Report Finds PFAS Chemicals In One-Third of Fast Food Packaging (cnn.com)

dryriver quotes CNN: Most of the time, when you order fast food, you know exactly what you're getting: an inexpensive meal that tastes great but is probably loaded with fat, cholesterol and sodium. But it turns out that the packaging your food comes in could also have a negative impact on your health, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The report found fluorinated chemicals in one-third of the fast food packaging researchers tested.

These chemicals are favored for their grease-repellent properties. Along with their use in the fast food industry, fluorinated chemicals -- sometimes called PFASs -- are used "to give water-repellant, stain-resistant, and non-stick properties to consumer products such as furniture, carpets, outdoor gear, clothing, cosmetics (and) cookware," according to a news release that accompanied the report. "The most studied of these substances (PFOSs and PFOAs) has been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, elevated cholesterol, decreased fertility, thyroid problems and changes in hormone functioning, as well as adverse developmental effects and decreased immune response in children."
The chemicals can migrate into your food, says one of the study's authors, who suggests removing it from the packaging as quickly as possible. (You might also request your french fries in a paper cup, which are free from "chemicals of concern".) But they also suggest pressuring fast food chains to remove the chemicals from their packaging, and the president of the Foodservice Packaging Institute acknowledges that after the study concluded in 2015, fluorochemical-free packaging was introduced.

Comments

And?

[ledow]

What's inside the plastic wrapping is going to kill you quicker than whatever the wrapping is made of.

Or, otherwise, we'd pretty much all be dead by now.

Sure, start phasing it out, like thousands of things before it, but it's not an end-of-the-world, evil-fast-food-chain, profiteering-bastards kind of story at all.

Hell, I remember when McDonald's burgers came in a polystyrene box. They changed that and it's now a card-thing with shiny outside. I'm sure those things were always marked as "food-safe" or they'd have been in court a million times by now because of it.

But our idea of food-safe changes as knowledge increases. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up going back to polystyrene boxes at some point, we're bound to find out that something older and abandoned actually wasn't all that bad or we can now make it without it being bad.

But the tone of the summary/story is quite heavily in the "OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE" section. When actually the story is more like "Huh, there's a tiny chance this could very slightly statistically be worse for you that paper. Oh well, let's change that, but it's not worth panicking and trying to do that overnight. Let's just phase it out for something slightly better."

Hell, they banned fish and chip shops in the UK from using newspaper for wrapping the food in, which they always did in my father's day, because of the ink in the paper being not ideal to wrap a greasy load of fried fish and potato into. But try and point to someone who died or was taken ill as a result and you'd be hard pressed to come up with anything at all.

And then, ironically, they all started using polystyrene and plastics, which we're now telling them are bad for the environment and they should go back to paper, and recycled paper at that...

Re:What are the known risks

[Anonymous Coward]

EHP Article
tl;dr
health data was collected from community residents in 2005 and 2006 and from a follow-up medical survey of these participants between 2008 and 2011. They also included data from 4,391 DuPont workers. For each worker and resident, the authors estimated lifetime cumulative PFOA serum levels based on factors including drinking water source, tap water consumption, and any employment at the DuPont plant.
Of 32,507 individuals in the current study, 2,507 had primary cancers of 21 different types that were validated using medical records and cancer registries. The incidence of both testicular and kidney cancers increased with higher estimated PFOA serum levels. Although the dose–response trend was not statistically significant for kidney cancer, the association is supported by two other studies by the C8 Science Panel: a geographical study of cancer in the mid-Ohio Valley and a mortality study of DuPont workers.
Most notable study design limitation is that it is [largely] a survivor cohort
"The authors also found a positive association between estimated PFOA levels and thyroid cancer, but there was not a consistent dose–response trend, and the association was not statistically significant."
"small numbers of cases for some individual cancers, including testicular cancer, also may have led to imprecise estimates of association."
"Data from the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2000 showed that participants averaged PFOA blood concentrations of 5.2 ng/mL,4 whereas the cohort in the six counties exposed to contaminated drinking water near the DuPont Washington Works plant had concentrations averaging 32.9 ng/mL." SI-YMMV

Mid-Ohio Valley tl;dr
Results:
Participants (n = 32,254) reported 2,507 validated cancers (21 different cancer types). Estimated cumulative serum PFOA concentrations were positively associated with kidney and testicular cancer [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.10; 95% CI: 0.98, 1.24 and HR = 1.34; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.79, respectively, for 1-unit increases in ln-transformed serum PFOA]. Categorical analyses also indicated positive trends with increasing exposures for both cancers: for kidney cancer HRs for increas
ing exposure quartiles were 1.0, 1.23, 1.48, and 1.58 (linear trend test p = 0.18) and for testicular cancer, HRs were 1.0, 1.04, 1.91, 3.17 (linear trend test p
= 0.04).
conclusions:
PFOA exposure was associated with kidney and testicular cancer in this population. Because this is largely a survivor cohort, findings must be interpreted with caution, especially for highly fatal cancers such as pancreatic and lung cancer.

Still with me?
Pyrolysis of PTFE is detectable at 200 C (392 F), and it evolves several fluorocarbon gases and a sublimate.
While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 C (500 F). The degradation by-products can be lethal to birds, and can cause flu-like symptoms in humans. See polymer fume fever.
Meat is usually fried between 204 and 232 C (399 and 450 F), and most oils start to smoke before a temperature of 260 C (500 F) is reached.

Re:Fast food

[PoopJuggler]

Meat isn't bad for you, in any way shape or form.

Except there's a strong link between red and smoked meats and increased chance of colorectal cancer.

Re:Fast food

[religionofpeas]

I've been vegan for 5 years (since high school) and I've never had a vitamin deficiency of any sort and I don't take any any B vitamin supplements whatsoever.

Your liver can store enough B12 to last years. The fact that you don't have a (noticeable) deficiency after 5 years doesn't mean you're not exhausting your supply.