What item you use frequently would you be least surprised to learn is secretly bad for you?
What item you use frequently would you be least surprised to learn is secretly bad for you?
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?
I work in hazardous materials handling and safety, and I studied chemistry. I've done a lot of soil remediation and I'm pretty up to date on how we (Europeans) handle the safety of our air, food and water.
So, good news: your air hasn't been cleaner since basically we started burning coal. Your drinking water hasn't been this safe since, oh, pre-agrarian times. Your food is probably less nutritious per gram thanks to faster growing food, but your diet is (potentially) better than any human has ever had (depending on your personal choices).
That said, there are some things I avoid like the plague:
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Swimming in open water. It's (potentially) full of parasites, toxic algae, human and cattle feces and chemical runoff. Probably not all at once, but still. YMMV if you don't live near the sea, mountain streams are much cleaner then those at the river delta.
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Home grown food from urban gardens. Your soil is probably completely untested, and the idea of "maybe I shouldn't just pour chemical waste out of the window" is barely 4 decades old. And that's counting the dubious quality of planter soil that is basically unregulated, and what people use as decoration. (Do NOT use wooden railroad ties or tires as planters for food). And of course what people use as pesticides isn't exactly closely monitored either.
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Drinking water from wells, springs etc. see all the above.
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Ordering anything with wish/aliexpress that comes in contact with food. You know that stuff is completely unregulated, why the hell would you lick it? Nobody knows what it's made of.
And there's one thing I don't avoid, but it's super unhealthy: wood fires. Yeah, a hearth or a campfire is awesome, but the smoke is super fucking bad for you. The carcinogens are stronger and last longer than in cigarettes, and its a hell of a lot more of them. I lie to myself and say it's worth it though, and that I don't do it every day, and other bad excuses.
Home grown food from urban gardens. Your soil is probably completely untested, and the idea of “maybe I shouldn’t just pour chemical waste out of the window” is barely 4 decades old.
And let's not forget that any soil near a road had a ton of lead released nearby throughout much of the last century, and that just stays there. As well as lead paint chips from buildings.
Wood fires are bad? Does this have to do with the wood? What about charcoal? No more bbqs then?
Charcoal isn't as bad as wood, it creates less smoke and the most complex chemicals are already gone. Gas is better, since it burns much cleaner, and electric obviously doesn't create any gasses at all.
On the other hand, grilling and smoking red meat means dripping fat, which means smoke, meaning you create a whole new set of PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), which you breathe in and get stuck to the meat and those are carcinogens. On top of that, red meat is already not too great for you. Eating burned food (charring) is also really unhealthy.
But assuming you don't spend every day breathing mostly bbq-smoke and gasses, I wouldn't worry about this too much. If your main diet is home grilled beef over self-made charcoal, you definitely need to reevaluate your lifestyle choices though.
There's cornfields next to airports where avgas still contains lead. The lead concentration in the soil around airports is very high. There's also fields next to old Air Force bases where they used firefighting foam that contains PFAS. They would run drills with the foam, so it was used fairly regularly.
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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.
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.
boom, now there's plastic in my balls and I'm 3D printing on my girl's face.
I’m stealing it
Swirl necklace
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 ….
This is probably why dentists recommend replacing them frequently.
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 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.
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.
Air conditioning. All kinds of bacteria, dust, mold, algae, who knows what else is going through the evaporator, through the air ducts and blasting right into your lungs. Yeah, there's a filter, but it's on the intake side. It doesn't account for what has built up in there over the years and it doesn't catch everything. The one in your car can be equally as gross.
you get Legionnaires' disease from air conditioners. It's called that because it was figured out after a bunch of people died from improperly maintained air conditioners at a hotel hosting a Legionnaires convention in the 70's!
That's why I use a mini split ductless unit. A lot easier to clean.
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.
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.
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.
I agree. I think it's worse than we already know.
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
Probably my asbestos fake snow.
But your snow is, at least, fireproof!
Not all snow can make that promise. Some is quite flammable.
