible that they filter at least some. So now we drinked Brita filtered tap water.
The baby bottles are all plastic. Glass is available but they're hard to find, and our baby only likes one particular brand of bottle, refusing to drink from others.
My son's children's water bottle is plastic. I've never seen children's water bottle not made of plastic. Frankly I'm not sure what to do here. Even if I find a glass version, it's heavy. And if he drops it then it becomes a big mess — especially when he does so at school.
I'm going to replace all the food containers with metal or glass soon.
I also want to replace the sun-blocking curtains but it's really hard to find sun-blocking ones that don't contain nylon. It's madness.
> Netherlands we have the world's cleanest tap water.
Eh? Dutch tap water is fine, but do you have a citation for that?
Also note that "clean tap water" is a bit of a fuzzy non-metric. I live in Amsterdam[1], where the pH of water is around 7.8, but H^2O would be 7.0.
So the water can be trivially he demonstrated not to be "clean", otherwise the pH value wouldn't differ.
But of course what people usually mean is "has bad stuff in it", not how far it is from being chemically pure.
> my wife can't stand the tap water here.
Yeah, I also don't like it. I grew up in Iceland, which has particularly "dirty" water, but it's the "good" sort of "dirty", i.e. minerals and the like.
That and other things contribute to taste, also temperature, Dutch tap water is too warm for my tastes.
I'm not right, nether are you or her. It's just an acquired taste.
> The baby bottles are all plastic. Glass is available but they're hard to find
They're quite easy to find? Search for "glazen zuigfles". But...
> our baby only likes one particular brand of bottle, refusing to drink from others.
...ah, that might be, i.e. perhaps it's just that manufacturer.
Also are you looking for 100% glass? Usually the fitting to close it and the "nipple" itself are plastic/rubber.
> My son's children's water bottle is plastic. I've never seen children's water bottle not made of plastic. Frankly I'm not sure what to do here.
Get him a stainless steel water bottle, my kids have that (I'm not paranoid about plastic, but it's a more durable bottle for school). Blokker, IKEA etc. sell these.
> I'm going to replace all the food containers with metal or glass soon[...]
Respectfully, I think you're going a bit off the rails here, there's probably 10 much easier things you can do to marginally move the needle further on your family's mortality, e.g. applying sunscreen consistently.
But just to feed your paranoia a bit: some things that are "metal" are really just epoxy, e.g. aluminum cans are just epoxy "bags" surrounded by aluminum walls.
Food grade stainless steel is almost always "pure" though.
> Within three minutes, some containers released as many as 4.22 million microplastics (particles smaller than 5 millimeters)
Is this an error in the article? I always assumed "microplastics" would be much too small to see. 5 millimeters is about half the size of a micro SD card.
It seems to me that the main advantage of plastic food storage containers over glass ones — other than price — comes mostly from weight. You don't want to carry your leftovers to work in glass containers; they're heavy!
(And AFAIK no other container material besides plastic is a good substitute for glass in food storage, because 1. they're not washable / interact chemically too much with the food, or 2. they're not visually transparent enough to tell what's in the container. So let's ignore other materials as possible solutions for now.)
I presume that the problem here isn't that microwaves are causing vaporization or spalling of the container material in such a way that microplastic particles coming from the outside of the container can end up in your food. (If that's the case, then plastics are basically entirely screwed for this use-case, and we may as well give up on them entirely.)
But presuming instead that the problem is only with your food interacting with the inner surface of the container, under heat/acid/etc — i.e. some kind of leeching or osmosis of the food against the container surface, causing the plasticizers in the container to "exchange" out...
Then, if that's the case, would it be possible to make a food storage container that's mostly plastic, but then has "just a little bit" of glass, lining the inner surface? A glass barrier-layer, sort of like how plastics themselves are used as a barrier layer on the inside of aluminum cans? Resulting in something that's a lot lighter-weight than a thick glass container, but a lot more "inert" than a plastic container?
Glass is usually brittle, I know; and unlike a glass food-storage container, which is usually thick, plastic food-storage containers are usually more thin and flexible. A plastic substrate would want to bend, and that would, naively, shatter a glass "film" on its surface.
But! We've recently invented bendable ("foldable") glass, haven't we? And in fact we're laminating this "foldable" glass to plastic substrates all the time. It's even transparent!
