My mum when I was a kid in the 90s: we don't store things in plastic, glass or ceramic only
Me when I was a kid in the 90s: mum is a f'ing idiot wtf is wrong with plastic this hippy shit is dumb
My mum 2020s: so plastic huh?
Me 2020s: ugh.
Me when I was a kid in the 90s: mum is a f'ing idiot wtf is wrong with plastic this hippy shit is dumb
My mum 2020s: so plastic huh?
Me 2020s: ugh.
Thick enough to be basically unbreakable, microwavable, dishwasher-safe, etc. Don't need to worry about tomato staining either like on plastic. I've been thrilled with mine.
Ironically though silicone is much harder to recycle though.
Plastic is garbage. If you live in a place that burns garbage for energy, that's the best fate for it.
Does remind me of a cool tech about plasma arc recycling.
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/plasma-arc-recycling.html
It can basically recycle anything into energy from what I briefly read.
Here in the UK we're lucky that Pyrex is still borosilicate glass, and there are some I've seen with glass lids that are advertised as "zero plastic".
The clip-retaining rims seem to love to chip on the IKEA 365 style ones.
The long-tabbed GlassLock ones seem less vulnerable to that.
Which not unique to glass boxes, I'm still amazed by how robust the living hinges can be, some are going on 10 years and haven't split yet.
They’re still amazing for the price though considering how thick they are and how heat/cold/etc resistant they are. Many other brands crack if dropped even a small distance, or shatter if pouring hot food directly in from the stove.
PYREX all caps should be borosilicate still & mostly immune (within reason).
That ended up being a fast food for dinner night.
Your line of thinking here is the same convenient sort of apathy which enables so many to become and/or stay obese.
Because all of these things last or compound over a lifetime, it's only expensive to be healthful if you wait.
OP isn't trying to be "fancy", they're trying to communicate. This is a weird thing to get agitated about.
(I'll see myself out)
Homer: Hmm. I wonder why he's so eager to go to the garage?
Moe: The "garage"? Hey fellas, the "garage"! Well, ooh la di da, Mr. French Man.
Homer: Well what do you call it?
Moe: A car hole!
I could find images for Indian Brass Container to learn what it is. But I didn't find anything conclusive for Korean steel.
I don't know if it's better for you than plastic or really anything about its chemical composition, but it's not plastic.
Edit: After reading more, there is an acrylic lacquer that was developed in the 1950s that contains plastics, but outside of that, normal or traditional lacquers are typically biological in origin.
For stuff made by lone craftsmen & small boutique shops, maybe 50/50? Maybe less?
For the lacquer you buy in the stores, you will have to examine the contents to see if you have actual lacquer or synthetic petroleum lacquers.
As far as wood products, if it was made after the early-mid 80's, assume that if it was lacquered it was done so with a synthetic, or if it is some form of manufactured wood.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-11-09-860324...
So I wouldn't assume anything acquired finished by someone else is free of such things, regardless of whatever once-precise names they used to describe the finish.
Even when you try DIY-finish something with an eye towards food-safety it's rather challenging. E.g. the "Boiled Linseed Oil" you find on store shelves isn't actually boiled linseed oil, it's usually been adulterated with petroleum distillates and sometimes toxic "dryers" (cobalt comes to mind) to achieve the results boiling used to serve.
Here in CA the once common Turpentine which is literally distilled pine trees can't even be sold to the public due to VOCs. The stocked replacements are mostly petroleum distillates, labeled as known to cause cancer in the state.
The oil industry has infected everything
It's probably better than plastic, but remember that coral snake venom and puffer fish toxin are 'all natural' and so the concept of all natural is utter and complete bullshit.
Nowadays though I have the extreme where if my food is in plastic I don't feel the food is contaminated (until recently, but for different reasons), but like the plastic is forever smelling of the food and filthy.
My gf uses plastic lunchboxes and even reuses plastic bottles and I swear I can smell the things around the appartment. It's gross.
They are pretty much everywhere. They shed fibers all the time. We’re in contact with it all the time.
They’re so much nicer than the plastic type, and seem durable so far (the thick flat weave type has been holding up well on our stairs).
Unless you have kids or pets, or live somewhere especially humid, in which case you will regret not getting nylon.
Probably.
When the BPA scare came I saw so many people switching to a different kind of plastic instead of stainless steel or glass. I just could not understand what people were thinking.
But that doesn’t matter much in comparison, because PFAS (corrected) are in the product, allegedly: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/simply-o...
1. Lots of drinks come in metal cans with BPA lining on the inside.
2. You can absolutely be reasonably healthy and drink some of these drinks, including the variants that are not sugar-free. I don’t think most people try to be perfectionistically healthy. But I think PFAs are not anywhere closer “reasonably healthy” to consume.
Also, PFAS is not the plural of PFA - those are actually different classes of chemicals.
The material itself is already about 1.5× to 2× as dense as your average container plastic, plus since you're aiming for at least a decent strength, on top of that the wall thickness will probably be several times larger too.
We obviously freaked out and acted immediately, the staff was a bit concerned but it wasn't their child chewing glass shards. Daughter fortunately developed quite a skill or pushing stuff she doesn't like from her mouth using tongue, so she pushed out everything quickly, small cut in her inner mouth, 2 minutes of crying, us running around and that was it, with some evening worries (wife is a doctor but still...).
