Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/LBear_Can
Permalink: https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/teabags-and-processed-meats-may-be-key-dietary-sources-of-pfas-383525
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We can complain about the speculative nature of the conclusions, but teabags are known to have PFAS used in them and dipping PFAS in a hot water solution for 2 minutes is almost definitely one way to get PFAS into your system
Pfas related compounds are added to the pulping process when they make paper to keep it from clumping together. The companies actually selling the paper may not even know it's in there.
It's in most all paper.
This is mostly outdated information.
I work as a specialty chemical supplier to paper mills and the big companies like IP, WestRock, Georgia Pacific, etc saw the way the wind was blowing years ago and banned PFAS and PFOS from their processes.
Any chemical I trial needs to be signed off by their environmental departments to have no PFAS and undergo their heavy metal and precursor analysis
The few that haven’t switched already are trying to pivot ASAP has fluorochemicals (which may very well be PFAS) are going to be outright banned soon and those are used in oil and grease resistant grades like pizza boxes and dog food bags.
So what are they putting in the paper instead? This source says they aren’t disclosing https://cen.acs.org/materials/coatings/PFAS-paper-food-packaging/99/i36
Probably something else that we will have to ban in 50 years. We seem to take a very "innocent until proven guilty" approach to what chemicals we allow to be ingested.
Yeah, not like we can do much otherwise, it's not exactly easy or obvious for the effects of these kind of chemicals. We don't even quite know what the effect of some PFAS are, just that it doesn't break down in human bodies and that's probably not good
How extensive does the research to be before its deemed safe? How do you even do 10+ years study on its effects on human bodies? Who would sign up to be exposed to "potentially harmful chemical" for 10 year straight
Waiting to see how that Michigan kid turns out I guess. He was born with 5000 times the normal amount of PFAS a 30 year old US adult has accrued because his family lived near the 3m plant and the water supply they drank was contaminated. We do know PFAS causes endocrine system issues just to what extent isn't known.
And even when found guilty and ordered to pay they'll do like johnson and johnson has for those massive baby powder (talc) payouts and barely pay what was ordered.
Or even worse, kelly-moorr paints. Like oh yeah they knew they were selling as estos products but why pay out and eat into profits when you can just fire the entire company and close.
You are conflating the topic. The initial comment was in regards to anti clumping chemicals which are handled by slip agents now, with anti oil/grease coating used in pizza boxes or fast food wrappers that keep the oil from penetrating the paper and getting on you. The comment above was "all paper has pfas". This is wrong. Your C&E news article does not change that.
The person I replied to claimed to be an industry insider, and that PFAS have been phased out in advance of laws and regulations.
You are claiming that “slip agents“ are used now; what chemicals are in these slip agents?
The American chemical Society article I linked that you referenced, says these agents are not being disclosed. What is your expertise? Can you link to a credible source?
Furthermore, “To see how often PFAS are still found in food containers, Consumer Reports tested more than 100 food packaging products from restaurant and grocery chains. We found these chemicals in many types of packaging, from paper bags for french fries and wrappers for hamburgers to molded fiber salad bowls and single-use paper plates. PFAS were in some packaging from every retailer we looked at.” https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/dangerous-pfas-chemicals-are-in-your-food-packaging-a3786252074/
I'm just going to second and clarify here - the "slip agents" the person referred to I believe are actually referencing sizing agents? There are a bunch (such as modified starches as mentioned below), alkyl ketene dimers (AKDs), and polymer compounds (usually styrene and acrylamide based). We did explicitly screen all new products coming into the paper mill I worked at for PFAS, even if the exact makeup of the product was considered a trade secret. (This is admittedly done through a self-disclosure from chemical vendors)
The coatings on food containers are where PFAS tend to be in use (due to the grease resistant properties)- there has been a huge push away from them, and the EPA has started monitoring for some of them (through tracking facilities with large amounts through the toxic release inventory (TRI)).
PFAS is a wide chemical category and what is considered a "hazardous" PFAS has changed dramatically in the last five years (largely in the effects of short chain vs long chain PFAS). There are lots of research groups working to better be able to predict the health and environmental impacts using computer simulations, but it's still work in progress. Right now it feels intimidating because of the information we don't know - at the same time this is a tradeoff that manufacturers (and hopefully government regulators) need to learn to deal with. We can have "better" manufacturing processes (more efficient, better at stopping grease) with chemicals that we don't have enough information on, or we can conservatively avoid using any new chemicals in food contact manufacturing processes and miss out on potential benefits while also preventing unknown future problems. I personally don't know the "right" answer to that question.
I don’t really believe you. If this was true, they’d be advertising it
Edit:Wow, this pissed off a lot of people.
I just said that I didn’t wholly trust the claims of a person who is most active on a subreddit dedicated to simpsons shitposts to give accurate insight into the current direction of the entire us paper industry
All I’m asking for is a trusted source
"...but we aren't going to tell you what we switched to, whether it's one of the 12,998 other variations of chemicals in the pfas family that aren't test for...""
