i see posts and articles about microplastics and forever chemicals in human blood and i'm like bestie i still haven't managed to process the fact that we're basically all drinking heavy metals in our drinking water, no matter how good our ciites' water filtration systems are. i simply can't be internalizing these other things right now
@rigormorphis god yeahhhhh, my partner has been catastrophising about recent news about ziploc bags leaching microplastics when frozen or microwaved, and I'm just like, we're all being poisoned by everything, I get zillions of microplastics just from existing in the modern world, shunning plastic bags for freezer storage is not something I can get worked up about rn...
@soph_sol @rigormorphis The, uhhhhh good??? news is that I read that study and the microplastics drop off sharply after the second use, so you know. Just keep using your shitty plastics forever, and never use a new bottle or ziplock. You might get macroplastics as the whole thing falls apart, but you're limiting your microplastics!
@soph_sol @rigormorphis although actually that's freezer use, can't speak to the microwave thing
@Betty @soph_sol @rigormorphis we stopped using plastic cutting boards and we stopped microwaving leftovers or takeout on plastic because those are easy and it cost us whatever two IKEA cutting boards cost but otherwise 🤷 what are you gonna do
@serenadestrong @Betty @rigormorphis I stopped using plastic cutting boards bc I could see the way repeated scoring with sharp knives brought up macroplastics! but I still microwave in plastic containers semi-regularly....a lot of ceramic dishes, even new modern ones, will not promise that they are lead free. so like. damned either way?? do my choices even matter.
@soph_sol @serenadestrong @rigormorphis You can get a lead tester kit, but I will say, if your white dishes do not get, like *suspiciously* hot in the microwave, they probably don't have lead in them, and if they're not white, they almost definitely don't.
@Betty what counts as suspiciously hot? I have a modifier of like -2 to heat resist so every dish coming out of a microwave is too hot lol
@soph_sol IDK, I just know I had one white mug that got alarmingly hot compared to all the rest and I was like "...why does just the ... .oh." and then I didn't use that mug anymore.
with lead tbh i do also worry a bit about clear glass, which was leaded for a long time to improve clarity and can be recycled almost infinitely so if the company is not testing the glass they use…
my partners mom very nicely bought us some glassware last year which, unbeknownst to her, came with a little note from the manufacturer like “california prop 65 wants us to test and warn for lead but we refuse to test for it so we just say all our products contain lead fuck you”
@soph_sol @Betty yeah my understanding is that leaded glass is *relatively* unlikely to put lead in your bloodstream (unlike, say, lead paint or gasoline which both super defo did in high volumes) esp if it has been recycled and therefore diluted. But would still rather have zero lead in my glass personally! do not feel like this is unreasonable at all and yet!!!
@Betty @soph_sol yikes yeah no thank you to the lead glass pickle dish!
i don’t know if this is particularly comforting but the good news is if your mom is just using inherited dishes, she is probably serving a lot less lead up at her table than your grandmother did when those were new? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869159490202X?via%3Dihub
@Satsuma @Betty yeah tho if you leave acidic food/drink in leaded glass to sit for even a little while, I gather that drastically increases the leached lead. (eg, don't use antique crystal decanters for your alcohol! no matter how cool they look!!) (also don't use lead crystal for serving pickles. a thing one of my grandmothers always did, and then my mom inherited her pickle dish and does too....)