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Comment by vinni2 | Hacker News Reader

I trashed all my black plastic utensils and bought stainless steel ones. I can’t decide if I did the right thing or not.

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It is. Stainless steel or glass (chemically inert) are far superior. Even 10x less flame retardants and other chemicals are still way too much. Not to mention the FDA exposure levels being too high.

So paper was still right to warn us about it but not for the right reasons.

The paper was right and for the right reasons. They just decided to lie to catch more headlines (nobody would have cared about it being high but under the FDA limit). It was just more effective to say "oopsie our bad but it changes nothing to our recommendations".

I'm sure the authors weight the impact on their reputation versus the benefits of catching more headlines for the public good.

I think it all worked as intended.

Stainless steel production makes hexavalent chromium, and glass can chip and be ingested without realizing. All hazards in moderation.

Yes, but you're leaving out some important context, context which still renders them safer than black plastic.

Regarding stainless steel, that's during production of the item, not during cooking. You'd have to be welding, or using heat hot enough to cut through the steel, to release it in your own kitchen.

Regarding glass, you can check for chips and the condition of your glass far better than you can for microplastics. One is also likely to leech (plastics) over the course of its life, while one is not (glass).

It's not necessarily just heat.

Salt, acid, alkaline solutions could potentially lower the temperature at which hexavalent Chromium appears.

"Could potentially" on what basis? Surely it would have been studied by now if there were good reason for that suspicion? Have you seen such a study?

On the basis of chemistry? that hexavalent chromium is formed via oxidation, and I was throwing out basic ways that are used to increase oxidation rates and decrease energy thresholds needed to attack the chromium oxide layers and oxidize the element.

"Could potentially" means I was brainstorming possibilites, I didn't look for a study, I'm not too worried about it. I'd be more worried about Nickel than Chromium, but it's obviously false that you "need" welding levels of heat to produce oxidized forms of Chromium.

Considering how much more aggressive you can get with stainless steel during cooking and cleaning versus plastic/nonstick I'd say you still did good

I did, too. I did not have very many though. What I learned is you can poach an egg in a steel ladle. Worth the $5?

As someone who cooks only occasionally, my black plastic utensils wear like shit and are impossible to get odors out of. I much prefer the stainless steel ones, or even wood. Wood honestly wears better than plastic, except it doesn't melt.

Just be careful that the stainless is compatible with your pots and pans. Enameled cookware, for example, doesn't mix well with metal utensils, because they chip the surface

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