Richel!
@rsmurata_17
Followers
212
Following
595
Statuses
45
we didn’t test any random plants in the plasticlist project, but during our discovery phase there were quite a few papers on how plastic pollution contaminates produce. we also talked to a few academics who study environmental plastic pollution and the uptake mechanisms of plasticizers in plants. here’s an interesting read about some researchers who bought produce straight from farms to see if different agricultural methods decrease phthalate content!
1
0
3
super loved working with nat and team on such a cool and important project <3 lots of commotion around this project so i wanted to write out some of my own opinions :) “what should i do now?” i feel like this is the most asked question after the big plasticlist release, and while i would love to have an answer and prescribe everyone a diet so that they can be plasticizer free, its not really super possible. EDCs are sadly, everywhere. regulating these chemicals, switching packaging, demanding ‘BOBA GUYS NEEDS TO USE GLASS CUPS!’ maybe might change things a little, theres a lot of work to be done in the entire plasticizer front. Even if big food chains went plastic-free with packaging, it wouldn’t eliminate plastic contact in manufacturing or transportation. Tubes, containers, and equipment (typically very plastic-y) handle food every step of the way. even if you switched to a strictly non-processed food diet and only ate veggies straight from the ground, our water and soil has phthalates that are absorbed by the roots and into the delicious potato or carrot that you’ll be eating. its very, very hard to avoid these chemicals. its hard to tell people how to avoid eating phthalates because theyre kinda just everywhere. this project was really good at showing people this fact. “okay but are they really that bad?” i dont know. probably? the research is decently convincing. i personally try my best to grab the less plastic package option at the grocery store and i dont microwave food in plastic containers anymore. can’t really fully avoid these chemicals but i can make an attempt at limiting consumption. i will still drink boba guys and eat whoppers on occasion tho :)
We did it! We tested 300 Bay Area foods for plastic chemicals. We found some interesting surprises. Top 5 findings in our test results: 1. Our tests found plastic chemicals in 86% of all foods, with phthalates in 73% of the tested products and bisphenols in 22%. It's everywhere. 2. We detected phthalates in most baby foods and prenatal vitamins. 3. Hot foods which spend 45 minutes in takeout containers have 34% higher levels of plastic chemicals than the same dishes tested directly from the restaurant. 4. The 1950s Army rations we tested contained surprisingly high levels of plastic chemicals. 5. Almost every single one of the foods we tested are within both US FDA and EU EFSA regulations. Check out our full results below.
0
1
21
RT @fromclaireee: ngl one of the biggest surprises for me about plasticlist was finding out people call boba ‘boba tea’…. what is that
0
1
0
RT @natfriedman: We did it! We tested 300 Bay Area foods for plastic chemicals. We found some interesting surprises. Top 5 findings in our…
0
3K
0
can confirm, Luke took a fat hit and I was engulfed in his razzleberry flavored smoke 🥲🥲
0
0
12
RT @TheSlavant: phthalates were introduced in the 1920s, but we don’t really know how products in the past compare to our food today. will…
0
2
0
6 years later and not much has changed 🤠 @IsaacGB9
PlasticList team training to remove phthalates from sample containers
1
1
11
RT @natfriedman: Interesting paper @rsmurata_17 found – this group in Beijing created a magnetic polymer that attaches to phthalates. You t…
0
3
0
extremely difficult! air, containers, utensils, all contain phthalate esters. Even instrumentation used to detect these chemicals (such as GC/MS) have a bunch of plastic parts internally that can cause contamination. This stuff has to be mitigated against using procedural blanks, container blanks, deep solvent cleaning, etc. It’s hard stuff to test :(
0
0
3
currently at the ER w @fromclaireee due to a nut allergy reaction. to help ease the situation i decided to read her random papers from Nature Cell Biology started reading a paper about ferroptosis and a quick google search says its a new form of cell death? i was confused if this meant newly discovered or a genuinely newly developed method of apoptosis that weve evolved to have looked into it and found out the mechanism was discovered in 2012 but the first ferroptosis inducer (erastin) was documented back in 2003 still doesnt answer my original question but tldr dont eat foods ur allergic to 🤠🤠🤠
3
0
8
be honest, would you give up microplastics if you knew it was adding 10% tasty to your food?
2
0
4