'I wash all my food like crazy': scientists voice concern about nanoparticles | Hacker News Reader

'I wash all my food like crazy': scientists voice concern about nanoparticles

theguardian.com

82 pointspseudolus56 comments

Sigh... it's one of those articles. Headline claims "scientists" do this, but the quote in the article is:

> "As a consumer, I wash all my foods like crazy,” says Christine Ogilvie Hendren, executive director of the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology at Duke University

So... she's an advocate against this stuff pushing an agenda that it shouldn't be there, not a scientist talking about a finding.

That said: there's no particular reason for TiO2 powder to be in food. It's an inert white pigment, and does nothing but make the processed food (which we already know is bad for you absent any colorings added) more attractive.

But come on folks: this story is sensationalist nonsense. Actual science on this stuff seems broadly unconclusive, and this particular pigment is in very wide deployment across basically the whole world. Any measurable effects are going to be very low significance.

This is a really bad article. I like how the claim is "a cancer risk can't be ruled out". By definition, anything not tested for cancer risk "can't be ruled out".

Maybe the headline should be "BREAKING: You can't prove a negative!"

I've noticed a several Guardian articles pop up on the front page this week with questionable science / outlandish headlines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20035473

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20034411

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20026454

Seems like many of these sensationalist articles are coming from the same publication or cluster of publications.

She's a scientist with an extensive body of publications in this domain; same with Christine Payne and Sowmya Purushothaman, the other two "scientists voicing concern." I agree that the article would have benefited from more diversity of perspective but it's unfair to characterize these contributors as "advocates pushing their agenda," and it's both inaccurate and disrespectful to use scare quotes when calling them scientists and to imply (if that was your intention) that they do not participate in "real" science.

As well, it isn't clear to me why one would read the title "Scientists voice concern about nanoparticles" and expect to read about about a particular research result rather than a survey of the current state of understanding.

> She's a scientist with an extensive body of publications in this domain

In the context of that quote, as made explicit by attribution, she's an activist pushing a policy choice. That's not an indictment of her expertise, but it needs to be called out. She doesn't get to both advocate for a position in the text and stand in for "scientists"[1] in an appeal to authority argument in the headline.

[1] These are, obviously, not "scare quotes"[2]. The word literally appears in the headline and I'm discussing the fact that it does!

[2] Those aren't either. You wrote the words and I'm repeating them with the quotes to indicate that I'm discussing the phrases used in your "argument"[3]

[3] Those are.

It would seem, by your logic, that it is actually impossible for scientists to voice concern about anything, because once they do so, they can no longer be called scientists, only advocates. If that's the case, then I simply disagree with your logic. If it isn't, and you see some egregious bias-having somewhere in the scientists' statements or qualifications, feel free to point it out. If you can do so without the overt hostility, even better.

You're still misunderstanding. It's not a criticism of the people quoted, it's a criticism of the journalism that presented the ideas as consensus worries when they're actually pretty niche concerns without a lot of good basis.

You can advocate for anything you want, and we can post a link to a screed by the hilariously named "Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology"[1] and we can discuss that here if you like.

But for the Guardian to do that is just editorializing.

[1] Still not scare quotes

Perhaps I need to be more clear myself. I do not think that you're criticizing the contributors, but I also do not think that you're criticizing the article. I think you're (inadvertently) criticizing an entire vein of science writing where the director of a Duke research lab can say there is room for concern and not get written off as an agenda-pusher in the comments.

One of the best things I've done is to challenge myself to buy no packaged food for a week. I made it 2.5 weeks and have reduced my food packaging by about 95% since, about 4 years ago.

I thought it would be hard at first and it was. Then everything changed.

I had no idea eating almost exclusively from CSAs, farmers markets, and bulk would

- save money

- save time

- increase diversity

- create community

and most of all

- taste more delicious.

I'm never going back to mostly packaged food. I wish I could convey what Trader Joes, etc look like now compared to fresh from the farm. Something like a Surgeon General promoting cigarette brands, which used to seem normal.

