This is sort of a shower thought because this morning I was using some shaving cream and I thought, if it turns out in 5 years this was giving me cancer, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Comes out a goo, ejected from a can with force, immediately becomes a foam?
Do you have anything you use that you think might be too good to be true?
Air fryers.
Most of them are designed so poorly that it’s also impossible to get all grease out of them. That can’t be healthy. My sister has a ninja air fryer, you can’t remove the top grate. There is grease build up in there. A friend of mine has one he brings it over during the Super Bowl party, the moment he opens up the lid on it you can smell the old grease come out of it. That’s not an exaggeration. There’s no way in hell that can be healthy. So it won’t surprise me if years from now people go we should never have used those.
It also won’t surprise me too much if there’s some health hazard with them other than just the buildup of grease.
Sidenote, what are these companies thinking to make a product where they know there’s going to be grease that is going to build up, and make it in a way that makes it almost impossible if not completely impossible to clean said grease?
Unless their thought process is: use it three times throw it away go buy a new one.
Huh we bought an expensive air fryer because my in-laws wouldn’t stop bragging about it. It was on super discount because bed bath and beyond was going out of business, but still super expensive. And I’ve never had any problem cleaning it, in fact it’s the easiest dish we own to clean, the grease just wipes out and the tray is removable.
Oh my gosh, I never thought of that!
I bought an air fryer, but honestly, I never use it because I hate cleaning the basket. I didn’t even think about the top!
Adding this one to my list. Definitely nothing good about blasting your food with old oils.
Mine is one of my most non-stick surfaces and usually wipes clean with a paper towel
…. Now that I’ve been trying to move away from teflon
It also won’t surprise me too much if there’s some health hazard with them other than just the buildup of grease.
It’s an electric heating element and a fan, same as a convection oven except it exhausts rather than recirculates the air. Any issues beyond the grease buildup you mention would apply to any electric oven or toaster.
Yes but with an oven you can get in there and clean it. The grate at the top of the air fryer is built in away, where you can’t really clean it.
I have a toaster oven / convection oven / air fryer combo and it doesn’t suffer from this issue.
Mainly, what I was trying to point out is aside from the grease issue that was pointed out, there’s nothing special about air fryers. Any issue aside from grease buildup would also affect convection ovens, which have existed for a long time with no ill effects noted. It’s just an electric heating element and a fan, they’re not doing anything that special. I don’t think they’re going to be found to be dangerous in the future.
I too have watched Technology Connection’s video on the topic. :P
Not really “secretly” bad for you, but all the plastic in our lives. I wonder how we’ll ever replace it cause everything you buy at the supermarket (in developed countries) is wrapped in plastic.
Everything you touch and use involves plastics and petrochemicals. Even stuff you wouldn’t think of like the coatings that allow street signs to reflect better and have massively improved safety. Lightbulbs? No more efficiency for you, most LEDs are on a plastic substrate. We will never get away from plastic, not at this point. You could make it so that food isn’t wrapped in plastic and that wouldn’t make a dent in our plastic use.
You could make it so that food isn’t wrapped in plastic and that wouldn’t make a dent in our plastic use.
Sure, but it might curb how much plastic ends up in our bodies. I have to assume that food wrapped in plastic has a greater impact in that regard than LEDs.
wrapped in plastic
I agree. I think it’s worse than we already know.
The internet and all electronic equipment. I think they are doing something much more sinister than whatever is reported so far.
Using it no… the trash yes. The amount of materials (toxic and rare) which goes to the bin is staggering.
All of these Omega-3 and so-called healthy foods that have markup prices.
Like, an organic banana vs a original banana. What the fuck am I missing out on here?
Like, an organic banana vs a original banana. What the fuck am I missing out on here?
Mostly I’ve noticed the organic ones have more flavour. If there’s nutritional differences, I’d mostly expect it to just be more of the same nutrients in the organic version.
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Our phones are probably doing something to us
I read somewhere that the existence of the internet massively stifles our ability to reason. For every question I have, spending a few minutes to ponder what the most plausible answer is provides a small workout for my brain. If everything I’m curious about is answered within seconds, I don’t get those mental workouts.
I think that comes down to your desire to learn. One person might just repeat a google answer but another person might spend some time thinking about why it’s the right answer.
Google is how people get degrees after all, it’s the modern day version of hunting down books in libraries
I think there are many questions where it’s very easy to convince yourself the solution is obvious after you’ve been shown it, but it’s less obvious for someone who is taking the time to try to figure it out on their own.