I think it's workable as a process. You could, in theory, produce glass-lined plastic food storage containers. I only wonder if it could be made cheap enough that, even at massive scale, these containers would come out at a price-point that anyone would pay.
[+] [-] shadowofneptune|2 years ago|reply
This the part I feel should be focused on. HDPE is notable for being safe to handle during its entire lifecycle, from production to use to recycling. Even when pushed well past its softening point, it does not create any hazardous fumes. A sustainable future does not mean avoiding the use of plastics entirely, it means identifying which are the most useful in the long-term.
[+] [-] developer93|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradfa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Robotbeat|2 years ago|reply
They are NOT very stiff, tho.
[+] [-] xeonmc|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qingcharles|2 years ago|reply
When I was inside the only "cup" you could buy was a plastic storage container that was not food- or microwave-safe but was used for everything from drinking coffee to cooking noodles.
[+] [-] aeternum|2 years ago|reply
Definitely Do Not trust what you read when there is a referral link.
[+] [-] sakawa|2 years ago|reply
I find really astonishing how the article demonizes plastic and ends recommending glassware use, placing a product referral that have PLASTIC lids. Shouldn't we stop using it?
[+] [-] SZJX|2 years ago|reply
Having an affiliate link is unfortunate and very much not smart on their end I would say, but automatically drawing the conclusion that the whole article must have the single purpose of serving as a Trojan horse for this one random link that they also know only a small amount of people will click on is another logical fallacy, and IMO resorting to attributing to malice when things can be explained otherwise.
[+] [-] diftraku|2 years ago|reply
Micro/nanoplastics are a secondary consideration overall, primary was just to reduce my usage of plastics a bit, even how infinitesimal it really is. I only realized how much plastic packaging I go through once I moved to an apartment with plastic "recycling", I still separate out most plastics but not everything.
I personally am not really swayed towards ditching whatever plastics I still have, given how ubiquitous it is and I am already happy with my Ikea glassware.
[+] [-] dunham|2 years ago|reply
The biggest problem for me is cabinet space. The jars don't stack compactly, and the glass lock tend to live up to their name if you try to stack them.
[+] [-] 93po|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] labster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkclouds|2 years ago|reply
For some reason the idea didnt catch on, anyone know why not?
[+] [-] tremendo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrmg|2 years ago|reply
Sure, try to mimimize risk, but if you’re feeling too anxious remember that human beings are, currently, living longer, healthier lives than they ever have.
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HeyLaughingBoy|2 years ago|reply
Even if I were to stop putting stuff in the microwave, that won't account for all the other foods I eat outside the home that may have had microwaving as part of their preparation process. I mean, I'll take a frozen package of ribs out of the freezer and microwave it for a minute so the surface softens enough for me to cut the plastic and peel it off before thawing or brining the meat.
No, I think I'll just take my chances and not have yet one more thing to stress out about.
[+] [-] yyyk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dqv|2 years ago|reply
>Plastic pollution is a systemic problem, and has been for decades.
Sorry, this gets uncritically repeated so much that it's bordering on propaganda. Like it's just doing free work for oil companies at this point. This kind of stuff is exactly what I'd say as someone working for an oil company's social media team after realizing that individual choice is not something that happens in a vacuum. Corporate propaganda on the personal-carbon-footprint issue backfired - they thought they would be able to demoralize people, but it slowly grew into a movement that continues to grow. It's honestly kind of funny they thought people wouldn't attach their morality to decisions about environmental destruction.
"individual lifestyle choices don't cause systemic change" is a bastardization of the original concept. And it's actually doing the original intent of corporations - to demoralize people about seeking an oilless future.
The original concept was that one should not feel guilty if they can't make an individual lifestyle choice because something is preventing them from doing so. It was never meant to demoralize people from using their own moral compass to decide not to participate in certain behaviors. I don't get why "I want to use less petroleum-derived products and eventually none at all" is exempt from spreading through the social network as a worthwhile idea when literally everything else does.
Again, people aren't individually responsible for the systemic results of their choices, but their individual choices do create signals that result in systemic change. Our choices don't operate in a vacuum, our peers, friends, and family all look at what we do; their peers, friends, and family do the same.
