• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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    4 months ago

    Explanation: The Romans used lead-lined cookware not in ignorance of its dangers, but wholly cognizant of them - the Romans recognized lead poisoning from various sources, and regarded lead as ‘unwholesome’ to human health.

    They used lead widely in many applications that they could be forgiven for thinking were not dangerous - they understood how to prevent lead leaching in pipes, and used lead in writing tablets. Less forgivably, in cosmetics. But most dangerous of all was the use of lead pots in making ‘defrutum’ - sweet wine jelly, which wealthy Romans loved to put on everything. The thing is, the process uses lead specifically because other materials won’t do - copper and iron leave an aftertaste, while lead vessels actually make it sweeter, as lead itself is slightly sweet.

    What’s a little harmless poison in your condiments, after all?

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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      4 months ago

      The explanation is practically perfect, so focusing on two small tidbits:

      Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.

      (It’s also easy to prepare at home. And as long as you do it in a normal cooking pot it’s completely safe. Great to use over vanilla ice cream.)

      Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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        4 months ago

        Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.

        I’ve seen it referred to by various terms and I’m not culinarily educated enough to tell the difference between any of the words. Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me! I’ll fix it in my explanation though!

        It was available to a wide range of people, but it was a frequent visitor primarily to the tables of the wealthy.

        Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.

        I’ll correct that too.

        • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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          4 months ago

          Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me!

          The main difference is texture: a jelly is firm and lumpy enough that you can hold it with the side of a knife and spread over something else (like a toast), but you’d have a really hard time pouring jelly over something by tilting the container. In the meantime a syrup is a thick liquid, so it’s runny and you can pour it over.

          Traditionally, the source of that difference in texture is a substance called pectin, found in plenty fruits. Grapes do have pectin, but once you squeezed them into juice most pectin went to waste with the pomace and skins, so even if you reduce the juice for defrutum it’ll be still a runny liquid.

          Must is simply grape juice, ready to be fermented into wine, although in Latin the word mustum also sometimes pops up for young wines. Additionally, in the context of Catholic masses it’s grape juice suitable for communion.

      • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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        4 months ago

        They were also using asbestos and knew it was causing respiratory issues.

        They had cloths made of asbestos that they were cleaning by throwing them in a fire. However they knew that slaves in asbestos mine were getting sick because of it

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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        4 months ago

        Yep!

        “Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome.”

        • the Roman engineer Vitruvius, in De Architectura, written between 30 BCE-20 BCE
        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          That’s honestly just kind of sad. Knowing the problem but ignoring it for the convenience afforded. Human nature at its finest.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            They didn’t live too long. Parasites in garum, parasites in water, epidemics, wars.

            The fact that harm from lead they even noticed is remarkable, considering how many other things there were to fear. A very subtle civilization.

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            In two thousand years,while we have grown immensely as a species, in some ways we really haven’t changed, making this meme painstakingly appropriate.

      • portuga@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah kinda brings some texture to the dish. Don’t see what the big deal is, specially if you sprinkle some lead and uranium 14, to counterbalance

          • Codex@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Probably thinking of radioactive Carbon-14. Uranium-238 and -235 are the most common isotopes of that element. Uranium-14 would be tricky, since the negative 86 protons (electons?) would make it highly unstable, and also a different element.

            Also you are correct that asbestos is dangerous when you breathe it in, but it’s banned widely because it’s brittle and very easy to get particles of it into the air through accidental damage.

    • MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      😏 be like me and use a cast iron skillet that weighs a ton, never is slick like you see on the internet, and is a removed (really Lemmy? Auto censor?? FFS) to clean

      In all seriousness, I just made scrambled eggs on the ol’ beast and they turned out decent. Far from non stick but it’s non cancer at least.

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
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            4 months ago

            I believe the ML there stands for Marxist Leninist (one of the flavors of communism)

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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            4 months ago

            Each ‘instance’ has slightly different rules that apply. Mostly it doesn’t affect users, as you can interact with other instances just fine.

            Lemmy.ml censors a number of common curses and is run by Uyghur genocide deniers.

              • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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                4 months ago

                Lemmy.world is currently the most popular large instance, Lemmy.today is another one. There are A LOT of instances to pick from if you’d rather connect to one closer to your region or attuned to your personal tastes, and they can all access posts from other instances so if you think an instance is run by people you can trust then feel free to make an account there.

                To add onto Pug Jesus’ explanation, each instance is a self-hosted server separate from all the others. That means they can potentially be removed or re-added to the fediverse at any moment, they all follow their own rules so the only fediverse-wide restrictions are that the instance isn’t so insufferable that every other instance blocks them or defederates from them.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              You know anyone can just go to Xinjiang, there’s no travel restrictions. Every Muslim country, including some of America’s puppets sent delegations which concluded that there was no genocide.

              A decade ago, they were telling us that millions of Uyghurs were being sent to death camps or forced sterilized or w/e. Today we’ve not seen any massive demographic change. To me that says I was lied to by western media the same way I was lied to about literally every other enemy of the US. Is there any kind of evidence or just time period passing that would make you reevaluate whether you’ve been lied to?

              • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                4 months ago

                Reporter: [REDACTED]
                Reason: Genocide denialism

                We do indeed deny this US psyop bullshit. The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and once those efforts failed, it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop.

                .

                We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

                Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

                The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

                Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

                Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

                Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.

                • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  4 months ago

                  Is this a joke? What country is providing materiel and political support for an actual genocide as we speak?

                  It’s strange how almost no predominantly-Muslim country has signed up for these supposed Uyghur human rights violations. It’s largely the imperial core countries that have. Is it because Muslims don’t value human life, or is it because it’s largely bullshit?
                  https://twitter.com/un_hrc/status/1578003299827171330

                  #HRC51 | Draft resolution A/HRC/51/L.6 on holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of #China, was REJECTED.

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        4 months ago

        Instances to avoid if you dislike censorship or state run propoganda:

        Lemmy ml

        Slrpnk net

        Hexbear

        Lemmygrad

        Beehaw (not state run, but very “family friendly” strictness)


        P.S. I’ve tested like 58 wizard swears over on 196 bahaj and they only censor Faggot, which is on brand.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That’s every “non-stick” pan after 1-2 months of daily use.

      All non-stick, “scratch resistant” pans are a marketing gimmick designed to have the average consumer-moron buy 30 pans in their lifetime, than simply learn how to season pans properly and hand 2 or 3 Iron/steel pans down their family lineage for generations, across hundreds of years.

      • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Ceramic ones are a bit better but for the most part this is correct. There really isn’t a clear reason not to cook with steel or iron, they tend to be the best options for 99.9% of applications. Only thing that I can think of is cooking eggs at a lower temp, but iron does that fine if the seasoning is really good.

  • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    We also put lead in gasoline knowing damn well it would come out the tail pipes and people on the streets would have to breathe it. Several decades of leaded gasoline passed until someone developed an alternative to fix engine knocks. If that had never been invented we would still be pumping lead into our streets today as a “cost of life” or more realistically, a cost of doing business.

  • kireotick@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Well you know. One is WAY worse. Like we still have not found that much proof of plastic being very bad

  • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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    4 months ago

    Also, a lot of nonstick pan coatings are incredibly shortlived and end up in your food if you continue to use a scrarched pan.

    • lobut@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      I bought a nonstick wok and my friends kept using steel wool and chipping it and I kept freaking out on them about it. I’m like STOP IT, I’d rather it be dirty than this!

      They used to make fun of me freaking out about it.

      I feel a bit vindicated with my freak outs now.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You should have thrown it away after the first chip. Anyone reading this, THROW AWAY your chipped Teflon!! Replace with cast iron

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        My family (parents etc) have mostly learned their lesson now after all the news coverage, but before that I used to resort to hiding my good non sticks whenever they were staying over. If my parents complained about the shitty old pans that were available, then I pulled out my very sticky nonstick ceramic pan that they had roughed up despite my protests. I’m never throwing that shitty ceramic pan away, it’s way too effective as a rhetorical ploy now.

        Friends I still mostly don’t trust since I don’t know their kitchen habits well enough, but they’re less likely to try to help with cooking anyhow, only with dish washing and there it’s easy to hide the wrong sponges.

