Those darn chemicals: Difference between revisions

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...the above holds  
...the above holds for things that leave your system quickly.


Which is most things, but not all.


'''Bioaccumulation'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation] - chemicals building in an organism because it can't break it down or excrete it faster than it is ingested.




'''Biomagnification'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification] - Roughly: if not only you eat the thing, but lots of things ''you'' eat (plants or animals) also eats the thing, it goes faster. It's more of the food chain making things a little worse.
The two terms to know here are:


* '''Bioaccumulation'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation] - chemicals building in an organism because it can't break it down, or excrete it, faster than it is ingested.




* '''Biomagnification'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification] is the rest of the food chain making things a little worse:
consider that what you eat (plants or animal) also eat. If they eat the thing as well, and you ingest it directly ''and/or'' this other way, there are more ways in and buildup goes faster than you might think.


Things that cannot be broken down will do very little to leave. We will typically know this as "don't eat or touch, ever".




Things that ''can'' be broken down, or moved out, are only bioaccumulative only if we ingest it faster than we can break down or move out.


Your body will still have a harder time than if you never put them in you, but it is unlikely to be the thing you'll die of.
Things that cannot be broken down will do very little to leave.
 
We will typically know this as "don't eat or touch, ever".
Even if the harm per volume is tiny, we consider it poison, because even if a little ingestion is fine, we want to know not to do it in general.
 
 
Things that ''can'' be broken down, or moved out, can still be bioaccumulative, but only if we ingest it faster than we can break down or move out.
 
Your body will still have a harder time than if you never put them in you, but it is unlikely to be the thing you'll die of (the process taxing your body may still make it an indirect effect).




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:: ...they won't build up, so your levels should never be worse than what you eat in a short term
:: ...they won't build up, so your levels should never be worse than what you eat in a short term
:: whether that is still enough to be bad depends a little on regulations, farming conventions, and eating habits
:: whether that is still enough to be bad depends a little on regulations, farming conventions, and eating habits




Revision as of 17:06, 21 December 2023

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.

BIG RED TEXT HELLO: This is not health advice, or necessarily correct. Do not make health decisions based on just this. Do your own research, and not just the stuff that agrees with your opinions.



On toxicity

Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations

Toxin, poison, venom

More technically

More practically

...except: bioaccumulation

LD50

Things barely worth talking about

E numbers

E numbers just means it's tested.

It is mostly things commonly used as food additives - so that we can quantify how to use them safely.


They get short codes in the process, which is an easier shorthand to refer to the substance and the tests. This is often easier more precise and/or easier than a fancier pseudonym and/or more chemical name (things like INCI may help both ways (e.g. water is aqua) but at least tend to standardize the names used somewhat).

Such naming can also make regulation a lot easier to do, including the health testing.

While regulations apply regardless of what name you use, it can make it somewhat easier for you to recognize what's in there.



Some negative fearful snap judgment got all E numbers associated with unnatural and bad for you, because it's largely just "the set of things we tested", it mostly isn't.


A good number of them are in fact nutrition you absolutely need, or are perfectly healthy, and/or perfectly natural.

Consider:

E300 though E309 are vitamin C and E,
E101 is vitamin B2 used as coloring,
E160c is pepper extract, mostly used for coloring
E160a is carrot used for coloring,
E170 is calcium (basically),
E407 comes from seaweed,
E322 frequently comes from soy,
E948 is oxygen


Sure, there are also a few handfuls (out of hundreds) that I don't see having a place in my food, if I have any choice. And that was part of the point: the testing let us know we don't want it, the name lets us check more easily.


And a few that you'll probably never see - there's rarely any silver (E174) or gold (E175) in food but they're included for testing purposes, just so that you may know how safe they are when they are used in, say, cake decoration.



See also:


What's in a name?

The things you actually probably want to be there

Some things worth talking about

Pesticides

BPA

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.


Phtalates

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.

PFAS

PFOA

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.



Parabens

Reading off ingredient lists

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