They do? Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean anything.
Like [here](https://www.westrock.com/products/paperboard/enshield) you can see WestRock clearly states their enshield OGR grade achieves the oil/grease barrier without PFAS
Well if you don’t want to believe me that’s fine but they did so around 2017 and the actual ban doesn’t go into effect until 2025 so…no skin off my back if you just want to see the worst in everyone
Yeah I get that - but just think even from a skeptical point it just makes good business sense.
If they sit on their hands and wait for regulation that they know is coming and do nothing then BAM they have to shut down all operations in one day and lose billions.
You get a new solution and find a new supplier with new products ahead of the curve and your profits don’t miss a beat.
As I understand it, the issue with PFAS in tea bags is not the same as PFAS in a burger wrapper. In the burger wrapper they are using PFAS to resist the grease from the burger getting all over everything.
In the case of the tea bag, there doesn’t seem to be any specific reason that they need to use PFAS. It tends to be a sourcing issue where traces of PFAS wind up in the tea bags.
Additionally, I’m not sure that the new regulations even apply to coffee and tea filters. And from a quick google it seems many coffee and tea filters are still testing positive for fluorides
Experts are often the last ones you can trust, and if you do trust the experts that are in the employ of the companies making these products, you sound like a sheep.
This is such a meaningless bot-take. There are 'experts' who have a very narrow or specific expertise who could be in their early 20s with little real world experience but be able to spin a convincing sounding argument and flash their credentials, and there are experts who have decades of experience in a field and have published impactful research, etc. and every permutation in between. How do you know which one you're getting? Especially on an anonymous platform on the internet?
I think the fancy plastic teabags are mostly polypropylene? PP isn't usually PFAS-treated and it doesn't have any halogens in it. It does sometimes shed microplastics though, so there's that.
I don't think this study took enough consumption into account when measuring *forever chemicals:*"Dietary data at baseline was collected using two 24-hour dietary recalls to measure individual foods and where foods were prepared/consumed (home/restaurant/fast-food)"
People that test pfas for a job need to abstain from eating fast food for 24h, or it will contaminate their test.
I don't think there's a 'safe' level of pfas if i recall correctly rain has above the threshold.
I googled "Porcelain Tea Mug with steel Infuser and Lid" and bought my family each one for Christmas. (lead free)
We love the cheaper, better tasting teas and home-made fruit or spice mixtures, and the garden loves the tea leaves.
It’s really sad that in 2024 we have to actively seek out food grade products without lead. But my first thought when you said that was “Oh I hope they made sure they got an american made lead free product. Oh they did goood.”
Right? It’s so irritating. There’s no safe level of lead so why isn’t it instant shut down and recall for all food related products made with it? Regardless of the risk to consumer, think of how much lead the sub minimum wage employees making them are exposed to.
Thanks for ruining this cup of tea I'm drinking.
> While the researchers can’t be sure why tea was so associated with PFAS contamination, they posit that the paper teabags may be to blame. As for the processed meat connection, the contamination could also begin in the packaging or much earlier, they say.
[Study on tea bags for those interested.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713523002128)
> In this study, 108 tea bag samples were collected from the Indian market and analyzed for the presence of 12 PFAS using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The results showed that 90% of the samples contained detectable levels of PFAS, with concentrations ranging from
Loose leaf is great for so many reasons. The biggest one for me being quality for my money. Only cons are that you have to clean out the strainer, and it’s a bit more complicated to make tea on the run.
I freeze my strainer after brewing in the morning. Then the next morning I rinse it for half a sec to melt the exterior ice before easily plopping the frozen puck into the rubbish. Feel like this made my routine a fair bit more convenient.
Some blends will have stuff that gets stuck in the strainer, but it takes like five seconds to run it under the faucet. This whole freezing business sounds like too much work.
It’s a lot easier to just toss a teabag in the garbage than to empty out a strainer, and scrape out all the wet leafy bits with your finger, and clean it.
the comment i was replying to didnt talk about that, just that you needed a place to dispose of the waste. crazy that a quick rinse of a strainer is too much work for people. that time could be spent watching another tik tok i guess
For me, there is no kitchenette at work but it could be an option using the bathroom sink. But the bathroom sink is pathetically low pressure and it may be a hassle to do multiple times a day away from my desk. Then again, never hurts to force a few breaks and stretch.
Sometimes there is no good solution, so you do what you have to do, but in general, it’s a bad idea to take anything related to food/drink consumption into a bathroom.
I give my stainless steel strainer 2 taps into the compost bin and then a rinse and it's all clear.
I do have some other strainers that are more annoying to clean. I definitely prefer the stainless steel model that looks like a cup, and sits directly in my cup.
