Explanation: The Romans used lead-lined cookware not in ignorance of its dangers, but wholly cognizant of them - the Romans recognized lead poisoning from various sources, and regarded lead as 'unwholesome' to human health.
They used lead widely in many applications that they could be forgiven for thinking were not dangerous - they understood how to prevent lead leaching in pipes, and used lead in writing tablets. Less forgivably, in cosmetics. But most dangerous of all was the use of lead pots in making 'defrutum' - sweet wine
jellysyrup, which wealthy Romans loved to put on everything. The thing is, the process uses lead specifically because other materials won't do - copper and iron leave an aftertaste, while lead vessels actually make it sweeter, as leaditselfacetate is slightly sweet.What's a little harmless poison in your condiments, after all?
The explanation is practically perfect, so focusing on two small tidbits:
Defrutum is not a jelly, it's more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I'm almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
(It's also easy to prepare at home. And as long as you do it in a normal cooking pot it's completely safe. Great to use over vanilla ice cream.)
Lead itself isn't sweet; lead acetate is. There's a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
I've seen it referred to by various terms and I'm not culinarily educated enough to tell the difference between any of the words. Syrup, jelly, must; it's all Greek to me! I'll fix it in my explanation though!
It was available to a wide range of people, but it was a frequent visitor primarily to the tables of the wealthy.
Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
I'll correct that too.
Details and extra information like this are why I come to these topics.
TIL Romans knew leads are bad ...
Yep!
"Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome."
- the Roman engineer Vitruvius, in De Architectura, written between 30 BCE-20 BCE
They were also using asbestos and knew it was causing respiratory issues.
They had cloths made of asbestos that they were cleaning by throwing them in a fire. However they knew that slaves in asbestos mine were getting sick because of it
'Defrutum' is exactly what I would name an alcoholic fruit syrup if I was a drunk Roman.
I would have gone with “IV Loco”
We also put lead in gasoline knowing damn well it would come out the tail pipes and people on the streets would have to breathe it. Several decades of leaded gasoline passed until someone developed an alternative to fix engine knocks. If that had never been invented we would still be pumping lead into our streets today as a "cost of life" or more realistically, a cost of doing business.
Piston aircraft still use it. Which makes it doubly annoying when some tit in a cesna decides to circle around town at 1000'.
Not just making a noise, also cropdusting with TEL.Luckily that is beginning to change. But it is crazy that it has taken so long to do.
There seems to be two octane ratings that now have an unleaded replacement. (I don't know how many there actually are in use.)
Cars still offgas other heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel), and rhe wear from their tires also distributes heavy metals. Tractors do the same in our fields and have for decades. It's not good. Instead of developing drones for the military, we should develop them for our food supply first.
The industrial revolution and it's consequences
Thank you Clair Patterson!
Obligatory Veritasium link
We use Teflon-coated cookingwear even though we know it's poison.
Yes, yes, I know, technically it's not a problem if you don't scratch or over-heat it. But in my experience, 99% of non-stick pans get scratched and over-heated.Technically scratches should not be an issue, since teflon is very inert and will go through your systems without affecting anything. Over-heating it will make toxic without a question and I'll throw out any overheated cookingwear and just get new ones.
If you're paying attention it's not difficult to keep the temp below the temperature where teflon starts breaking down (260°C / 533 K): sunseed oil starts smoking at 230°C, butter below 200°C and heating oils to their smoke point is already something you should avoid if you care about your health.
Problem is how they make that shit. These factories have been dumping pfas into the environment for decades. And many factory workers got sick or infertile. That shit will give you cancer if have a lot of it in your bloodstream.
If it does get scratched you can use sandpaper to turn it into a normal pan.
Teflon isn't poison. The decomposition products are, but so long as you aren't a moron and don't leave your pan on the stove with nothing in it you'll be fine
Me using my scratched teflon pans.
That's every "non-stick" pan after 1-2 months of daily use.
All non-stick, "scratch resistant" pans are a marketing gimmick designed to have the average consumer-moron buy 30 pans in their lifetime, than simply learn how to season pans properly and hand 2 or 3 Iron/steel pans down their family lineage for generations, across hundreds of years.
Ceramic ones are a bit better but for the most part this is correct. There really isn't a clear reason not to cook with steel or iron, they tend to be the best options for 99.9% of applications. Only thing that I can think of is cooking eggs at a lower temp, but iron does that fine if the seasoning is really good.
My scanpan has been in use for at least 6 years unscratched
😏 be like me and use a cast iron skillet that weighs a ton, never is slick like you see on the internet, and is a removed (really Lemmy? Auto censor?? FFS) to clean
In all seriousness, I just made scrambled eggs on the ol' beast and they turned out decent. Far from non stick but it's non cancer at least.
You say this like we don't still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they're "safe for use" because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).
Would you be talking about plates, spoons and such, when saying, "kitchenware"?
Because I don't see something like a wok having a heavy metal being sealed behind something else, since the surface needs to be some metal anyway and I don't know of any transparent metals.On another note, I recently got gifted a melamine crockery set, by the company. And since this is a product that could easily be problematic if the manufacturing process were not perfect (and I don't see the company not cheaping out), I only use the stuff for keeping peels and other waste, before throwing it out.
Well you know. One is WAY worse. Like we still have not found that much proof of plastic being very bad
Someone correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly but I do remember seeing a article explaining how we have discovered that plastic has been making men infertile due to the male body collecting micro plastics in the balls to the point that if not stopped in time the plastic will start killing sperms and making the man sterile Edit I think I found the video that informed me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IoH41Qzv__0 Upon searching I've found a lot of the sources claiming that there is a correlation between plastic count and sperm count seems to be coming from India which is odd but yet again if you want to study people surrounded by garbage India is the place to get a large sample size but I've also found some sources saying that plastic is more specifically affecting hormone production https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXq1Sm95GlQ&pp=ygUYcGxhc3RpY3Mgc3RlcmlsaXppbmcgbWVu
Correlation is not causation. There is currently no definitive proof of anything. It sure as hell is not good for us. But I'll take the plastic over the lead poisoning every day.
I'm just saying one is acutely more dangerous.
Edit: while I have not watched the entire video, she even says the studies are incredibly small. You can not say shit if you test less than 20 people. These small studies' results may point to a larger study being interesting to do, but nothing else.
People downvoting this comment are just mad that you're right.
Lead is more dangerous to humans. Plastic is worse for the planet
That is indeed what I meant to say. Though if we want to talk about worse things we can just at both farming and climate change. THOSE are really really bad
micro-plastics in the brain
The article I read said Alzheimer patients had 10x the amount of plastics in the, compared to peoples ithput Alzheimers.
Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
In the study, researchers looked at 12 brain samples from people who had died with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. These brains contained up to 10 times more plastic by weight than healthy samples.
You cook with plastic pan?
Ever cooked microwave food in it's plastic packaging?
