Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2398 readers

648 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Awa

WhoRoger

RoyalEngineering

245

Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/health

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Cooking with any plastic is a dubious enterprise, because heat encourages potentially harmful plastic compounds to migrate out of the polymers and potentially into the food. But, as Andrew Turner, a biochemist at the University of Plymouth recently told me, black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid.

In 2018, Turner published one of the earliest papers positing that black plastic products were likely regularly being made from recycled electronic waste. The clue was the plastic’s concerning levels of flame retardants. In some cases, the mix of chemicals matched the profile of those commonly found in computer and television housing, many of which are treated with flame retardants to prevent them from catching fire.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Buddahriffic 10 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Yay for being overly cautious after the BPA thing and deciding to avoid plastic as much as possible and strictly avoiding it when dealing with high heat.

Though I still wonder about the chemicals used to treat/seal wooden utensils.

It is kinda funny coming back full circle, because as a kid I thought the wooden spoons we had were relics of the past and preferred the smooth plastic ones.

Now I prefer the wooden ones, stains, cracks, and all. Just limit how long you soak them for when doing dishes.

On that note, I've found that most dishes only need to soak for a minute or less before they are easier to clean. And if you rinse them before anything dries, you probably won't even need to soak at all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (5 children)

You can apply food-grade mineral oil aka cutting board oil to your wooden implements and that will help keep them from drying out and cracking. Also works on cutting boards, of course.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Just be sure to sanitize all cutting boards with a solution of a tablespoon of bleach in a gallon of water for several minutes.

[–] Defectus 2 points 1 month ago

I've used wooden cutting boards for about 30 years now. Never thought about that. But it makes sense with all the nooks and crannies in wood. I only wash mine in warm water and some detergent. Don't know if it's true, but I heard that wood has anti bacterial properties. With that being said, I never use raw meat on a wooden board.

In a related note, I saw that in a documentary about some monks in the US that made cheese. Traditionally they always had made it in large wooden tubs. Then they were forced to use stainless tubs because of health codes. After switching every attempt failed because every batch spoiled, probably because there was a good bacterial culture in the wood that helped the batch propagate the right culture, keeping the bad bacteria in check.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)