I didn't even know such a thing existed!
It was pretty common, even after the dangers of asbestos were well-known. The most famous example is probably the Wizard of Oz, but it was used all over the place.
I'll stick to my anthrax lip balm.
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.
We know that depending on your use it can ruin your attention span. But I agree, it's probably worse than we know.
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.
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.
Methadone
Probably my vape tbh
I figure we may see documetaries in yhr next decade on how Vape industry was complicit like the tabacco industry was
There already are those documentaries? Jule or whatever it’s called has already been doing the exact same stuff that the tobacco industry did for literally a decade now.
A majority of vape brands are already owned by tobacco companies.
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.
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.
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
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.
Sugar
This is not really a secret. The sugar industry lobbied so hard to have sugar included in everything and well, we're seeing the damage.
That's not exactly secretly bad... It's just bad
Yeah, the natural state of humans is ketosis. Glucose stinks and we don't need it!
I think sugar by itself is not so bad. The fact it is in amost all types of prepared foods from the store is really bad. But I'm not a specialist.
Ooh, excellent one.
The electric heating pad I sleep on. I wouldn't be surprised if some study finds that something about sleeping on wires would be kinda bad long-term. Maybe something about residual currents or the minimal magnetic field from the wires, idk
I haven't been able to use one of these since I used a crummy one about 12 years ago and got burned, but it was so insanely nice to be so toasty.
I’ve read articles with such claims, but not really reputable sources.
However I like the idea of the timer ones where in theory you could have the bed preheated for you, but never be in it when it’s on.
Most heated blankets have such a feature
Huel. I'm just waiting for some
random internet persondoctor to tell me how exactly I'm making my already shaky health significantly worse because I'm toolazytired for anything more than powder in water.Also, the decades-old radiator in my flat is probably just spewing all sorts of hazardous particles and nobody will know until they do an autopsy on me.
Most radiators are just a big metal thing which a hot liquid slowly flows through to radiate the heat into the space. Kinda hard for that to be bad for you unless you burn yourself
I used to do Huel pretty regularly because one of my medicines makes me not want food and shakes are tolerable. But they kept selling out of my favorite flavor!
Here's hoping it's not too toxic!
I'm so nervous I'm going to find out aquaphor is bad. I've been spreading it on my baby's diaper area since they were born. I know she's absorbing it right into her little body. There's been so many articles about how diapers and tampons and pads are all just awful for us and full of lead and who knows what else and we're putting them right against our mucus membranes and just poisoning ourselves.
If you want to try something else, Burt's bees has a healing ointment for babies that is shea butter based instead of petroleum. Never actually used it on a baby myself lol but it worked wonders for me on my scalp (I have curly biracial hair and I'm picky about what goes in it) and scaly winter hands!
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.
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)
Tap water in super contaminated with PFAS in most areas, pick your poison
(Or get a reverse osmosis filter)
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.
i don't notice a difference in bananas.
I was taught to buy organic if you eat the outside (apples, herbs) but not if you peel it (bananas, garlic).
Side by side the organic herbs and spinach seem way healthier at kroger but the garlic and bananas seem identical on the inside. taste the same to me but i'm getting old and that could be just me losing my sense of taste.
at new seasons the non organic produce looks as lush as the organic stuff at kroger.
Does it count if I already know whiskey is bad for me?
It absolutely counts, if you wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's worse for you than you know.
I wouldn't expect shaving cream to do it; goo and foam and pretty normal
Cosmetic products containing carbomer - it's literally microplastic acryllic and it's in EVERYTHING
UHT milk.
I've been mad about UHT milk ever since I discovered I can't make clotted cream with the ultra high temperature stuff. I don't want unpastuerized milk but ffs, let me have some texture I can work with!
You make clotted cream from milk? Doesn't that take like a week? Don't you usually start with some form of cream?
I mean, I made it once from double cream, but they don't sell that here in the Netherlands, and it's so not worth the time compared to just buying a jar of clotted cream.
More power to you though!
almond milk