[+] [-] scottLobster|2 years ago|reply
I intentionally use stainless steel cookware, a stainless steel thermos (although there's plastic in the cap/spout), and glass containers for meal prep/food storage. I use this stuff on a daily basis, so any bio-accumulation will add up. Just because I can't 100% lifestyle-choice my way out of microplastics contamination doesn't mean I can't 20 or 40% lifestyle-choice my way out, and it's 99% as convenient.
[+] [-] ashildr|2 years ago|reply
I cook at least 50% of my warm meals myself and I learned to prepare meals in advance and to freeze or sterilize them. Not so much to save money but because I prefer good food with known ingredients. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to reduce my intake of microplastics by further phasing out the plastic containers I usually use and use relatively cheap glass containers.
[+] [-] kristopolous|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ibejoeb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SCSIfloppy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SubiculumCode|2 years ago|reply
Microplastics, were they unobservable in the 80's? Were there no scientists interested in this? I am decidedly anti-conspiracy when I look for explanations on phenomenon, but I am having a bit more trouble avoiding it on this one. Or is this the case that the research existed, but the media finally cared?
[+] [-] notacoward|2 years ago|reply
It seemed exceedingly likely to scientists too. I've been reading about the dangers of microwaving stuff in plastic containers, or using plastic wrap in the microwave, as long as I can remember. Here's a study from 1990, citing several others that go back to 1988.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Migration-testing-of-p...
I'm pretty sure there were earlier ones as well. What's important here is not to conflate leached chemicals with micro- or nano-particles. Scientists and consumer advocates (and many consumers) have been well aware of the former for a long time, while awareness of the latter is relatively new.
> Microplastics, were they unobservable in the 80's?
Sort of. The term is sometimes attributed to Richard Thompson in 2004.
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/discover/are-microplastics-a-big-...
Prior to that (or thereabouts) nobody knew to look for whole plastic particles as opposed to individual chemical components. Therefore tools to quantify or analyze them were not well refined, and likewise for methodologies. The specific issue of microplastics in microwaves is even newer than that. It's evolving science, which is practically redundant because that's what science always does. Cases of zero awareness to high awareness overnight are rare. More often it's increasing awareness, and correspondingly increasing sophistication in measurement or analysis, as each study takes years and someone to fund it.
[+] [-] texuf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotancohen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randerson|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kvetching|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prh8|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunnybeetroot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BugsJustFindMe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdjon|2 years ago|reply
Especially considering the studies that show how microwave keeps more nutrients in your food (I think the studies I have seen have been particularly for vegetables but I would imagine that is true for others but I don't know).
Would be great if we could find an alternative to plastic covers you have to piece for frozen meals (or plastic steam bags) but I have yet to see an alternative.
But this is a good reason to at least when storing leftovers or sauces to put them in a glass container instead to minimize exposure.
[+] [-] thatwasunusual|2 years ago|reply
What other cooking methods involves using plastic?
I use glass for everything microwave, not because I'm worried about plastic, but mostly because a) I have mostly glass storage containers, b) I feel that it contain the heat better, and c) they keep heat _out_ better.
The latter is probably the most important thing. Easier to handle, and have a shorter cool-down time before putting it into the fridge.
[+] [-] fabii|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iknownothow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] titzer|2 years ago|reply
https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/myth-buster-toothpaste-stil...
[+] [-] underseacables|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 123pie123|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FooBarWidget|2 years ago|reply
In Netherlands we have the world's cleanest tap water, but my wife can't stand the tap water here, even getting stomach problems if she drinks it. So instead she drinks a particular brand of bottled water. However bottled water is apparently full of microplastics. Not only leeched from the bottle, vut also from the cap when you open it.
There doesn't seem to be a product on the Dutch market for removing microplastics from water. The best thing I've found is Brita filters. They don't advertise filtering out microplastics but it's plausible that they filter at least some. So now we drinked Brita filtered tap water.
The baby bottles are all plastic. Glass is available but they're hard to find, and our baby only likes one particular brand of bottle, refusing to drink from others.
My son's children's water bottle is plastic. I've never seen children's water bottle not made of plastic. Frankly I'm not sure what to do here. Even if I find a glass version, it's heavy. And if he drops it then it becomes a big mess — especially when he does so at school.