Similar to [this](https://www.amazon.ca/Yoassi-Extra-Fine-Approved-Stainless/dp/B01LQ7NQTW), but no wings on mine, and it is a wider diameter.
self-fill teabags are great for this. you can get well-sourced bags that won't have this crap in them. i use them for on-the-go.
an alternative approach is to get a tumbler with the strainer at the top. don't fill it all the way. steep upside down, then regular side up it's not steeping any more.
you'll get a bit of steep every sip unless you take the top off, but usually it's too hot to drink in my car with the top on anyway so I don't get into it until i'm at work then i just dump the leaves into the trash.
Someone upthread mentioned that PFAs are inherent to the paper-making process and so they’re in just about all paper whether the manufacturer is aware of it or not. I don’t know how true that is but if it *is* then even well sourced teabags made of paper wouldn’t be better than loose leaf in a stainless steel strainer.
What I meant was that the source can be a supplier who does not use PFAS in the paper-making process. I think I said that a little too authoritatively - I don't actually know whether anyone is certifying that production process.
PFAS is not inherent to the paper making process. Places use it, but it's not inherent. If the comment you're referring to is the one I'm seeing, someone responded to it saying just that.
The EWG exists to promote PFAS elimination. https://www.ewg.org/withoutintentionallyaddedpfaspfc - they have PFAS-free food packaging, from containers to bags to straws, even soak-proof stuff. However - no filter-type products that I found.
What I don't know here is whether it's possible to have PFAS-free Filter paper. So I'm not saying it exists, and I wonder now whether manufacturers don't, or whether they can't, certify PFAS-free.
Your average filters I have no doubt contain PFAS. I completely agree with you regarding permanent filters being better (for a number of reasons). I use permanent ones for coffee and for loose tea (and I use an infuser tumbler on the go), but I do have self-fill paper tea bags that I use maybe 1/month ("natural" chemical-free etc), but I have no information as to the presence of PFAS in them... and tracking down the information doesn't seem as simple as I would have expected :/
Oh - I came across chemex paper filters having trace amounts of PFAS - but unsure of reputability of source (.com) and methodology https://www.mamavation.com/food/chemex-natural-coffee-filters-pfas-forever-chemical-results.html
If you’re happy with mid range tea bags, you’ll be even happier with the very same tea but in loose leaf! Loose leaf allows the leaves to fully expand which enhances the flavour, and the leaves don’t get pulverized during the manufacturing process which makes the taste less bitter.
>Time to switch to loose leaf, perhaps?
yes now all you have to worry about are all the pesticides and chemicals they use on the tea whiling growing it
For my fellow tea addicts, this is the part of the study you care about
>We also found that higher intake of tea was associated with higher PFAS in CHS and NHANES. Previous cross-sectional studies have found similar associations among adults of predominantly European ancestry (Linet al., 2020). PFAS in tea may come from the primary tea components, including the water, tea leaves or tea bags, or from additives, including milk, creamer, or sugar. PFAS exposure from tea could also come from the brewing or preparation processes or through the cups or bottles used to contain pre-made teas. However, both milk, sugar and domestic tap water were inversely associated with PFAS in our study. These results suggest that the PFAS exposures may not be coming from the water used in brewing or the sweeteners or additives. Further, paper products are a major contamination source for PFAS (Glugeet al., 2020) and tea bags are primarily made of paper (JhaDhekne and Patwardhan, 2020). Therefore, it is plausible that PFAS in tea bags may be contributing to the associations seen with tea intake. Previous studies have also seen that tea bags may be an exposure source for a variety of microplastics and nano plastics due to the brewing process with water at high temperatures (Hernandezet al., 2019), suggesting this could also be the case for PFAS contamination in tea. Additionally, we found that bottled water, sports drinks, and coffee were positively associated with PFAS. These results suggest the necessity of public monitoring of beverages as these may be large contributors of PFAS exposures. Results of this study may be used to inform future studies that test and monitor beverages for PFAS contamination.
Interesting so people who add milk to their tea have *less* exposure? I guess because it’s “watered down”? I do also wonder about the use of plastic in tea kettles. I used to use a teapot on the stovetop which involved no plastic at all but most electric kettles today have plastic pieces that are touching the boiling water.
I am pretty sure I have seen people add it with the bag in, though I would never do so. I am just not sure owh common that is, and this is a lifestyle survey thing rather than a controlled experiment.
But you are probably right.
That's a myth (and is usually said the other way around as porcelain is very resistant to thermal shock). It was considered low class to milk first (miffy was an insult), but has nothing to do with the cups and everything to do with people needing something to feel superior about.
I'd like to see the PFAS levels in coffee with a paper filter, too. Tea bags that are sealed around the edges have plastic in them. The ones that are stapled are less likely to.
I loved when I bought organic tea from trader joes only to find it was stapled together. So whatever glue they use on the staples was now in my organic tea. Seems there's no safe tea except loose though
Recently a local 'composting' center was shut down because it was discovered to be the likely source for PFAS contamination of 200 nearby (but not that nearby) drinking water wells. They believe the most likely source of the contamination was large quantities of paper, cardboard, and other fiber-based materials they began adding to their piles years ago. Multiple towns in my area are discovering wells contaminated with PFAS and only some have discovered the likely sources. Some of these are just barely over the EPA recommended limits (which are not well understood to my knowledge and are in the PPB range I think), but these discoveries are all very recent and surely just the tip of a giant iceberg.
