What do you think is hazardous?
 

Going on from the poles thread, I started thinking about how many things there are around today that a person does not really want to be around. For instance:

Those silicone baking mats - my friend wont use them because she says the silicone might get into the food.

Plastic bottles - I admit I buy that flavoured water but I don't drink enough water and I figure so long as a drink them by the "due" date then I am better off getting the chemicals than I am being dehydrated. But I would not think of refilling one of those cheap plastic bottles.

Teflon in pots and pans - I am not keen on it but I use them all the same.

All baking pans have some kind of a non-stick surface on them.

Anti-bacterial soap, lotion etc. - I avoid it if I can.

Chemicals -- well now - unless you grow your own food and wheat and make your own flour and keep your own cows - etc. - I really cannot imagine anything in this day and age that doesn't involve chemicals. The food, the packaging, the containers - you name it - everything has something in it with some long unpronounceable name.

I have heard that organic food is just as likely, or maybe even more likely to make you sick than non-organic food.

I suppose there is really no way of telling whether those things are REALLY bad for you because for every article you read that say they are going to kill you - there is a corresponding article saying that this is bunk! And vice versa.

As a friend said - being alive is hazardous to your health.

I suppose the thing is that we want things easy, we don't want cast iron baking pans and making soap out of lye and some kind of meat fat etc.

When I look around this room, every darn thing is made of plastic except for a chair I got in an estate sale - well and baseboards, doors and window frames - they are wood - oh - and the paper! Is plastic per se bad for you?

I mean to say - what in a "civilized" country in 2007 can a person do to avoid all these things? Is there a way?

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Pretty much all of these things are harmless. What people should worry a lot more about is having a healthy diet and taking regular exercise. Not smoking and only drinking in moderation. These things will have a far greater effect on your health than anything the tabloids like to get excited about.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Except for the third sentence, I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Not in the slightest. Most plastics are almost totally inert, if not totally inert. If you burn them there might be some toxic gases generated, but thats not what we are talking about in terms of water bottles and bakeware.

Let me put my "Almost got a PhD in Materials Science" hat on for a minute.....The only thing I am aware of as toxic is that PVC might contain a small trace of the un polymerised vinyl chloride, which is why PVC is not used in food applications.

There is a lot of money to be made in encouraging a climate of fear, it sells a lot of magazines and the like, but plastics are with very few exceptions harmless, the nature of them means that the chemical bonds that make them are really strong, and are very hard to break down to encourage them to react with anything else.

Even in the extreme case of heating a teflon pan ultra hot, the danger posed is incredibly small. We are exposed to risks of all sorts all the time, and things like smoking and alcohol and bad diet and lack of excercise will have an infinitely larger influence on wellbeing.

Personally I think that the stress of worrying about teflon cookware and bottled water does far more long term damage to your health than any chemicals, real or imagined, that you might be exposed to in day to day life with plastics. Teflon (PTFE) is inert. if you eat it, it will pass straight through.

Silicone (oil) is associated with some very serious health effects from leaking breast implants, but that is in no way related to the silicone rubber bake ware.

The scaremongering over "toxic teflon" would make me laugh if it didnt highlight what a technologically illiterate and paranoid society we live in.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

I don't agree with all the anti bacterial stuff they want you to buy to protect your children. How are you meant to build up your immune system if your not exposed as a child to common virus's such as colds/flu.

A clean house is sufficient, we don't need a sterile environment.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

I didn't realise sweetcorn was made of Teflon.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Thats our attitude too. All the antibacterial this and that puts me in mind of the way antibiotics were handed out like smarties by the medical comunity in the past...how long before another generation of super resistant bugs comes along as a result.

Over protecting kids (and adults) from every little thing is a recipe for disaster in the long run.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

You are supposed to chew it...but you knew that right;)

Try giving raisins to a kid without much in the way of teeth yet...its always surprising what comes out the other end:)

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Yeh, a bit of dirt is good for you. Well thats what my gran used to say and it never did me any harm, well I don't think it did others may disagree;):D

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Of your list the only ones i try to avoid are the chemicals. Pretty hard here where chemicals are even added to milk and butter. I buy fresh food, no kits food, no flavouring mixes and thats it.
Oh and i believe in using gin and tonic, gin martinis and wine as a throat disinfectant ;)

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

I always think it's pretty funny when people say they avoid "chemicals". Everything's made up of "chemicals".

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Oh dont be such a ruddy pedant. You know what we mean. Things listed as a formula not a name.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

The drug addicts that live next door.
The cars that go 100mph down the new by pass to our village
The cars that go 100mph through our village racing the ones above.
Perpetrators who carry out domestic abuse
People who carry out offenses against a child

I know they are more than hazardous but they have to be worse than a lot of things ingested.

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

Diving off the top board at the local pool, when the pool is empty is pretty hazardous ;)

Re: What do you think is hazardous?
 

OOh, I've never seen you when you're angry.