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So what reasonable steps can one take to effectively decrease intake of these.

I have personally: stopped using food that is heated in plastic in the microwave. I drink mainly tap water, which I used to drink out of plastic bottles I refilled. I switched these to glass and metal. I stopped using my beloved water atomizer, as I also read on HN that inhaling this stuff is awful.

I want to replace my plastic cutting boards and bowls.

What else can I reasonably do?

there are expensive filters you can get for your whole house that filter out chlorine, lead and PFAS. They're about 800-2000 bucks.

you can learn to cook on stainless steal as opposed to "not stick" pans. Even a lot of "ceramic" pots/pans can be suspect.

You can switch to a french press for coffee (all coffee machines pass hot water through plastic before gettting to the pot). French Presses are a pain in the ass to clean, and it's been proven than French Press coffee having a lack of filter, somehow raises LDL cholesterol. I don't know a solution around that.

but good luck shopping - damned near everything comes with some kind of plastic/water proof container. Just try avoiding plastic when buying cheese, yogurt, milk, frozen veggies, ice cream. Everything - even fresh meat and produce, is typically wrapped in more plastic than Laura Palmer.

And health with food works just like technical privacy. It's a lot easier if you live a lone.

If you have an active social life, a romantic partner or a family -- good luck. Because now you're the crazy person avoiding grease resistant pizza boxes, telling your kid "no you can't have bottled water" at the soccer game, and generally looking like a crazy person and driving your partner mad who just wants to enjoy their life.

I realized a french press was raising my LDL (after switching to a french press for this very reason). Now I use a fine paper filter with a glass chemex for pour-over coffee, and it removes the LDL issue.

Basically what loudtieblahblah said.

Mainly: ・Avoid all plastics however possible. This includes food packaging, clothing, carpeting, etc.

・Buy fresh foods. Foods marked organic have been shown to have lesser amounts of contamination in them.

・Try to balance your diet to include more vegetables. Forever chemicals don't accumulate as much in plant/vegetables as they do in animal products.

・Get more exercise / sweat more as you can sweat out some contaminants in your body.

・Get an air filter for your house. The dust in your house likely has particles from old clothing that contain plastics such as polyester. Carpeting in your home can also contribute, depending on what materials it was made with.

・Don't handle things like thermal paper, as the BPAs in the paper can leech off onto your skin.

・Reverse osmosis filters for your drinking water would be best, but they're expensive.

・Avoid scented cosmetics as they contain phthalates. There are some brands that avoid the use of phthalates in their products. Popular dish soap brands also contains phthalates, you can find dish soap brands that don't use phthalates.

Keep in mind you'll never be able to completely avoid forever chemicals, but you can limit your exposure.

Focus on “good enough”. A $200 RO system for your drinking and cooking water will manage nearly all of your exposure to water borne contaminants. Then move on to the next item. It’s better to hit all the items with “good enough” solutions than focus time & money reaching perfection on just one.

". The US water supply is contaminated with forever chemicals" every water district produces some kind of yearly lab summary.. every water source is not the same, right? so yes and, plenty of commercial bottled water is similarly unreliable that way..

"All these .. Is it any wonder that we're seeing increasing rates of cancer, depression, etc?" Those things are part of the human condition in any epoch

agree,yes, problems with long-lasting chemicals in ordinary life, for certain

To your first point, you are correct. I think Miami, FL and Philadelphia, PA had some of the highest parts per trillion when it came to detecting forever chemicals, while Seattle, WA was on the lower end.

Regarding your second point, I agree that these things are a part of the human condition, but my point is that their rates of occurrances are higher than they would be absent of the exposure to these chemicals.

there are things i'd rather not know. The pure act of existing in society, eating and doing what you need to survive is killing us and making us suffer along the way to that end.

the amount of money, time, awareness and effort one needs to exert in daily life is absurd.

Finding BPA/BPS/BADGE free canned goods.

Avoiding plastic - but don't jump to that french press just yet - French Press coffee raises LDL.

PFAS/BPAs/microplastics in our cookware, food storage, take--out/delivery food packaging.

Our friggin tap water - unless you have a $1k filter on your home.

Don't eat too much red meat - you'll get gout or heart disease or colon cancer.

Careful with those antibiotics and eating starches or large intestine flora will activate Crohns or Ankylosing spondylitis.

Don't eat too many carbs you'll get diabetes and heart disease.

Don't eat too much seafood because of heavy metals and/or antibiotics.

Watch out for the heavy metals in baby foods and root vegetables.

Pesticides/herbicides on our fruits and veggies

Antibiotics in our meat

Seed-oils in all "middle aisle" food. but if you eat meat, they're feeding the animals seed-oils or food they wouldn't naturally eat, so the omega6 levels in beef, chicken skin, pork, and even eggs can be 25x-50x what it normally would be.

Try to eat healthy, enjoy some spinach, sweet potatoes, some monosaturated fat heavy macademia nuts (to keep the omega6s low where you can), season your food with tumeric and black pepper for it's anti-inflammatory properties? Hellooooo kidney stones. I sure hope every bite of oxalate you consumed came with the appropriate amount of calcium to bind to.

All the things you have to take in mind in order to maximize your dietary health and exposure to various toxins in the modern world can give someone serious psychiatric conditions.

And it's hard to not justify those psychiatric conditions - with cancer, autoimmune, and other issues all on the rise, you sit back and look at your own kids and ask yourself "why did i even make you, all that's here is unavoidable suffering".

What antifa/BLM did to small businesses in the rage they had for racial justice, this entire nation needs to evoke against the likes to Dow and DuPont and much of BigAg.

The suffering chemical companies and the food industry has done to the population is a million fold what a couple of trigger happy racist cops have done. And yet... we do nothing.

The FDA plays ping pong with PFAS and pretends it's not their responsibility. Companies dedicate to getting rid of "some" of them on a 10 year time span, doing god knows how much more damage to us.

Something poisonous is in damned near everything we consume or touch.

You could eat a perfect blue zone diet in america and still die of cancer at 62 years old.

Well such things are to be expected since people cant work the land anymore. They dont own it. Writing code for Snapchat filters is infinitely more valuable than working the land.

In short, we've made out bed. Now we have lay in it, go to church and pray in it. We deserve everything we get.

Such is life. Such is dignity.

What the hell kind of jibber is this. Don't listen to this, Don't lay down, go do something! They don't win _until you stop fighting.

Jibber?

I'm certainly not a cheery fellow, but to partake in evil and claim you were born in it does not absolve anyone of it.

In any case, the cost of progress has a steep price or did you think there is such a thing as a free lunch? Someone's wealth must be offset by others poverty because those are the rules we choose to live by. Yhe situation isnt getting better either. It's getting worse. At this point we are not entirely sure of how much we don't know about what we don't know.

I would nit be surprised many moons from now researchers find our tech and the plastics its made out of heat up during use and we inhale all sorts of unnatural nonsense.

Such is life. Such is dignity.

i didn't make this bed. i was born and raised into a world other people already made and i'm powerless to control

A lifestyle change, switching to a vegetarian organic diet, can solve most of these issues regarding diet. The others, yes, are impossible to get around completely.

What about the faux-cardboard takeout boxes impregnated with plastic lining? Steaming hot food is placed in these and must be heating it up and absorbing some of these chemicals?