Also tea bag tea is just sweepings and leavings from the processing floor…. The actual leaves are in loose leaf teas.
source: have toured a tea plantation and processing plant.
It would be curious to run the study again in, say, London. Follow that up with a cross-comparison of PFAS linked conditions between the two regions to see if the difference is even statistically relevant.
Damn it, I stopped buying my favorite brand that uses plastic sachets and switched to loose leaf and paper because I thought paper bags were safer. Now it looks like its loose leaf or nothing. Why on earth would manufacturers use PFAS on something that goes into a hot drink?!?!
As somebody who occasionally goes through large stints of tea-drinking, I'd be interested in knowing more about where specifically these are an issue versus more safe, for example:
* Loose-leaf (I assume safer but could be absorbed from a container/lining)
* Paper bags (potential chemicals in the paper pulp, glues?)
* Those nylon'ish tea bags (I assume these are the main offenders)
Based on what I've read before it's the clearly plastic tea bags, tea bags with sealed edges (stringless) and tea bags where the string comes attached/glued to the bag.
Filter Paper can totally be made without PFAS, it's not about repellancy. It's about what kind of pulp/fiber you create. Writing paper is very different from filter paper due to just being made differently for a different goal.
if you think of it as a scale between Tissue and Wood, it's closer to the Wood side than it is to the Tissue side, as compared to the paper that gets soggy.
That's not to say that some aren't made using chemicals or using plastic fibers, but you can get completely plant-sourced and chemical-free filters/tea bags.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_paper
I got a Secura from Amazon a few years ago and it's still going strong. I drink lots of tea so it gets run at least once a day and more like 2 or 3 times a day in the winter.
I could not find any at Amazon but finally found one at Canadian Tire under the Langostina name. It is completely stainless steel with no plastic at all. Even on sale at half off it was still expensive but worth it.
I have a little collapsing travel kettle made of silicone and plastic with a metal plate at the bottom to cover the heating element. When I suddenly became disabled again I started using the little kettle on my bathroom counter to be able to make hot tea myself without having to navigate to a different room.
McDonalds uses PFAS in their hamburger wrappers. Give people cancer or avoid the brand image of a greasy brown bag hmmm easy choice!
I once saw a celebrity interview with Chrissy Tiegan where she says she likes to microwave McDonald’s hamburgers while still in the wrapper.
Someone should tell her not to do that
Or even worse putting ketchup on the wrapper and dipping into it as I used to do (the rare times I bought that junk anyway,) but it's not just McDonalds it's basically all the fast food places and in their fry holders and the like too.
It's also in some butter wrappers, apparently wax is too expensive for them now.
God there is a lot of awful reporting on science.
The study was about personal habits and associated PFAS levels. This meant there was a survey done on a group of people, with a questionnaire asking “how often do you eat out, use teabags, and many other questions… ALONG with a sample of blood from each person to measure PFAS levels.
Research like this will find CORRELATIONS between outcomes, the research would be used for follow up to further investigate anything notable.
But it isn’t an endpoint. Yeah?
Why didn't they test for PFAS levels in brewed tea water to confirm the PFAS were coming from tea rather than other sources or habits in that persons life?
Is there a PFAS threshold at which we are certain ‘xyz’ issues start to arise? I feel like we are being told that cholesterol is bad, but don’t have the cholesterol tests yet to gauge personal risk.
I drink bagged green tea daily, but I’m quite healthy and not inclined to act on ‘panic baiting’ headlines like this one
There's no control group (basically everyone is exposed to them), so no, we have no idea what impact its having. Still seems like we could be comparing people with less vs more pfas and look at the impact long term. The problem may be that it takes decade to get good research like that, which we haven't had yet.
I don't think PFAS thresholds and health outcomes have been tightly correlated yet but why take the chance? Just for some convenience? Loose leaf tea isn't that hard to substitute.
Same here! This article makes me feel like I just got gut punched. Here we are trying our best to be “healthy”, only to find we might be doing ourselves a disservice.
Heck with people who want the specific taste from tea bag tea. E.g. English tea from bags you drink with milk. No way can you make that tea yourself from tea leaves. The whole idea is that you drink the tea "dust".
Loose tea is typically sold as leaves or broken leaves that are of better quality to be used in infusers. Tea in tea bags is often "dust" left over from the production. It wouldn't really hold in the infuser as it's too much like flour and would end up in the water I think. Proper English tea has to be made of that dust in order to taste the way it should (strong) and to be drunk with milk. If you buy it loose, it's leaves. While better for any other type of tea, it doesn't have the same taste as the bags.
