30 thoughts on “Eating Plastic”

  1. “Not sure where else I’d be getting plastic.”

    Does this mean you are suffering from the symptoms detailed in the article? No need to answer, just thought that was funny phrasing.

    While I think the anti-plastic movement has some merit, it is also tied in with chemophobia, where people believe that things made by humans shed chemical cooties that get in your food or stick in your clothes and make you feel sick or have a bad mood or give you cancer or give you a tiny wee wee or something. I’m not scared of cooties but I’d still rather not eat/drink plastic.

    What type of plastic was used in the test equipment? Was there a possibility of contaminating the results? Cootie doctrine dictates the close proximity of plastic results in colonization by the teeny tiny plastics.

  2. Yeah, another prophet of disaster
    Who says this ship is lost?
    Another prophet of disaster
    Leaving you to count the cost
    Taunting us with visions
    Afflicting us with fear
    Predicting war for millions
    In the hope that one appears
    No point asking when it is
    No point asking who’s to go
    No point asking what’s the game
    No point asking who’s to blame
    Cause if you’re gonna die
    (If you’re gonna die)
    If you’re gonna die, die
    (If you’re gonna die)
    If you’re gonna die
    (If you’re gonna die)
    If you’re gonna die
    If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on
    If you’re gonna try, well, stick around
    Gonna cry, just move along
    If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die
    If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on
    If you’re gonna try, well, stick around
    Gonna cry, just move along
    If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die

    1. I’m not too worried about it. I’ve been eating and ingesting stuff for 50+ years that I probably “shouldn’t” be, according to the experts.

      Everything in moderation.

    2. Saxinis, I think with world events, ‘The Trooper’ would be a better selection.

      The horse he sweats with fear we break to run
      The mighty roar of the Russian guns
      And as we race towards the human wall
      The screams of pain as my comrades fall

      We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground
      And the Russians fire another round
      We get so near yet so far away
      We won’t live to fight another day

      Only it seems like the Russians are the ones making fruitless cavalry charges this time.

  3. The “MicroPlastic” folks began just before Covid, and they keep crying about it, but no real data for the (relatively inert) ground plastic that may or may not exist in your food and it’s related health issues really exists, unless you never learned how to do science.

    Also, they cannot explain how it affects your body and they cannot really define it. How small is Micro? What kind of plastic, etc.

    It’s a Movement, not science.

  4. I’m a little skeptical of the article, because it’s based on rather thin research.

    However, I do agree that it’s best not to eat plastic. I also know that there’s a rather large source of plastic (and toxic heavy metals, etc) in the diets of some people; sea salt. Sea salt is just evaporated seawater, and thus contains micropartical plastic, plus all the other pollution (both natural and man-made) one can find in seawater.

    Personally, I prefer plain old mined salt, which is simply evaporated seawater from long ago (hence, no manmade contaminants). It’s also vastly cheaper.

    Oh, and one more thing; here’s an excellent way, with one simple trick, to keep a credit-card’s worth of plastic out of your diet: Don’t eat your credit cards. I know this might require some lifestyle changes from some of you, but it’s worth it…

        1. @ Jsallison;

          Licking Windows is fine… it’s probably the most useful, and safest, thing to do with Windows (and most other Microsoft products). Much better than putting it somewhere dangerous, like on a computer.

          1. Office 365 almost gave me a dream come true. First it asked me how likely I would be to recommend it to others? The choice “not likely at all” really doesn’t express my loathing. It then asked what they could do to make it better? I was going to answer that they should feed it into a plasma furnace, collect the residue and send that into the Sun. In true Microsoft fashion, the text box refused to work.

          2. I have an old college Intro to Astronomy textbook that repeats a speculation that “Pluto may have been a moon of Neptune.”

            Looking over the homework exercises, and yes, a lot of homework is make-work to have something to grade students on, one question asks, “What evidence is there for Pluto have once been a moon of Neptune.”

            I suppose there are newer, more updated textbooks, and a source on the Interwebs suggests that the theory, if you could call this speculation a theory, that Pluto was a moon of Neptune is attributed to one astronomer in the 1930s, but there is no support for this idea.

            So, are there any smart-Alec students who answer, “None. . . . Absolutely none.

      2. You might be right… I can’t seem to find a definitive, pear-reviewed (much more reliable than peer-reviewed) study that evaluated the health effects of credit cars consumption.

    3. “However, I do agree that it’s best not to eat plastic. ”

      That’s how they get you. Next thing you know, you wont wear shoes and will make house guests store their cell phones in a faraday vault.

      1. Nah, I’d never make my houseguests store their phones in a Faraday vault. A microwave oven works just fine for that, and hitting the 30-second button kills all the germs on it for them. (I’m a considerate host).

        1. :Heh: A cellphone with a microphone, camera and Wi-Fi/5G connection controlled by software sitting next to you….why would anyone be so paranoid to think that somebody could remotely hack it and turn it into a surveillance tool? Still, like storing your files of the Internet, just assume its “not private” and go on with your life.

  5. I eat/drink from plastic containers all the time. My weight issues began long before that habit, and I’m downright svelte now. My A1C is exemplary and my liver hasn’t complained yet.

    When my late wife dragged me to quack several years ago who claimed I was suffering from plastic toxicity, the “supplements” they sold us to “detoxify” me made me truly sick and I stopped taking them and refused to go back.

  6. My problem isn’t that my plastic is eating my gut, my bank account on the other hand….

  7. Yea, well…if drinking out of the decidedly not “certified lead and phthalate free” water hose connected to the unfiltered well that filled the water trough for the cows, and eating fruits and vegetables right off the plants and using lead based paints and asbestos insulation (and…and…and…) when I was growing up didn’t kill me, I’m pretty sure some microscopic plastic particles aren’t going to spell doom for me either.

    This is a news report based on a scientific research paper, which means the odds are it isn’t worth the electrons used to post it on the internet. Scientists get noticed, published, and given grants for research that makes a splash, so there is a definite incentive for them to make some “shocking” discovery every time they research anything. There isn’t a whole lot of fame to be had in discovering “meh…it’s harmless”. Then add to that the fact that the media sells advertising through eyeballs and clicks and they garner those clicks by sensationalizing everything, so even if the scientists findings were “meh…it’s probably harmless. There was only a 2% increase in mortality, which isn’t statistically significant”, the media reports will all be “Click here to find out what scientists recently discovered might be killing you!!111!!!one!!!”

    I’ve always been a bit of a cynic, but lately my cynicism has become terminal. I don’t believe anything I hear from anyone (other than my wife…believing her is mandatory no matter what) unless it’s something I can personally verify for myself. Everything else is considered rumor, conjecture or opinion.

  8. My cat will drink from a filthy mud puddke, but not from our well. Especially not after it’s been treated by IronFighter. The deer, on the other hand, love the water softener effluent.

  10. Rand, have you ever considered tap water? Or am I way behind the times on its toxicity? Or is it the LA area that’s the problem?

    Tap water comes to us from miracles of 19th century – and earlier – engineering (at least in the East).

    1. Our tap water is hard (we get mineral deposits on spouts). It’s probably what gave me my kidney stone that one time. (Proper) water treatment removes bacteria, but not minerals. I’ll stick with filtered.

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