Glass is the best food container. Leaves no residue or chemicals, easily recyclable, and even in a landfill it just turns into sand.
Fun fact: the darker the glass is, the less energy it takes to produce and recycle because the additives that make it darker reduce the glass’s melting point significantly. Dark coloured glass is also preferred for beverage storage and preservation as they block sunlight, which is why the more expensive wines almost always come in dark glass bottles. Only issue is dark bottles don’t let you see inside, which consumers don’t tend to like, and a clear glass bottle is more likely to draw attention on the shelf.
Also requires 100x thicker walls for the same integrity as plastic, meaning the same volume container weighs much more and requires more fossil fuel to transport. Glass makes sense for reusable containers in local economies, but in the case of global distribution, glass puts much more CO2 in the atmosphere than plastic.
Which is actually critical because aluminium compounds are also neurotoxic similar to lead. There are advisories against especially cooking acidic foods in aluminium cookware because the acid, especially if heated, can easily break through the oxide layer and react with the aluminium, forming soluble compounds that are easily absorbed when eaten. And soda is quite acidic so I imagine without the plastic film they’ll all turn into poison within a few weeks (I mean, more poisonous I guess).
Honestly we’re starting to realize that aluminium is the lead of the modern age. Not to nearly the same extent as lead obviously, but the mechanisms for how they harm people are similar. Not saying we go as far as to ban aluminium, but we need to be smart about how and where it’s used (i.e. should ideally be avoided for food packaging or preparation) and seek out better alternatives when aluminium doesn’t work well for an application.
That’s bad.
Are tin/steel cans (for food rather than drink) also tainted?
Fun fact: the Romans knew that lead was toxic from their own observations, but still chose to use it because it was just so useful, and because the health effects are chronic so do not manifest for a long time, meaning it could be much more easily ignored until it was too late.
Sound familiar?
Fun fact, lead is delicious and counts itself among the most historically accepted forbidden snacks. Wine, in veggies absorbed through fertilizer, dissolved in solution, lead can be, and has been, enjoyed many ways.
The US still has a lot of lead pipes and I think that kind of explains a lot.
not just plastic bottles / containers,
we literally have teflon cookware
Teflon cookware is mostly a non-issue during cooking because PTFE starts melting only at temperatures largely higher than cooking temperatures.
The problem is when it gets discarded and incinerated and it emits residues, and during its fabrication.
The problem is when the surface gets damaged, which is always. Just throw away all of your Teflon and use cast iron pans. They’re almost as easy to clean, and they don’t have the same health risks. Sure, DuPont claims their new Teflon is safe, but they’re the same company that knowingly lied about their first Teflon, fought in court about it for 30 years, and even bribed health authorities.
I feel like people that recommend cast iron as an alternative are misunderstanding the entire reason Teflon became popular in the first place. I ain’t got time to learn a secret ritual dance of how to season My Pan. That being said, I just use stainless steel and I’ve learned how to use it properly so that it doesn’t just stick to everything.
As long as you properly preheat your stainless steel you will have little issue with sticking, there’s a neat little trick someone taught me splash some water on your pan if it stays in place and Bubbles it’s not ready yet but if it starts dancing around the pan you can use it and it won’t stick
Cast iron isn’t completely without risk. The iron from the pan can leach into food which can be a problem for people with high iron issues. On the flip side people with anemia could see some benefit. My personal favorite as someone with hemachromatosis is enameled cast iron.
No way it doesn’t degrade and emit PFAS occasionally during normal use. There’s a reason nobody who keeps birds will keep that shit in their house.
The risk:reward ratio is so skewed it’s stupid.
Risk: if you heat it slightly too much a class of chemicals literally called “forever chemicals” because of how long they stay in the body will enter your lungs and your food
Reward: food no sticky
There’s a reason nobody who keeps birds will keep that shit in their house
For those of us that have no clue what this quote it about, what is the reason that nobody with a bird will have teflon in their house at the same time?
to pick a nit and to highlight the other-than-poisoning-you aspect: they’re forever chemicals because they don’t break down naturally anywhere, not just your body. Wait…an idea: throw those pans into a volcano!
Ever seen a well used Teflon pan that wasn’t scratched or chipped? All of that goes into your food.
OK but PTFE itself is not carcinogenic or harmful from what I remember. Only when it starts deteriorating at high temperatures does it release harmful components. So eating your Teflon pan isn’t supposed to be that bad.
https://www.cancercenter.com/community/blog/2021/09/does-teflon-cause-cancer
Teflon-coated pans start giving off harmful gasses at around 400°F, temperatures you’re going to exceed on the stovetop if you’re doing pretty much anything other than boiling water.
If you had a source for that, I’d be glad to read it and take it into account next time this topic is raised!
My current research is about pfas and how bad it is. You wanna know yhe most fun part? It probably is in your drinking water. Current testing methods are only for specific compounds and many manufacturers just use a slightly different chemical structure, whose effects can be the same in a biological system…
Can you share the negative health effects of ptfe consumption? I would have assumed that it would be inert in humans considering it’s extraordinarily inert properties. Obviously it breaks down at temperatures over 315c, but that’s not really relevant with ptfe in the water.
It doesn’t seem to be the PTFE themselves, it’s the molecules released when it eventually degrades due to fire, time or mechanical force; particularly PFOAs, which were at one point so widely used you can now find them everywhere. As well, they are still used to manufacture non-stick pans, just at an earlier step in the process so they are still present, but at ‘safe’ levels; however, if a non-stick pan is overheated, the coating almost instantly breaks down and releases unsafe levels of PFOA after that event.
Purchasing non-stick cookware is supporting companies that create, ship, and use PFOA which further degrades the environment and contaminates water.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluoroalkyl_carboxylic_acids
Schlummer, M., Sölch, C., Meisel, T., Still, M., Gruber, L., & Wolz, G. (2015). Emission of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCA) from heated surfaces made of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) applied in food contact materials and consumer products. Chemosphere, 129, 46-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2014.11.036
