Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

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In my country we have some ridiculous newspapers that will publish any story with "may cause cancer" in the headline. So for a lot of people these stories are a boy-who-cried-wolf situation.

Precautionary principle? I'm sorry to say stainless steel may leech heavy metals into food during cooking [1]

And also silicone may leech potentially harmful chemicals into food [2]

Nonstick coatings? Teflon flu "could be a real concern" [3]

Wooden spoons are porous and can crack, making them a breeding ground for germs, and they can splinter [4] - and good luck finding a wooden spatula that doesn't suck.

So personally I don't think it's churlish to take these warnings with a grain of salt. Especially for rarely-used pieces of cookware.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4284091/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19680914/ [3] https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/teflon-flu-r... [4] https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1941959/replace-...

I can relate to your distrust of the various click-baity headlines of papers, but Teflon flu is a real thing. It's easily avoided by not over-heating pans - keep them under 260°C and don't heat them when empty as that can result in hot spots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever

I think that’s kind of the point - all the things they listed are real things. Which are most important to avoid?

The part that really drives me up the wall is that the demographics who decades ago decried plastics to be superior because they don't harbor bacteria like wood or break dangerously like glass are roughly the same ones who are now complaining about plastic.

I don't have a cultural analogy for this situation but whatever it is is worse than "boy who cried wolf".

I am old enough to remember when we needed to switch to plastic bags over paper to "save the trees"

What an irrationally angry sentiment. Praytell, what "demographic" would this be?

'Busybodies'

i only use wooden spoons and spatulas and i almost never had them crack or splinter. if an edge does break off i can use a knife or sandpaper to make it smooth. the only downside is that some spatulas are not thin enough on the front edge, making them more difficult to use for things like pancakes or omelettes. i always keep an eye out for good wooden spatulas. i had some quite nice ones over the years. and when i move i take them with me, just in case i can't get another good one in the next location.

A well made point, but you won't get through. When you're in the fad, it's the center of the universe. Plus there will be an endless number of presently unknown medical worries and niggles. It all comes out in the wash, the best bet is diversification.

Dismissing the papers as lies is very different from considering your usage of the studied tools/materials, and deciding you're not actually recreating the failure-modes studied in the papers enough to worry about your current tools.

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