
'I wash all my food like crazy': scientists voice concern about nanoparticles - pseudolus
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/29/i-wash-all-my-food-like-crazy-researchers-voice-concern-about-nanoparticles
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ajross
Sigh... it's one of those articles. Headline claims "scientists" do this, but
the quote in the article is:

> _" As a consumer, I wash all my foods like crazy,” says Christine Ogilvie
> Hendren, executive director of the Center for the Environmental Implications
> of NanoTechnology at Duke University_

So... she's an advocate against this stuff pushing an agenda that it shouldn't
be there, not a scientist talking about a finding.

That said: there's no particular reason for TiO2 powder to be in food. It's an
inert white pigment, and does nothing but make the processed food (which we
_already_ know is bad for you absent any colorings added) more attractive.

But come on folks: this story is sensationalist nonsense. Actual science on
this stuff seems broadly unconclusive, and this particular pigment is in
_very_ wide deployment across basically the whole world. Any measurable
effects are going to be very low significance.

~~~
sterkekoffie
She's a scientist with an extensive body of publications in this domain; same
with Christine Payne and Sowmya Purushothaman, the other two "scientists
voicing concern." I agree that the article would have benefited from more
diversity of perspective but it's unfair to characterize these contributors as
"advocates pushing their agenda," and it's both inaccurate and disrespectful
to use scare quotes when calling them scientists and to imply (if that was
your intention) that they do not participate in "real" science.

As well, it isn't clear to me why one would read the title "Scientists voice
concern about nanoparticles" and expect to read about about a particular
research result rather than a survey of the current state of understanding.

~~~
ajross
> She's a scientist with an extensive body of publications in this domain

In the context of that quote, as made explicit by attribution, she's an
_activist_ pushing a policy choice. That's not an indictment of her expertise,
but it needs to be called out. She doesn't get to both advocate for a position
in the text _and_ stand in for "scientists"[1] in an appeal to authority
argument in the headline.

[1] These are, obviously, not "scare quotes"[2]. The word literally appears in
the headline and I'm discussing the fact that it does!

[2] Those aren't either. You wrote the words and I'm repeating them with the
quotes to indicate that I'm discussing the phrases used in your "argument"[3]

[3] Those are.

~~~
sterkekoffie
It would seem, by your logic, that it is actually impossible for scientists to
voice concern about anything, because once they do so, they can no longer be
called scientists, only advocates. If that's the case, then I simply disagree
with your logic. If it isn't, and you see some egregious bias-having somewhere
in the scientists' statements or qualifications, feel free to point it out. If
you can do so without the overt hostility, even better.

~~~
ajross
You're still misunderstanding. It's not a criticism of the people quoted, it's
a criticism of the journalism that presented the ideas as consensus worries
when they're actually pretty niche concerns without a lot of good basis.

You can advocate for anything you want, and we can post a link to a screed by
the hilariously named "Center for the Environmental Implications of
NanoTechnology"[1] and we can discuss that here if you like.

But for the Guardian to do that is just editorializing.

[1] Still not scare quotes

~~~
sterkekoffie
Perhaps I need to be more clear myself. I do not think that you're criticizing
the contributors, but I also do not think that you're criticizing the article.
I think you're (inadvertently) criticizing an entire vein of science writing
where the director of a Duke research lab can say there is room for concern
and not get written off as an agenda-pusher in the comments.

------
spodek
One of the best things I've done is to challenge myself to buy no packaged
food for a week. I made it 2.5 weeks and have reduced my food packaging by
about 95% since, about 4 years ago.

I thought it would be hard at first and it was. Then everything changed.

I had no idea eating almost exclusively from CSAs, farmers markets, and bulk
would

\- save money

\- save time

\- increase diversity

\- create community

and most of all

\- taste more delicious.

I'm never going back to mostly packaged food. I wish I could convey what
Trader Joes, etc look like now compared to fresh from the farm. Something like
a Surgeon General promoting cigarette brands, which used to seem normal.

~~~
Johnny555
_\- save time_

Does it though? A stack of packaged meals in the freezer that take 2 minutes
to heat up and leave only a single utensil behind to wash seems like it would
be much faster than preparing any kind of meal from fresh ingredients. And the
shopping is faster too, no need to inspect each piece for quality, once you
know your favorites, you just load them up in your cart and go.

~~~
orev
But then you’re eating... packaged frozen meals. Most of those are full of
salt and preservatives, taste terrible, and are just generally bad. Maybe you
have found a magical source of fresh, healthy, good tasting frozen meals, but
that absolutely does not exist in most of the US.

I think it can be assumed that discussions about wholesome food excludes fast
food by default.

~~~
kthejoker2
No, the discussion is about food, not wholesome food. And the argument is
around saving time not nutritional value.

~~~
orev
No. The OP posted a list of items, all of which need to be taken as a whole
for a complete argument. The CP cherry picked one item to skew the discussion
to their argument.

If we’re talking only about speed, then why not always eat McDonalds? Or
Soylent? Clearly it’s because there are other facets of the point being made
other than speed alone.

~~~
RealityVoid
Of course, but then touting speed as one of the advantages is a lie. Even if
fresh food is overall better, in the particular aspect of speed, it's worse.

That is not cherry picking, it's attacking one of the arguments that rings
false.

------
umadon
Nice, I can wash the titanium oxide down with my SSRI-microplastic tap water
while swimming in the local antibiotic river.

~~~
spraak
And use some microplastic body wash to clean off in the river

------
mc32
I think there can be good and bad Nanoparticles. TiO2 is for looks. But I
don’t see an issue with finely ground green tea or table salt.

We should strive to not pollute the term Nano particle because there are good
and bad uses and if only bad gets associated with it, it can end up like GMOs
where people fear them for no reason —while we can sanction GMOs like roundup
crops due to their negative externalities, not all GMOs exhibit bad aspects.