- save time

Does it though? A stack of packaged meals in the freezer that take 2 minutes to heat up and leave only a single utensil behind to wash seems like it would be much faster than preparing any kind of meal from fresh ingredients. And the shopping is faster too, no need to inspect each piece for quality, once you know your favorites, you just load them up in your cart and go.

But then you’re eating... packaged frozen meals. Most of those are full of salt and preservatives, taste terrible, and are just generally bad. Maybe you have found a magical source of fresh, healthy, good tasting frozen meals, but that absolutely does not exist in most of the US.

I think it can be assumed that discussions about wholesome food excludes fast food by default.

No, the discussion is about food, not wholesome food. And the argument is around saving time not nutritional value.

No. The OP posted a list of items, all of which need to be taken as a whole for a complete argument. The CP cherry picked one item to skew the discussion to their argument.

If we’re talking only about speed, then why not always eat McDonalds? Or Soylent? Clearly it’s because there are other facets of the point being made other than speed alone.

Of course, but then touting speed as one of the advantages is a lie. Even if fresh food is overall better, in the particular aspect of speed, it's worse.

That is not cherry picking, it's attacking one of the arguments that rings false.

What the hell is “wholesome” food? Seriously, it’s a scientifically empty term.

> wholesome | ˈhōlsəm | adjective: conducive to or suggestive of good health and physical well-being: the food is plentiful and very wholesome.

Doesn't need to appear in a peer reviewed journal to know what they mean.

In scientific terms (the only terms that matter) identify what makes food “wholesome” and quantify the health effects. For example, if I stop eating preservatives, how much longer can I expect to live, in years?

Please stay on topic, the point was regarding time, not quality.

no need to inspect each piece for quality,

Because you know it's uniformly mediocre.

There are home-made meals and part prepared meals and sauces in the freezer that take 2 minutes... It takes no more effort to make a curry, casserole or sauce to feed 8 as to feed 2, so we often make spare for the freezer. Spiced dishes often taste better on the second heating anyway.

No more hassle than faffing around with multiple packs that comprise the packaged meal, rice or accompaniment, and the garlic or naan bread.

> no need to inspect each piece for quality

Well, ready meals are generally lowest possible quality, so I suppose there is a certain consistency. Even if buying the premium ready meal range of the premium supermarket you immediately notice the increase in satisfaction the next time you eat home-made again.

Nice, I can wash the titanium oxide down with my SSRI-microplastic tap water while swimming in the local antibiotic river.

And use some microplastic body wash to clean off in the river

I think there can be good and bad Nanoparticles. TiO2 is for looks. But I don’t see an issue with finely ground green tea or table salt.

We should strive to not pollute the term Nano particle because there are good and bad uses and if only bad gets associated with it, it can end up like GMOs where people fear them for no reason —while we can sanction GMOs like roundup crops due to their negative externalities, not all GMOs exhibit bad aspects.

I don't think your risk assessment is sound. The whole reasoning nanoX is used, is because it has different properties than X. Green tea might be fine, but nano green tea might pass some barrier it wouldn't otherwise. Maybe resulting in an immune reaction against a compound that wouldn't end up in it's reach after usual consumption.

>TiO2 is for looks

Blue M&M's use it for color

When it comes to titanium it is not that bad. Human body is (most likley) able to deal with titanium (contrary to mercury). However, nanoparticles in itself are problematic because of how they interact with body cells. Good is, possible, better drug delivery (think about possibility of crossing blood-brain barrier), bad is, potential unaccounted effects where body does not recognize nanoparticle as something 'alien', which can create a problems beyond even todays studies.

Case being, why add complexity? There is probably some use for advance technology in certain areas of live, i would gladly take ANY kind of treatment if i would be diagnosed with terminal disease. But why widen your exposure (civilization-wise) for unknowns only at the benefit of pure market profits?

“In more than 50 years of use as a colourant, no verifiable link has ever been shown between general intake of titanium dioxide and ill health in humans,”

That statement in itself is so vague. It's like saying that coal burning has very limited effect on human health because we do it for 150yrs and people are still live. Titanium is not necessary body mineral, therefore counting on 'lucky strike' that it will be assimilated positively is miss-or-hit attitude.