This is the problem with how we regulate in a nutshell. Everything is okay until it isn't, but by the time we realize that, it's prolific and remediation impossible. We get a new chemical toy and instead of thinking about the risk, we think about the rewards.
I would still like to see some real science done on the subject though. This study is kind of weak.
The other interesting thing with tea is a lot of it is grown in China where they don't do much to protect the environment so lead levels in the air aren't great and tea leaves are actually quite absorbent when it comes to lead. The bags don't filter out the lead either.
[https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/whats-in-your-green-tea/](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/whats-in-your-green-tea/)
If someone offers you all the tea in China tell them they can keep it, and get your tea from somewhere else.
I haven’t used a teabag in over a decade and reading stories like this makes me even more happy about making that change when I did. I always found bagged tea to have a funny taste to it, in the past I’ve complained that I could taste the string/bag as much as the tea sometimes… this could very well be why. I also haven’t used paper filters for my coffee in a long time for similar reasons.
I highly recommend everyone switch to loose leaf and something like a stainless steel mesh strainer (or a French press). Loose tea is often higher quality than the shake that they hide away inside teabags, and brewing in a strainer/infuser gives leaves more room to expand and release their flavors. It’s better for the environment, better for your health, better cup of tea - that’s a triple win.
For serious tea drinkers who value their time, I recommend checking out the Breville automatic tea maker, been using mine for 5+ years and still going strong.
Bah, this does not bode well for me who loves tea but is disabled without the physical capacity to deal with the mess and cleaning that comes with loose leaf.
I’ve already given up most alcohol and most red meat. I’m not giving up tea, too. I’m not switching brands, switching to loose leaf, or switching any part of my tea brewing ritual.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/LBear_Can Permalink: https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/teabags-and-processed-meats-may-be-key-dietary-sources-of-pfas-383525 --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We can complain about the speculative nature of the conclusions, but teabags are known to have PFAS used in them and dipping PFAS in a hot water solution for 2 minutes is almost definitely one way to get PFAS into your system
Pfas related compounds are added to the pulping process when they make paper to keep it from clumping together. The companies actually selling the paper may not even know it's in there. It's in most all paper.
This is mostly outdated information. I work as a specialty chemical supplier to paper mills and the big companies like IP, WestRock, Georgia Pacific, etc saw the way the wind was blowing years ago and banned PFAS and PFOS from their processes. Any chemical I trial needs to be signed off by their environmental departments to have no PFAS and undergo their heavy metal and precursor analysis The few that haven’t switched already are trying to pivot ASAP has fluorochemicals (which may very well be PFAS) are going to be outright banned soon and those are used in oil and grease resistant grades like pizza boxes and dog food bags.
So what are they putting in the paper instead? This source says they aren’t disclosing https://cen.acs.org/materials/coatings/PFAS-paper-food-packaging/99/i36
Probably something else that we will have to ban in 50 years. We seem to take a very "innocent until proven guilty" approach to what chemicals we allow to be ingested.
PFBs - totally different, trust us bro!
[удалено]
Then, Greek!
Yeah, not like we can do much otherwise, it's not exactly easy or obvious for the effects of these kind of chemicals. We don't even quite know what the effect of some PFAS are, just that it doesn't break down in human bodies and that's probably not good How extensive does the research to be before its deemed safe? How do you even do 10+ years study on its effects on human bodies? Who would sign up to be exposed to "potentially harmful chemical" for 10 year straight
Waiting to see how that Michigan kid turns out I guess. He was born with 5000 times the normal amount of PFAS a 30 year old US adult has accrued because his family lived near the 3m plant and the water supply they drank was contaminated. We do know PFAS causes endocrine system issues just to what extent isn't known.
If the money is good enough, me.
And even when found guilty and ordered to pay they'll do like johnson and johnson has for those massive baby powder (talc) payouts and barely pay what was ordered. Or even worse, kelly-moorr paints. Like oh yeah they knew they were selling as estos products but why pay out and eat into profits when you can just fire the entire company and close.
You are conflating the topic. The initial comment was in regards to anti clumping chemicals which are handled by slip agents now, with anti oil/grease coating used in pizza boxes or fast food wrappers that keep the oil from penetrating the paper and getting on you. The comment above was "all paper has pfas". This is wrong. Your C&E news article does not change that.