        If your chipped nonstick is teflon, then it’s garbage now imo. I would never cook in it again, too risky imo.

        And I now realize that I’ve become paranoid in my own kitchen.

    • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I will never use Teflon again. Even using it correctly will kill a bird in the same room. Canary in a coal mine. I won’t touch the stuff. Stainless steel or cast iron.

        • shazeal115@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Watch Dark Waters, the only reason PFOAs got outted was because the DuPont themselves did the reaseasch that showed if was toxic, then Robert Bilott basically dedicated his life to uncovering their coverup. The company then basically for all intents and purposes renamed PFOA so they cant be sued for selling it anymore. The F is the important part. So basically now someone would need to do a huge amount of research out of their own pocket to prove that PFTE was safe… “trust me bro” - DuPont probably

          • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            PTFE fumes only happen if you leave the pan on the stove with nothing in it. Normal cooking activities don’t reach a high enough temp for it to decompose

            • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I’m just not going to risk it. That’s not a big enough margin of safety for me compared to something like cast iron.

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        My uncle’s parrot he had for a really long time died because he put up some kind of new shades for his living room that off gassed something deadly to birds.

        He knew about not using Teflon but not about window shades, or uv resistant plastic products off gassing being hazardous. He was devastated. Some of the shit sold to us is genuinely toxic. It’s really messed up when you think about it.

        • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yes, including in MDF, laminate, most finishes on wood, most plastics, most paints and perfumes. Cement and concrete. Tires. Car exhaust. And there’s a lot I’m missing.

  • fireweed@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    You say this like we don’t still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they’re “safe for use” because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).

      • fireweed@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Everyone makes fun of California’s prop 65 warnings, but this is exactly the situation they exist for: knowing which plate sets to avoid at Crate & Barrel.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Except the law was really poorly worded with no downside for false reporting. As a result literally everything has the label on it, up to and including a generic message at the front doors of the store telling you that going in the building will cause cancer and reproductive harm.

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          But it doesn’t work when every manufacturer puts those stickers on literally everything just in case.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Ok but can we make fun of the fact that they aren’t required to specify which material? Like let me decide if it carcinogenic enough

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The problem is it doesn’t have a minimum quantify before reporting is required, so 1 pay per trillion of any of 10,000 different substances triggers the warning, so there isn’t anything that doesn’t require the warning.

          The standard essentially requires an unachievable level purity along every step of the manufacturing and distribution process in order to NOT have the label.

          The result is over-labeling, which results in products that we should actually be concerned about sneaking into our homes because we ignore warning labels.

          • ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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            4 months ago

            Interesting.

            Wouldn’t it have been better to have the manufacturer state the amounts? That way, you just need to read the fine print. Like one does for food products.

    • ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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      4 months ago

      Would you be talking about plates, spoons and such, when saying, “kitchenware”?
      Because I don’t see something like a wok having a heavy metal being sealed behind something else, since the surface needs to be some metal anyway and I don’t know of any transparent metals.

      On another note, I recently got gifted a melamine crockery set, by the company. And since this is a product that could easily be problematic if the manufacturing process were not perfect (and I don’t see the company not cheaping out), I only use the stuff for keeping peels and other waste, before throwing it out.

      Anti Commercial-AI license

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    4 months ago

    We use Teflon-coated cookingwear even though we know it’s poison.
    Yes, yes, I know, technically it’s not a problem if you don’t scratch or over-heat it. But in my experience, 99% of non-stick pans get scratched and over-heated.

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Teflon isn’t poison. The decomposition products are, but so long as you aren’t a moron and don’t leave your pan on the stove with nothing in it you’ll be fine

    • datelmd5sum@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Technically scratches should not be an issue, since teflon is very inert and will go through your systems without affecting anything. Over-heating it will make toxic without a question and I’ll throw out any overheated cookingwear and just get new ones.

      If you’re paying attention it’s not difficult to keep the temp below the temperature where teflon starts breaking down (260°C / 533 K): sunseed oil starts smoking at 230°C, butter below 200°C and heating oils to their smoke point is already something you should avoid if you care about your health.