I teach college math courses (usually around calculus-level), and for every exam I give I will write a practice exam to post online a week before, and I’ll devote the lecture prior to the exam to reviewing those problems. I try to make every problem that appears on the exam very similar to one that was on the practice. The students who attempt the problems before the review session, even the students who get incorrect solutions in the process, will bulldoze their exams and will say it was essentially identical to the practice, while the students who just watch me give the solutions and copy down what I’m writing will tell me the practice was easy but this was barely similar at all.
When you see an obvious solution immediately, you completely bypass seeing potential stumbling blocks which might have tripped you up.
I get what you’re saying about how people establish stronger pathways when they discover something on their own rather than copying something down but at the same time, that’s how education works. You have something explained to you simply first, whether that’s by human instruction like a prof or written instruction/visual demonstration like doing your own research on google. Of course there are low quality/high quality internet sources just like there are low quality/high quality professors and that goes back to how much of a desire the student has to learn, whether they just want to copy and paste answers or actually understand why it is that answer.
As a math teacher I’m sure you can agree that high level academics depends on having a understanding of the fundamentals. If I don’t understand algebra or polynomials then It’s going to take me a while to get a hang of derivatives or calculus and that doesn’t mean I’m stupid or lazy, I just haven’t devoted my life to that specific field because I have 9 other courses to study at the same time. Graduation numbers would be insanely low if we expected kids to figure everything out on their own without access to previous knowledge like the internet. Having the world’s library at your fingertips gives you the ability to copy and paste but also the ability to be an autodidact, it really depends on that specific person’s desire and goals.
I had a lot of foreign students as TA’s for my calc courses, I know it’s not their fault but it was really difficult for a lot of us to understand their accents and we didn’t want to be rude by asking them to repeat themselves all the time. If I didn’t learn google-fu for explanations on concepts I would have failed those classes easily.
I was trying to use an example from personal experience to illustrate the benefit, but my point is that immediate answers wasn’t an option not too long ago, so curiosities you actually did want answered would necessarily have that delay. Being able to learn things well in spite of this shift is becoming a skill not everyone has. It’s something that needs to be nurtured, and it’s now easy to neglect, which really can affect everyone, although obviously some attitudes and lifestyles will be hit harder than others.
Something of a tangent but honestly I hate the way academia works here in general and I resent my role in contributing to math being used as a barrier to a better life. Unfortunately, I do need a career of some sort and there are worse things I could be doing. So I play by the rules well enough to keep my job and just try to do my best to be understanding.
I didn’t even enjoy math myself until I took an analysis course because I thought a math minor would help with job prospects. I always had an easy time with math and when I took analysis I got a D the first time and barely scraped by with a C the second. Math is actually interesting when you feel there’s creativity required in problem-solving, but it’s not reasonable to demand that in a lower-level math course because it doesn’t mesh well with a course existing primarily as a roadblock for students.
A hardworking student might still struggle to develop that creativity quickly enough to get through the course unscathed, which is fine if you’re enrolled because you just want to learn, but not fine for students trying to get good grades or at least pass everything to get through as quickly as possible. A student might have the crazy idea that failing is a financial hit or something. The result is you’re simply put through a grind until you voluntarily take on a course beyond the calculus sequence.
What I’m getting at is that I think your complaints all stem from the fact that, in spite of what we’re all forced to pretend, education is not the main purpose of academia.
We know that depending on your use it can ruin your attention span. But I agree, it’s probably worse than we know.
Beer
That’s been around for at least a couple millennia, though; you’d think we’d know by now, right?
I mean frequent consumption is pretty well documented to be bad for your liver, and they don’t call it a beer belly for nothing. Like any kind of indulgence, moderation is key
Also worth noting beer historically was very very light on alcohol, so it was effectively a method of making water safe to drink rather than about having fun getting drunk
Toothbrush. In one hand it scrubs food and gunk away and helps distribute fluoride toothpaste around. On the other it’s made of tiny plastic bristles that are probably disintegrating when in your mouth and growing a fun ecosystem when out of it.
the number of things growing on your toothbrush is definitely non zero but being frequently scrubbed in sodium fluoride probably inhibits a good portion of it\
related though, electronic toothbrushes are way, way better in terms of tooth care, and my understanding the last time I read through marketing bullshit a few years ago was that the rotational/mechanical ones were better than the ones that just vibrate i.e. Oral B vs Sonicare, but the fucking Oral B toothbrush heads have fucking exposed bits of the mechanism, like, there’s these holes in it, so like, guess what? mold grows in there
I don’t understand how that isn’t like, you know, a massive design flaw that should be changed immediately, but I guess they want people to swap toothbrushes more often than mold would grow, idk
A bit of advice from some dental organizations and my family member who is a dentist, you really shouldn’t use the same toothbrush twice a day. The toothbrush should be left to completely dry out before reusing and that takes longer than 16 hours in most climates.