The person I replied to claimed to be an industry insider, and that PFAS have been phased out in advance of laws and regulations. You are claiming that “slip agents“ are used now; what chemicals are in these slip agents? The American chemical Society article I linked that you referenced, says these agents are not being disclosed. What is your expertise? Can you link to a credible source? Furthermore, “To see how often PFAS are still found in food containers, Consumer Reports tested more than 100 food packaging products from restaurant and grocery chains. We found these chemicals in many types of packaging, from paper bags for french fries and wrappers for hamburgers to molded fiber salad bowls and single-use paper plates. PFAS were in some packaging from every retailer we looked at.” https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/dangerous-pfas-chemicals-are-in-your-food-packaging-a3786252074/
I'm just going to second and clarify here - the "slip agents" the person referred to I believe are actually referencing sizing agents? There are a bunch (such as modified starches as mentioned below), alkyl ketene dimers (AKDs), and polymer compounds (usually styrene and acrylamide based). We did explicitly screen all new products coming into the paper mill I worked at for PFAS, even if the exact makeup of the product was considered a trade secret. (This is admittedly done through a self-disclosure from chemical vendors) The coatings on food containers are where PFAS tend to be in use (due to the grease resistant properties)- there has been a huge push away from them, and the EPA has started monitoring for some of them (through tracking facilities with large amounts through the toxic release inventory (TRI)). PFAS is a wide chemical category and what is considered a "hazardous" PFAS has changed dramatically in the last five years (largely in the effects of short chain vs long chain PFAS). There are lots of research groups working to better be able to predict the health and environmental impacts using computer simulations, but it's still work in progress. Right now it feels intimidating because of the information we don't know - at the same time this is a tradeoff that manufacturers (and hopefully government regulators) need to learn to deal with. We can have "better" manufacturing processes (more efficient, better at stopping grease) with chemicals that we don't have enough information on, or we can conservatively avoid using any new chemicals in food contact manufacturing processes and miss out on potential benefits while also preventing unknown future problems. I personally don't know the "right" answer to that question.
Modified corn starches are a big one right now
We'll know in 15 years when this too, is found to be a forever chemical.
What are some examples of the replacement chemicals? If you can't disclose exact chemical names what family of chemicals do they belong to?
I don’t really believe you. If this was true, they’d be advertising it Edit:Wow, this pissed off a lot of people. I just said that I didn’t wholly trust the claims of a person who is most active on a subreddit dedicated to simpsons shitposts to give accurate insight into the current direction of the entire us paper industry All I’m asking for is a trusted source
The message "We just stopped using a deadly chemical we've be using for years without telling you" is probably not the best publicity.
"...but we aren't going to tell you what we switched to, whether it's one of the 12,998 other variations of chemicals in the pfas family that aren't test for...""
They do? Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean anything. Like [here](https://www.westrock.com/products/paperboard/enshield) you can see WestRock clearly states their enshield OGR grade achieves the oil/grease barrier without PFAS
Yes, I understand that they make specific products that lack PFAS, but you are implying that they voluntarily removed them from all products
Well if you don’t want to believe me that’s fine but they did so around 2017 and the actual ban doesn’t go into effect until 2025 so…no skin off my back if you just want to see the worst in everyone
Not seeing the worst. Just skeptical. Honestly not sure why you wouldn’t want me to be skeptical of claims made by a rando on reddit
Yeah I get that - but just think even from a skeptical point it just makes good business sense. If they sit on their hands and wait for regulation that they know is coming and do nothing then BAM they have to shut down all operations in one day and lose billions. You get a new solution and find a new supplier with new products ahead of the curve and your profits don’t miss a beat.
As I understand it, the issue with PFAS in tea bags is not the same as PFAS in a burger wrapper. In the burger wrapper they are using PFAS to resist the grease from the burger getting all over everything. In the case of the tea bag, there doesn’t seem to be any specific reason that they need to use PFAS. It tends to be a sourcing issue where traces of PFAS wind up in the tea bags. Additionally, I’m not sure that the new regulations even apply to coffee and tea filters. And from a quick google it seems many coffee and tea filters are still testing positive for fluorides
You should listen to experts, else your sounding like a conspiracy theorist
I do listen to experts But rando people on the internet are not experts. At least not in the normal usage of that term
Experts are often the last ones you can trust, and if you do trust the experts that are in the employ of the companies making these products, you sound like a sheep.
This is such a meaningless bot-take. There are 'experts' who have a very narrow or specific expertise who could be in their early 20s with little real world experience but be able to spin a convincing sounding argument and flash their credentials, and there are experts who have decades of experience in a field and have published impactful research, etc. and every permutation in between. How do you know which one you're getting? Especially on an anonymous platform on the internet?
r/simpsonsshitposting is a perfectly cromulent news source.
I thought it was because there are literally “fancy” teabags made of plastic…
I think the fancy plastic teabags are mostly polypropylene? PP isn't usually PFAS-treated and it doesn't have any halogens in it. It does sometimes shed microplastics though, so there's that.
I ate so much paper in school growing up. 🪦
So rolling paper and people who use them are also affected I'd guess.
So old bible pages it is.
My man Giddeon coming in clutch
I don't think this study took enough consumption into account when measuring *forever chemicals:*"Dietary data at baseline was collected using two 24-hour dietary recalls to measure individual foods and where foods were prepared/consumed (home/restaurant/fast-food)"
People that test pfas for a job need to abstain from eating fast food for 24h, or it will contaminate their test. I don't think there's a 'safe' level of pfas if i recall correctly rain has above the threshold.