Simplicity over complexity, always.

Titanium dioxide is a common tattoo ink and a fair amount of research has gone into studying where that ends up if it does not stay in the skin.

The tattoo removal process allegedly does not work with white ink (titanium dioxide) as it does not get zapped by a laser to break down in the way other compounds do.

Generally the body moves these foreign things only if they get to the nanoparticle size out to the liver, so a lot of this article sounds rather similar to what goes on with the tattoo process.

A hastily Googled article:

https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/tattoo-ink-pa...

Titanium dioxide is rather harmless compared to other tattoo ink colours, it has nothing compared to the cobalts, cadmiums and other 'salts' that make up other colours, and, despite advances in organic chemistry, you still need these heavy metals to make bright colours. We have moved on from lead but not much.

Getting back to the main article, there is good and bad in nano-particles. For instance, regular salt is now at the nano-particle size in 'beige' foods. This is how 'low salt' was achieved, the receptors on the tongue just need to get satisfied. So, imagine your 'freedom fries' with exceedingly fine salt on them, your tongue does not realise these are small particles rather than table-salt style crystals. If you are going to have salt for taste then you might as well have a small amount of the small particles - that are water soluble - rather than the bigger crystals - that are also water soluble. Your sodium intake is lower but there is no taste hardship involved.

For this reason I would take a lot of the article with a pinch of salt and move away from living beside a main road, nowadays cars emit far more nano-particles than they used to and your lungs can't stop them getting into the bloodstream. Visible smoke can at least be coughed up rather than just absorbed by your lymph nodes.

Wow, this is certainly enlightening. I wonder how I can get food that isn’t filled with Nanoparticles.

Strive for as much non-processed food as you can, use glass or stainless steel for food storage as much as possible.

Stick to the standard diet advice[1], ignore articles like these, and get on with your life.

[1] "Eat Food. Mostly plants. Not too much." Google it if you need more context.

After thinking on this for a while and considering what food is constituted of, one of the only solutions that springs to mind would be to break it all down into nanoparticles. That way you only have to worry about it being filled with picoparticles.

You should wash your produce like crazy because it's the biggest source of foodbourne illness. And depending on where your food is from and the type of food, we know that various parts of it often have dangerously high levels of toxins and carcinogens, yet is still sold in your grocery store with no warnings. So if you're going to be concerned about food safety, I'd focus on the known dangers first, then worry about the unknowns.

https://pastrychefonline.com/take-a-cue-from-little-debbie/

I'm not sure what washing a Little Debbie snack cake will accomplish, outside of preventing its ingestion, which, now that I think about it, is an excellent outcome!

Regardless of nanoparticles (and I'm not one to consider TiO2 to be harmful), there are better reasons to wash your food: microbial, pesticide, and herbicide contamination. I'd say that concerns about titanium dioxide are very, very far down the list of things I'd worry about.

There are soo many concerns out there...it is really hard to deal with it as a consumer.

All these nano technologies for food-related products might slightly help the bottom line...(slight flavor increase, slight improvement in shelf life..etc...) of some companies, but I am not sure those small gains are worth the risk to public health...and to mental health. The gains just don't seem important enough. We already are good enough at food preservation and production.

It depends on the food - some with already long shelf lives would be fine, but other foods simply aren't meant to be around for long.

But the public health isn't the concern of the food companies. It's putting out products that are shelf stable long enough to be sold. Period.

Unless you see "Free of X", assume the company is using it (where applicable).

There are a near infinite number of molecules. Free of X says nothing about a nearly identical X’.

Yes obviously it is not the job of food companies until it is either the law or there is fear of hurting the bottom line: i.e.1)regulation, 2)companies get sued for damaging the health of consumers. The latter is really really tough to prove, so the former is the path that should be chosen.

Concern about nanoparticles sounds about as vague as you could possibly get. Me, I'm concerned about macroparticles. Especially the ones that race around at 60MPH. So dangerous.

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