In theory, your toothbrush is getting a clean twice a day. Its already covered in nice sudsy toothpaste foam and you’ll (hopefully) be rubbing and rinsing that off.
The plastic disintegrating in your mouth however, yeah, I can’t dispute that!
This is a clever answer and now I completely agree with you.
I bought a uv tooth brush sterilizer. Not sure if it’s doing anything useful but it’s a colourful addition to the bathroom.
UV is good at breaking down plastics ….
Ever since I heard of microplastic, this has been on my mind quite a bit. Although it might not be “ingested” if they are micro enough, it can probably still get absorbed every time you brush. Multiple that by every day of your life and, boom, now there’s plastic in my balls and I’m 3D printing on my girl’s face.
Swirl necklace
boom, now there’s plastic in my balls and I’m 3D printing on my girl’s face.
I’m stealing it
This is probably why dentists recommend replacing them frequently.
Commercial yogurt. Yeah maybe it’s just a tasty and healthy probiotic. Or maybe it’s a way for food conglomerates to change our gut bacteria so that we crave even more foods with cheap sugar.
Flavored soda water.
I wouldn’t expect shaving cream to do it; goo and foam and pretty normal
Bottled water. The plastic contaminates the fluid. Just drink straight from the sink if you live in an area that allows for it!
I bet you’re right. If you leave a plastic bottle in the sun, the water tastes god-awful.
It doesn’t even have to change temperature, it is enough that the water remains in the bottle for few days for plastic to start “decomposing” (probably not the correct word for it). And by the time you buy the bottle, it has been long since it was filled in the first place.
Oh, and the expiration date on the water bottles? Obviously it’s not the water getting stale. It’s for the plastic.
Tap water in super contaminated with PFAS in most areas, pick your poison
(Or get a reverse osmosis filter)
I switched over to have water delivered to my home in glass bottles (fortunately multi-use glass bottles are still a thing here in Germany). It tastes so much better than the same brand from PET bottles.
(Why don’t I drink tap water? Because I want my water sparkling with CO2 bubbles, and I don’t like the simple carbonaton appliance)
Plastic food containers. I mean, we already know it’s pretty bad, but I would not be surprised if it ends up being way worse than we think. That, and most aerosols. Febreze, hairspray, spray tans, things of that nature
I stopped microwaving plastic containers like 15-20 years ago. Hopefully that’s enough.
Yep, I never could get past the taste of plastic in my food.
Only microwave in glass and ceramic!
Febreze is air pressure driven.
I think you’re confusing volatile organic compounds like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and HFCFs with general aerosols. CFCs destroy the ozone layer, and are banned worldwide.
Aerosola are just droplets in a gas. Clouds are aerosols. They’re perfectly safe to use in general, assuming the droplets and the gas are safe.
I get where they’re coming from! I was a kid when the aerosols were burning a hole in the ozone layer, and it taught me to distrust anything that can come out of a can too quickly.
Clean air act banned cfcs, not aerosols. Aerosols are just pressurized gases.
Well aerosols are tiny particles, but often created and propelled using pressurized glasses.
I just saw an article the other day that black plastic utensils are toxic. I’m right there with you.
A couple places near me still use styrofoam. I can’t get past it.
Because of those articles, I just got rid of my black plastic utensils, but I’ve been using them over a decade so if they were contaminated, it’s probably too late
It also mostly applies to new plastics which are made from recycled plastics. If you have an ancient one, it’s probably not made from recycled plastic and could be totally fine.
Those water flavor squirts, mio or crystal light type stuff. I’ll drink plain water over just about everything else (egg nog is the weakness and exception right now…), but the various lemonades or fruit flavors are always nice to have around. I wouldn’t be surprised if something in their composition is not good for you.
A slightly more titillating answer would be lube. You’re putting something on a mucous membrane, and it’s almost guaranteed that some will be absorbed or ingested.
The latter reason is why I use Yes WB which is an organic lube pH balanced for the… Mucous membrane.
I think if they find that these are a problem, any flavored drink will be found bad too. It’s the same thing, just concentrated or not concentrated.
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That’s why I use a mini split ductless unit. A lot easier to clean.
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Warfarin blood thinners.
Wouldn’t be surprised if we find later that after decades of use that someone’s body can gain resistance to it. I’d be fucked since I’m on the blood thinner train for life*.
*or until we can start printing human cells to recreate human parts