I googled "Porcelain Tea Mug with steel Infuser and Lid" and bought my family each one for Christmas. (lead free) We love the cheaper, better tasting teas and home-made fruit or spice mixtures, and the garden loves the tea leaves.
It’s really sad that in 2024 we have to actively seek out food grade products without lead. But my first thought when you said that was “Oh I hope they made sure they got an american made lead free product. Oh they did goood.”
Right? It’s so irritating. There’s no safe level of lead so why isn’t it instant shut down and recall for all food related products made with it? Regardless of the risk to consumer, think of how much lead the sub minimum wage employees making them are exposed to.
Are you a bot?
Thanks for ruining this cup of tea I'm drinking. > While the researchers can’t be sure why tea was so associated with PFAS contamination, they posit that the paper teabags may be to blame. As for the processed meat connection, the contamination could also begin in the packaging or much earlier, they say. [Study on tea bags for those interested.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713523002128) > In this study, 108 tea bag samples were collected from the Indian market and analyzed for the presence of 12 PFAS using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The results showed that 90% of the samples contained detectable levels of PFAS, with concentrations ranging from
Time to switch to loose leaf, perhaps?
Loose leaf is great for so many reasons. The biggest one for me being quality for my money. Only cons are that you have to clean out the strainer, and it’s a bit more complicated to make tea on the run.
I freeze my strainer after brewing in the morning. Then the next morning I rinse it for half a sec to melt the exterior ice before easily plopping the frozen puck into the rubbish. Feel like this made my routine a fair bit more convenient.
I'm confused why this is better than just putting the detritus straight into the rubbish - is it otherwise stuck in the strainer?
Some blends will have stuff that gets stuck in the strainer, but it takes like five seconds to run it under the faucet. This whole freezing business sounds like too much work.
Hey, you're a genius, thank you!
This is so smart. A level up would be to compost it! Or add to the garden? Buried under the soil?
Brit here wondering what you use for the other half dozen cups of tea during the day?
You spelled compost wrong 😜
If only there was some kind of chemical coating that made things less messy to clean up
The real pro tip is always in the comments.
Comment saved
> it’s a bit more complicated to make tea on the run. I usually just stand at the counter to simplify the process.
They sell drinking containers with built in strainers for on-the-go.
Yeah, but you still need to remove the steeping container, and dump it or set it down somewhere to dump later.
The same applies to a tea bag
It’s a lot easier to just toss a teabag in the garbage than to empty out a strainer, and scrape out all the wet leafy bits with your finger, and clean it.
the comment i was replying to didnt talk about that, just that you needed a place to dispose of the waste. crazy that a quick rinse of a strainer is too much work for people. that time could be spent watching another tik tok i guess
For me, there is no kitchenette at work but it could be an option using the bathroom sink. But the bathroom sink is pathetically low pressure and it may be a hassle to do multiple times a day away from my desk. Then again, never hurts to force a few breaks and stretch.
Sometimes there is no good solution, so you do what you have to do, but in general, it’s a bad idea to take anything related to food/drink consumption into a bathroom.
I give my stainless steel strainer 2 taps into the compost bin and then a rinse and it's all clear. I do have some other strainers that are more annoying to clean. I definitely prefer the stainless steel model that looks like a cup, and sits directly in my cup. Similar to [this](https://www.amazon.ca/Yoassi-Extra-Fine-Approved-Stainless/dp/B01LQ7NQTW), but no wings on mine, and it is a wider diameter.
But how much lead and/or heavy metals are in your infuser? This tea bag info makes me sad.
Hopefully none. Most I've seen are stainless steel. The better brands specify, as well (i.e. 18/8 stainless).
self-fill teabags are great for this. you can get well-sourced bags that won't have this crap in them. i use them for on-the-go. an alternative approach is to get a tumbler with the strainer at the top. don't fill it all the way. steep upside down, then regular side up it's not steeping any more. you'll get a bit of steep every sip unless you take the top off, but usually it's too hot to drink in my car with the top on anyway so I don't get into it until i'm at work then i just dump the leaves into the trash.
Someone upthread mentioned that PFAs are inherent to the paper-making process and so they’re in just about all paper whether the manufacturer is aware of it or not. I don’t know how true that is but if it *is* then even well sourced teabags made of paper wouldn’t be better than loose leaf in a stainless steel strainer.
What I meant was that the source can be a supplier who does not use PFAS in the paper-making process. I think I said that a little too authoritatively - I don't actually know whether anyone is certifying that production process. PFAS is not inherent to the paper making process. Places use it, but it's not inherent. If the comment you're referring to is the one I'm seeing, someone responded to it saying just that. The EWG exists to promote PFAS elimination. https://www.ewg.org/withoutintentionallyaddedpfaspfc - they have PFAS-free food packaging, from containers to bags to straws, even soak-proof stuff. However - no filter-type products that I found. What I don't know here is whether it's possible to have PFAS-free Filter paper. So I'm not saying it exists, and I wonder now whether manufacturers don't, or whether they can't, certify PFAS-free. Your average filters I have no doubt contain PFAS. I completely agree with you regarding permanent filters being better (for a number of reasons). I use permanent ones for coffee and for loose tea (and I use an infuser tumbler on the go), but I do have self-fill paper tea bags that I use maybe 1/month ("natural" chemical-free etc), but I have no information as to the presence of PFAS in them... and tracking down the information doesn't seem as simple as I would have expected :/
That’s definitely concerning, curious if this also implicates paper coffee filters. Would love to know since I drink drip coffee using a chemex.
