To be fair, if you live in a developed country, you have organizations like the FDA which "should" be vetting the "food" on store shelves as "safe".

Now whether or not they actually do a good job at that task is a different question.

It's unfortunate that you'd expect millions of people to individually "do research" (i.e. consult their crystal-stroking astrologist nutjob friend on Facebook). There is no reasonable way for individuals to make informed decisions regarding each individual item they may eat.

The Good Place has a great little clip about just the difficulty of buying a tomato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w

I don’t expect millions of people to do research, I expect people to look at the thing in front of them and think, “wait what is this made of? It looks like plastic, maybe I should be skeptical.”

However if the country is going to be based on lobbying efforts you better damn well be able to do a little research.

There is a reasonable way to make informed decisions. It starts with skepticism and not just shoving food into your face because it’s popular.

Why should the average consumer be concerned about plastic? Plastic food packaging has been the norm my whole life.

You're asking a consumer to do what a regulatory institution should do.

A regulatory institution that’s constantly politicized and lobbied for corporations to have profits maximized will do the right thing. You are asking to be treated like cattle at that point.

You're expecting cattle not to act like cattle.

We all are cattle to institutions. Maybe you're someone that fact-checks the FDA's science, but do you also fact-check the Dept of Ed's pedagogy, or the federal reserve's fiscal policy?

We need strong institutions that act in the interests of the average citizen. You're right that we don't have that now, but fixing broken institutions is more realistic than everyone becoming genius polymaths with infinite free time for research.

I’m just suggesting ways for people to help themselves. All this “but the government should do it for me” talk while ideal isn’t something that can be accomplished today. Furthermore a consumer reports subscription is very valuable to bridge the gap and they’re entirely donation based publication (and impressively thick with information). HN readers may be interested in this article on microplastics in General Mills products:

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the...

Good luck meeting that expectation with people doing their weekly grocwries.

Dreamy looks in the distance while difficult questions are being answered, precise estimations based on looks and tons of furious googling happening among the isles for each of the 113 items bought that day. And then realizing 109 of those are somehow interacting with plastics anyway, and there is nothing better in the shop.

People have too much on their plate to grind their lives to halt for 1 out of too many worries just for groceries.

Yes it’s tragic but that’s the world you’re asking for, people not to have to think because it’s hard. You’re validating that with some ridiculous scenario. Let’s simplify it: is the consumable touching plastic? It’s got plastic in or on it. Is it processed food? It’s got plastic in or on it.

If you want to take the approach where you buy a bunch of stuff and then sit down for hours auditing everything you spent money on, then that’s on you. Consider that if the issue is so extensive you can do the analysis piecemeal if paranoia of it all causes you to be exhausted.

Or don’t wait for reports like this and a politicized regulatory agency in the age of hysteria to make the decisions for you.

> I expect people to look at the thing in front of them and think, “wait what is this made of? It looks like plastic, maybe I should be skeptical.”

They’ve done that in this case, and have reasonably concluded that the tea bags are made of paper and are therefore safe. Fuck them for being wrong I guess?

If you buy tea from Starbucks in North America you're getting a nylon teabag. Maybe I should be more paranoid about microplastics but I avoid them because I can't just toss them in the compost like I can with paper- or silk-based ones.