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?

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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    16 days ago

    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:

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Drinking water from wells, springs etc. see all the above.

    • 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.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        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.

    • rational_lib@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      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.

  • will_a113@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    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.

    • LilDumpy@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      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.

    • AmericaDelendaEst [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      16 days ago

      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

      • vtctechadmin@vegantheoryclub.org
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        15 days ago

        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.

    • I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I bought a uv tooth brush sterilizer. Not sure if it’s doing anything useful but it’s a colourful addition to the bathroom.

    • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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      14 days ago

      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!

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    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

    • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      16 days ago

      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.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        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

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          15 days ago

          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.

      • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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        14 days ago

        Yep, I never could get past the taste of plastic in my food.

        Only microwave in glass and ceramic!

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        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.

      • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        16 days ago

        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.

        • sping@lemmy.sdf.org
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          16 days ago

          Well aerosols are tiny particles, but often created and propelled using pressurized glasses.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    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.

    • tyler@programming.dev
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      16 days ago

      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.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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        15 days ago

        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.

  • FindME@lemmy.myserv.one
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    16 days ago

    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.

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      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.

  • मुक्त@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    The internet and all electronic equipment. I think they are doing something much more sinister than whatever is reported so far.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
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      15 days ago

      Using it no… the trash yes. The amount of materials (toxic and rare) which goes to the bin is staggering.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    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.

    • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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      16 days ago

      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.

      • andrewta@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        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.

        • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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          16 days ago

          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.

    • tyler@programming.dev
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      16 days ago

      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.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    15 days ago

    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

  • ddplf@szmer.info
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    16 days ago

    Bottled water. The plastic contaminates the fluid. Just drink straight from the sink if you live in an area that allows for it!

      • ddplf@szmer.info
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        16 days ago

        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.

    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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      16 days ago

      Tap water in super contaminated with PFAS in most areas, pick your poison

      (Or get a reverse osmosis filter)

    • froh42@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      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)

  • Nemoder@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    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.

  • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    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.

    • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      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!