New research aimed at identifying foods that contain higher levels of PFAS found people who eat more white rice, coffee, eggs and seafood typically showed more of the toxic chemicals in their plasma and breast milk.

The study checked samples from 3,000 pregnant mothers, and is among the first research to suggest coffee and white rice may be contaminated at higher rates than other foods. It also identified an association between red meat consumption and levels of PFOS, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds.

“The results definitely point toward the need for environmental stewardship, and keeping PFAS out of the environment and food chain,” said Megan Romano, a Dartmouth researcher and lead author. “Now we’re in a situation where they’re everywhere and are going to stick around even if we do aggressive remediation.”

  • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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    24 hours ago

    PFAS-fouled sewage sludge, which is used as a cheap alternative to fertilizer

    People still do that, with all the hormones and heavy metals? Modern human is above wolfes and sharkes in the food chain.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
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    1 day ago

    PFAS-fouled sewage sludge, which is used as a cheap alternative to fertilizer

    Well, considering that toilet paper is full of PFAS to help it break down super easily, yeah, I’m not surprised.

    Either make TP without PFAS, which will make it jam up pipes more, or use a bidet.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Someone already mentioned this indirectly but I think this correlation is because all three items mentioned go on to be cooked in cookware coated in PTFE or mixed with spatulas and other utensils coated in PTFE.

    PTFE is indispensable for high tech uses such as well almost all processes where high temperature near water boiling point is required. 100 to 200C for example. Now, because of its original use as a food process coating, PTFE is about to be banned in a stupid way.

    I much rather have it banned from food use articles and allow it for use in niche technology. That would make the material more expensive and so less profitable to use in stupid uses where other materials are available.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    Despite all this terrible news about plastics, we still won’t go after the oil companies or plastic producers in the US to help put a stop to this.

    • Black616Angel@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      Yes, of course, I mean just stop… Eating fucking rice first!

      That is much better than those long and boring legal battles anyway. Who even eats rice or eggs or drinks coffee?

    • ThinkBeforeYouPost@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I agree with you, but PFAS/“Forever Chemicals” and micro/nano plastics are different things with their own host of concerns.

      • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        They go hand in hand with a lot of plastic packaging. Either way, it’d be nice to go after companies like DuPont, Bayer, 3M, and Honeywell as well as the oil companies that provide them the raw materials anyway.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        I actually did manage to sub out coffee for tea, and can now go a day without caffeine for the first time since college. It’s kind of an empowering feeling, that I would recommend.

  • huginn@feddit.it
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    3 days ago

    Coffee, eggs, white rice

    Selection bias much?

    If you don’t consume any of those 3 you’re probably ridiculously wealthy on some freaky diet.

    All this says to me is “The food of the masses is contaminated” which yeah - we already knew the rich pay a premium to get less contaminated food.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I went to Kazakhstan and people there don’t eat any of those things

      The traditional foodstuffs are flour and meat, with a lot of things made from milk

      • huginn@feddit.it
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        3 days ago

        Call me crazy but I don’t think traditional Kazakh diets were part of the study of 3000 pregnant mothers in New Hampshire.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Of course not, I’m just saying your don’t need to eat those foods to survive

          • huginn@feddit.it
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            2 days ago

            Nobody was saying that you must eat eggs to survive - the point is to show the flaws in the hypothesis of the study when related to the sample group.

            If you are sampling 3000 mothers in New Hampshire and looking for those who eat less poor people food and more rich people food you should expect to see a correlation that can be equally described by socioeconomic status as it can by diet.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Suggesting we all switch to a meat-heavy diet is the worst possible suggestion for us and for the planet.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Yes, back before there were eight billion people on this planet. Farming vastly more amounts of methane-spewing animals than we do now is an insanely bad idea.

                • Maeve@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 days ago

                  I’m wondering if factory farms were eliminated, how much the environmental damage would be reduced.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    3 days ago

    Assuming that research is accurate, and also given that those 3 things make up a huge portion of my diet, then I’m probably mostly made of PFAS these days.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Next up. Do you drink water? Turns out its all poison now!

      Soon:

      How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard-core Commie works.

      • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social
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        2 days ago

        I mean, based on the amount of bottled water people drink im pretty sure that could be a concern for most people. I don’t drink water bottled in plastic because I think it’s wasteful and contributes to the massive amount of plastic pollution already going on, but even if we consider that the recycling process is 100% efficient, those thin, flimsy bottles are still getting heated by and exposed to sunlight. It would be naive to think they aren’t leaching plastics into the water. Just buy a cheap metal bottle and refill from the tap. That’s where all the major brands get their water from anyway.

  • Veraxus@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Is that because of the food products themselves, or because of the non-stick coatings frequently used to package/cook/brew/prepare them?

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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      3 days ago

      Because of their ubiquitous usage and environmental persistence, humans are exposed to a variety of PFAS, primarily through ingestion of contaminated water and food, though PFAS have also been detected in air, indoor dust, and consumer products (Domingo and Nadal, 2017; Sunderland et al., 2019).

      While certain communities can be highly exposed to PFAS due to proximity to an industrial site or occupational exposure, PFAS exposure is ubiquitous among human populations, with 98 % of the U.S. population having detectable concentrations of PFAS in their blood (Calafat et al., 2007; National Center for Environmental Health Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, 2023).