I'm going to replace all the food containers with metal or glass soon.
I also want to replace the sun-blocking curtains but it's really hard to find sun-blocking ones that don't contain nylon. It's madness.
[+] [-] avar|2 years ago|reply
Eh? Dutch tap water is fine, but do you have a citation for that?
Also note that "clean tap water" is a bit of a fuzzy non-metric. I live in Amsterdam[1], where the pH of water is around 7.8, but H^2O would be 7.0.
So the water can be trivially he demonstrated not to be "clean", otherwise the pH value wouldn't differ.
But of course what people usually mean is "has bad stuff in it", not how far it is from being chemically pure.
> my wife can't stand the tap water here.
Yeah, I also don't like it. I grew up in Iceland, which has particularly "dirty" water, but it's the "good" sort of "dirty", i.e. minerals and the like.
That and other things contribute to taste, also temperature, Dutch tap water is too warm for my tastes.
I'm not right, nether are you or her. It's just an acquired taste.
> The baby bottles are all plastic. Glass is available but they're hard to find
They're quite easy to find? Search for "glazen zuigfles". But...
> our baby only likes one particular brand of bottle, refusing to drink from others.
...ah, that might be, i.e. perhaps it's just that manufacturer.
Also are you looking for 100% glass? Usually the fitting to close it and the "nipple" itself are plastic/rubber.
> My son's children's water bottle is plastic. I've never seen children's water bottle not made of plastic. Frankly I'm not sure what to do here.
Get him a stainless steel water bottle, my kids have that (I'm not paranoid about plastic, but it's a more durable bottle for school). Blokker, IKEA etc. sell these.
> I'm going to replace all the food containers with metal or glass soon[...]
Respectfully, I think you're going a bit off the rails here, there's probably 10 much easier things you can do to marginally move the needle further on your family's mortality, e.g. applying sunscreen consistently.
But just to feed your paranoia a bit: some things that are "metal" are really just epoxy, e.g. aluminum cans are just epoxy "bags" surrounded by aluminum walls.
Food grade stainless steel is almost always "pure" though.
1. https://www.waternet.nl/service-en-contact/drinkwater/waterh...
[+] [-] chronicsonic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvdtnz|2 years ago|reply
Is this an error in the article? I always assumed "microplastics" would be much too small to see. 5 millimeters is about half the size of a micro SD card.
[+] [-] derefr|2 years ago|reply
It seems to me that the main advantage of plastic food storage containers over glass ones — other than price — comes mostly from weight. You don't want to carry your leftovers to work in glass containers; they're heavy!
(And AFAIK no other container material besides plastic is a good substitute for glass in food storage, because 1. they're not washable / interact chemically too much with the food, or 2. they're not visually transparent enough to tell what's in the container. So let's ignore other materials as possible solutions for now.)
I presume that the problem here isn't that microwaves are causing vaporization or spalling of the container material in such a way that microplastic particles coming from the outside of the container can end up in your food. (If that's the case, then plastics are basically entirely screwed for this use-case, and we may as well give up on them entirely.)
But presuming instead that the problem is only with your food interacting with the inner surface of the container, under heat/acid/etc — i.e. some kind of leeching or osmosis of the food against the container surface, causing the plasticizers in the container to "exchange" out...
Then, if that's the case, would it be possible to make a food storage container that's mostly plastic, but then has "just a little bit" of glass, lining the inner surface? A glass barrier-layer, sort of like how plastics themselves are used as a barrier layer on the inside of aluminum cans? Resulting in something that's a lot lighter-weight than a thick glass container, but a lot more "inert" than a plastic container?
Glass is usually brittle, I know; and unlike a glass food-storage container, which is usually thick, plastic food-storage containers are usually more thin and flexible. A plastic substrate would want to bend, and that would, naively, shatter a glass "film" on its surface.
But! We've recently invented bendable ("foldable") glass, haven't we? And in fact we're laminating this "foldable" glass to plastic substrates all the time. It's even transparent!
I think it's workable as a process. You could, in theory, produce glass-lined plastic food storage containers. I only wonder if it could be made cheap enough that, even at massive scale, these containers would come out at a price-point that anyone would pay.
[+] [-] j7ake|2 years ago|reply
Maybe the data can be used to compare between microwave SV non microwave life.