ELI5: Why does it seem as if most every day use items have carcinogens or other chemicals that can harm or kill you?

Submitted by thedl894 t3_yfpfr1 in explainlikeimfive

I’m trying to avoid jumping down the rabbit hole but it seems like every other item in a grocery store has carcinogens. A lot of meats have them so I can’t even eat a sandwhich or a steak without thinking about it. Every car part I’ve ever received has the California cancer warning. Drinking a bottle of water send plastics into your blood stream messing up your horomones. Fluoride in toothpaste messes with your brain. Why is this? And how worrying are some of these?

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[deleted] t1_iu4jwxu wrote

[deleted]

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4laxg wrote

Thanks for the response, this stemmed from a recent recall on a product I daily used that they found carcenogens in. Which led me to just scraping the surface on other products I use and it was crazy to see how many other products have there own issues. Other than this recent recall I agree with what you said. I’m much more focused on just staying healthy and being mindful and nothing more.

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eloel- t1_iu4irh7 wrote

Because plastic is very, very popular and seeps into lots of things. Even outside of plastic, with anything that doesn't have proper regulations companies tend to ignore its effects on health because caring about it costs money.

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4m2tj wrote

I figured the FDA always stopped harmful items coming to the market but it seems as if they turn a blind eye quite often

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gollumaniac t1_iu4nmnv wrote

Sometimes we only find out much later that something we thought was OK is actually harmful. Also a key element is quantity. Something in the ppm range may not cause harm, while the same thing in the percent range could. Plus the FDA doesn't regulate everything.

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4oiuz wrote

That’s true, only a couple generations ago babies were sleeping in lead paint cribs

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eloel- t1_iu4mxqa wrote

Harmful is cheaper. Sometimes it just is a choice between "do we let this harmful thing feed everyone on the cheap, or do we let them starve"

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4ofao wrote

That’s fair. I never once ate ramen noodles and thought they were good for my organs

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ShalmaneserIII t1_iu4sdsk wrote

If you wanted an all-natural lifestyle, you'd have to live in a cave and kill your dinner with a club. Even then, the smoke from the cooking fire might get you.

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eloel- t1_iu4ukbi wrote

Why are the options "unhealthy" and "all natural"? What makes "all natural" inherently healthy, or man-made inherently unhealthy? As far as I can tell, half the things in nature would fuck up a human if we ate them, so I don't think the divide is where you think it is.

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ShalmaneserIII t1_iu4uzc8 wrote

Nobody bothers to count that. How long would it take before we noticed that carrots were as dangerous as cigarettes if they were?

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second_to_fun t1_iu4pfu7 wrote

OP lives in California moment.jpg

But seriously, it's mind boggling the dumb crap they'll force a prop 65 sticker on. A thing completely unrelated to food could be made in a machine that has had certain parts washed with benzene, and then boom. Every single thing that gets made by the machine needs a sticker.

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4r3ml wrote

Fortunately I do not lol. I always had a feeling those were excessive. The first set of brake pads I ever did had the label and I just assumed not to sit there and chew on them and carried on

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second_to_fun t1_iu4rp99 wrote

Actually the more that I think about it I might actually like Prop 65, because it dilutes the public perception of carcinogens!

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685327593 t1_iu4iu11 wrote

Because basically everything can kill you in a large enough dose. You really can't get too worked up about thus kind of thing, especially those idiotic California Prop 65 warnings that are literally everywhere these days.

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brewmoon t1_iu4k4ja wrote

Exactly. What no ones seems to understand is that it' the dose that makes the poison. Even water can kill if you drink too much of it.

The thing about the studies that are done, is that they give extremely large doses to the subjects which is very improbable that a human would consume that quantity.

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eloel- t1_iu4mavx wrote

>Even water can kill if you drink too much of it.

This is true! Arsenic's lethal dose is much, much lower than water's, but I guess they're both just poison at the right dose so they must be the same thing.

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thedl894 OP t1_iu4m96o wrote

I agree but I’d rather die from something more exciting than eating a turkey sandwhich everyday for lunch😂

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WarmMoistLeather t1_iu4ouxt wrote

Came to mention 65. It's maddening. There's a sign on the wall near my outside mailbox kiosk thing. "This area may contain..." Can you be more specific? Is there something I should be looking out for? Are you just telling me not to eat the plants or chew on the stucco? Whatever good intention there may have been has been obliterated by people putting these warnings on everything to cover their asses.

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ImAScientistToo t1_iu4si4r wrote

Another thing to realize is that when something increases your risk of getting cancer by let’s say 2% that’s not 2% of the general population. That’s a 2% more of the cancer population. The risk of cancer varies by age. If your under 20 years old the risk is about 25 out if 100,000. Or 0.025% chance. If your above 60 it’s about 1,000 in 100,000 or 1% chance. A 2% increase in the 60+ group is only 1.02 % chance of cancer in the general population.

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druppolo t1_iu53nhn wrote

It’s due to bad laws and information,

There is no set threshold or measure, all we get is “can” or “cannot” give cancer. And to be fair, bottle water can give you cancer.

The point missing in our information system and regulation system, is to give a measure to it. Like, bottle water causes cancer but it would take maybe 500 years on average to develop one. If you are still alive at 100+ years, I bet back pain is still a bigger issue than water cancer.

Whatever you cook until brown/black Is cancerous. But how much? If you eat overcooked steaks only, you will still die of other complications before colon cancer. You need to strike a good balance of bad food and good food to live long enough to care about colon cancer, then worse case it’s still less likely than a car crash.

So, ok, things can harm you, you should avoid them, but the information is a bit on the clickbait/boogeyman side. Which helps no one to make good decisions.

For comparison, something cancerous like asbestos, has a cancer rate of 10% of the people working sometimes with it, and almost 100% of the people working with asbestos the entire life AND being smokers. That’s pretty scary.

Cigarettes alone are not reaching a 30% cancer rate. In a lifetime.

Alcohol gives other life threats well before reaching cancer level.

Steaks? Way less a killer than air pollution.

You should worry about steaks a bit less than getting a flu or malaria. idk you, but I don’t wake up in the morning thinking “I’m gonna die if I get a flu”

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Monkee-D t1_iu4oru2 wrote

California passed a stupid law that requires any product to label it self as potentially cancer causing if it has carcinogens, no matter how miniscule of an amount may be present. Since it's too complicated and expensive to relabel only the stuff going to Cali, they just put the warning on everything no matter what state it goes too. The result it everyone now thinks everything will give them cancer.

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yondermeadow t1_iu4ox3t wrote

The bar for getting a new chemical into products is low. Basically it just has to not immediately and obviously kill you or cause a disease. There’s no mandatory testing for whether something might cause cancer after a few years of use.

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dennismike123 t1_iu5463z wrote

Well, this is supposedly a market based economy, so some problems develop when the cheapest way might not be the safest way for the consumer. Worry? Try to remember than human existence is just a temporary gig for consciousness.

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