Not recommending this experience, better check what they give to your young ones (say below age of 3) beforehand, or just bring your own unbreakable one, even if (good) plastic.
There's no way to avoid ingesting plastic any more. You could maybe reduce it a bit, that's all.
Unless you're saying we understand the specific threshold for plastic and the risk of reaching that threshold can be reasonably extrapolated from typical levels of exposure, I think we're getting at different points.
To me, this is a problem that needs broad solutions and some of those solutions are available immediately and some require broader changes, i.e. there are some things I can control and some things I can't.
Living your life in a way that is conscious of these risks and minimizes them when possible makes the avoidance of plastic an ongoing concern, and increases awareness of the issue in public consciousness.
I don't see how broader changes are possible without growing awareness, and often the best place to start is in one's own life.
If you were to examine the decision in a vacuum and discard all downstream effects, I think it's rational not to invest effort if it won't make a difference.
But I think this overly constrains the possible effects of making the changes that we can, and underestimates the value of instilling ideas in public consciousness.
But yes, my intuition says that whatever you might eliminate by not storing food in plastic and other types of avoidance is just gonna be a tiny drop in the constant dose of plastic you're getting from everything you ingest.
The microplastics problem is a pollution problem. When you're done with any given plastic thing you throw it out. Some tiny percentage gets recycled, sure but for the most part nearly all plastics get trashed.
The trashed plastic breaks down into microplastics slowly over time and those microplastics are very mobile and easily wash or blow away if they're exposed to sun. This means they end up in rivers, lakes, streams, and large bodies of water (e.g. the ocean). From there they diffuse and get inadvertently eaten by sea creatures which are then eaten by larger sea creatures and ultimately end up concentrating inside the larger species that we eat.
It's not just the fish though; it ends up in our water supplies which are used to wash our other foods and ourselves. Basically, microplastics are currently so pervasive in our water supplies that every product made for human consumption that exists has microplastics in it.
The solution isn't to do away with plastics entirely it's to use different kinds of plastics that don't become long-lived microplastics. For example, polylactic acid (PLA). It's not suitable for all purposes but it's perfectly fine for something like a frozen food container or even the thin plastic film that seals it up.
The only reason we're not using such plastics (in the places where they can be used) is they're not as cheap as the bad stuff. We need regulations that require single-use products use plastics that don't break down into long-lived microplastics.
Edit after light scolding by commenter below:
BPA is a form of plastic, both in the pedantic sense (it's formed ... plastically... into its product shape) but more importantly in the colloquial sense, "synthetic, plasticky material" and in this general thread "synthetic material with harmful effects on health, probably through hormonal disruption".
So, yes, BPA is a resin, it's also a plastic, and it's also probably pretty bad, healthwise.
[0] Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the production of polycarbonate plastics.
Guess it is. Why is it a problem?
[1] Researchers have found that BPA exposure is linked to a number of health issues, partly because BPA mimics the structure and function of the hormone estrogen
Not to be wagging the finger, but instead of a snarky remark (ending in a question mark, so the reader can't conclude anything from it) a little Googling and posting a correction with the reasoning would be better.
[0] https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/index...
It is a precursor to resins and plastics, the same way that water is a precursor to sea water but is not the same thing, even though sea water is 96% water by weight.
Our leaders are 80 year old post war shell shocked, Cold War paranoids who huffed leaded gas fumes for decades. Explains quite a lot actually.
On the one hand, you can point at mountains of data that show for the most part, to our knowledge, many plastics are safe when used appropriately. Specific cases have shown otherwise (e.g. BPA use and hazards in certain plastic manufacturering is a well studied example). Then there's all the cases where we have little evidence it's harmful. Our ignorance of harm doesn't mean there isn't harm though.
Transition to paranoia. Everything we don't empirically know is a non-hazard and non-dangerous and should be avoided or leveraged very cautiously. We use materials that have been around for ages like wood and ceramics because we know most the hazards at this point and rely on the maturity to mitigate risk of the unknowns.
Somewhere in between we can try to reason about things, but frankly we don't know either way, so either extreme argument (avoid at all costs, use it because it's safe as far as we know) is rational.
The Roman's has no reason to think lead was hazardous until it was a bit too late. Marie Curie had no idea she was slowly killing herself. In some places where time isn't critical, we should probably lean towards the paranoia and tread cautiously. In times where time is important and progress should be made we should tread more toward risk taking and accept the unknowns while trying to manage risk as we go. No matter what risk exists. Lead propelled the Roman's in some aspects, then in some perspectives may have been one of their ultimate downfalls.
Memory is fuzzy and I'm definitely not a doctor, so please double check.
I'm assuming if you are eating glass, it's a small enough piece that you won't notice, it can be big, you'll notice in your mouth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex
> The pyrex (all lowercase) trademark is now used for kitchenware sold in the United States, South America, and Asia. In Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, a variation of the PYREX (all uppercase) trademark is licensed by International Cookware for bakeware that has been made of numerous materials including borosilicate and soda-lime glass, stoneware, metal, plus vitroceramic cookware.
Of course it cannot be positive to store food in plastic containers either. But difficult to avoid.