~~~
568853578
I don't think your risk assessment is sound. The whole reasoning nanoX is
used, is because it has different properties than X. Green tea might be fine,
but nano green tea might pass some barrier it wouldn't otherwise. Maybe
resulting in an immune reaction against a compound that wouldn't end up in
it's reach after usual consumption.

------
neotokio
When it comes to titanium it is not that bad. Human body is (most likley) able
to deal with titanium (contrary to mercury). However, nanoparticles in itself
are problematic because of how they interact with body cells. Good is,
possible, better drug delivery (think about possibility of crossing blood-
brain barrier), bad is, potential unaccounted effects where body does not
recognize nanoparticle as something 'alien', which can create a problems
beyond even todays studies.

Case being, why add complexity? There is probably some use for advance
technology in certain areas of live, i would gladly take ANY kind of treatment
if i would be diagnosed with terminal disease. But why widen your exposure
(civilization-wise) for unknowns only at the benefit of pure market profits?

“In more than 50 years of use as a colourant, no verifiable link has ever been
shown between general intake of titanium dioxide and ill health in humans,”

That statement in itself is so vague. It's like saying that coal burning has
very limited effect on human health because we do it for 150yrs and people are
still live. Titanium is not necessary body mineral, therefore counting on
'lucky strike' that it will be assimilated positively is miss-or-hit attitude.

Simplicity over complexity, always.

------
Theodores
Titanium dioxide is a common tattoo ink and a fair amount of research has gone
into studying where that ends up if it does not stay in the skin.

The tattoo removal process allegedly does not work with white ink (titanium
dioxide) as it does not get zapped by a laser to break down in the way other
compounds do.

Generally the body moves these foreign things only if they get to the
nanoparticle size out to the liver, so a lot of this article sounds rather
similar to what goes on with the tattoo process.

A hastily Googled article:

[https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/tattoo-ink-
pa...](https://www.nhs.uk/news/lifestyle-and-exercise/tattoo-ink-particles-
can-spread-lymph-nodes/)

Titanium dioxide is rather harmless compared to other tattoo ink colours, it
has nothing compared to the cobalts, cadmiums and other 'salts' that make up
other colours, and, despite advances in organic chemistry, you still need
these heavy metals to make bright colours. We have moved on from lead but not
much.

Getting back to the main article, there is good and bad in nano-particles. For
instance, regular salt is now at the nano-particle size in 'beige' foods. This
is how 'low salt' was achieved, the receptors on the tongue just need to get
satisfied. So, imagine your 'freedom fries' with exceedingly fine salt on
them, your tongue does not realise these are small particles rather than
table-salt style crystals. If you are going to have salt for taste then you
might as well have a small amount of the small particles - that are water
soluble - rather than the bigger crystals - that are also water soluble. Your
sodium intake is lower but there is no taste hardship involved.

For this reason I would take a lot of the article with a pinch of salt and
move away from living beside a main road, nowadays cars emit far more nano-
particles than they used to and your lungs can't stop them getting into the
bloodstream. Visible smoke can at least be coughed up rather than just
absorbed by your lymph nodes.

------
bigmit37
Wow, this is certainly enlightening. I wonder how I can get food that isn’t
filled with Nanoparticles.

~~~
coldpie
Stick to the standard diet advice[1], ignore articles like these, and get on
with your life.

[1] "Eat Food. Mostly plants. Not too much." Google it if you need more
context.

------
peterwwillis
You should wash your produce like crazy because it's the biggest source of
foodbourne illness. And depending on where your food is from and the type of
food, we know that various parts of it often have dangerously high levels of
toxins and carcinogens, yet is still sold in your grocery store with no
warnings. So if you're going to be concerned about food safety, I'd focus on
the known dangers first, then worry about the unknowns.

------
harrumph
[https://pastrychefonline.com/take-a-cue-from-little-
debbie/](https://pastrychefonline.com/take-a-cue-from-little-debbie/)

I'm not sure what washing a Little Debbie snack cake will accomplish, outside
of preventing its ingestion, which, now that I think about it, is an excellent
outcome!

------
flyinghamster
Regardless of nanoparticles (and I'm not one to consider TiO2 to be harmful),
there are better reasons to wash your food: microbial, pesticide, and
herbicide contamination. I'd say that concerns about titanium dioxide are
very, very far down the list of things I'd worry about.

------
SubiculumCode
There are soo many concerns out there...it is really hard to deal with it as a
consumer.

All these nano technologies for food-related products might slightly help the
bottom line...(slight flavor increase, slight improvement in shelf
life..etc...) of some companies, but I am not sure those small gains are worth
the risk to public health...and to mental health. The gains just don't seem
important enough. We already are good enough at food preservation and
production.

~~~
username444
It depends on the food - some with already long shelf lives would be fine, but
other foods simply aren't meant to be around for long.

But the public health isn't the concern of the food companies. It's putting
out products that are shelf stable long enough to be sold. Period.

Unless you see "Free of X", assume the company is using it (where applicable).

~~~
gowld
There are a near infinite number of molecules. Free of X says nothing about a
nearly identical X’.

------
otakucode
Concern about nanoparticles sounds about as vague as you could possibly get.
Me, I'm concerned about macroparticles. Especially the ones that race around
at 60MPH. So dangerous.