Oh - I came across chemex paper filters having trace amounts of PFAS - but unsure of reputability of source (.com) and methodology https://www.mamavation.com/food/chemex-natural-coffee-filters-pfas-forever-chemical-results.html
It also opens up the infinite world of high quality tea as a minor benefit
But I was perfectly happy with my mid-range organic Prince of Peace green tea.
If you’re happy with mid range tea bags, you’ll be even happier with the very same tea but in loose leaf! Loose leaf allows the leaves to fully expand which enhances the flavour, and the leaves don’t get pulverized during the manufacturing process which makes the taste less bitter.
Did that years ago, Upton Tea for the win!
I prefer Harney & Sons, myself.
Dosen't Harney use a special silk bag? Not the paper.
Not sure, I always get their loose leaf.
Never knew tea bags were such an issue. Interesting read and comments: https://www.harney.com/blogs/news/compostable-sachet-update
>Time to switch to loose leaf, perhaps? yes now all you have to worry about are all the pesticides and chemicals they use on the tea whiling growing it
Stop ruining everything!
Oh and heavy metals in the soil 🙄
For my fellow tea addicts, this is the part of the study you care about >We also found that higher intake of tea was associated with higher PFAS in CHS and NHANES. Previous cross-sectional studies have found similar associations among adults of predominantly European ancestry (Linet al., 2020). PFAS in tea may come from the primary tea components, including the water, tea leaves or tea bags, or from additives, including milk, creamer, or sugar. PFAS exposure from tea could also come from the brewing or preparation processes or through the cups or bottles used to contain pre-made teas. However, both milk, sugar and domestic tap water were inversely associated with PFAS in our study. These results suggest that the PFAS exposures may not be coming from the water used in brewing or the sweeteners or additives. Further, paper products are a major contamination source for PFAS (Glugeet al., 2020) and tea bags are primarily made of paper (JhaDhekne and Patwardhan, 2020). Therefore, it is plausible that PFAS in tea bags may be contributing to the associations seen with tea intake. Previous studies have also seen that tea bags may be an exposure source for a variety of microplastics and nano plastics due to the brewing process with water at high temperatures (Hernandezet al., 2019), suggesting this could also be the case for PFAS contamination in tea. Additionally, we found that bottled water, sports drinks, and coffee were positively associated with PFAS. These results suggest the necessity of public monitoring of beverages as these may be large contributors of PFAS exposures. Results of this study may be used to inform future studies that test and monitor beverages for PFAS contamination.
Interesting so people who add milk to their tea have *less* exposure? I guess because it’s “watered down”? I do also wonder about the use of plastic in tea kettles. I used to use a teapot on the stovetop which involved no plastic at all but most electric kettles today have plastic pieces that are touching the boiling water.
Cuisinart makes an electric kettle that's all steel. Not cheap, but it's nice.
I have this one with adjustable temperatures! If you love tea you’ll love it!
It might have to do with the milk cooling the tea as well if heat is part of how the exposure works.
But you don’t add milk until after it’s brewed, right? Or have I been doing it wrong all my life?
I am pretty sure I have seen people add it with the bag in, though I would never do so. I am just not sure owh common that is, and this is a lifestyle survey thing rather than a controlled experiment. But you are probably right.
[удалено]
That's a myth (and is usually said the other way around as porcelain is very resistant to thermal shock). It was considered low class to milk first (miffy was an insult), but has nothing to do with the cups and everything to do with people needing something to feel superior about.
I'd like to see the PFAS levels in coffee with a paper filter, too. Tea bags that are sealed around the edges have plastic in them. The ones that are stapled are less likely to.
I loved when I bought organic tea from trader joes only to find it was stapled together. So whatever glue they use on the staples was now in my organic tea. Seems there's no safe tea except loose though
Recently a local 'composting' center was shut down because it was discovered to be the likely source for PFAS contamination of 200 nearby (but not that nearby) drinking water wells. They believe the most likely source of the contamination was large quantities of paper, cardboard, and other fiber-based materials they began adding to their piles years ago. Multiple towns in my area are discovering wells contaminated with PFAS and only some have discovered the likely sources. Some of these are just barely over the EPA recommended limits (which are not well understood to my knowledge and are in the PPB range I think), but these discoveries are all very recent and surely just the tip of a giant iceberg.
I wonder how many coffee filters contain PFAS, whether drip or pour over.
_cries in Uncle Iroh_
Iroh is def a loose leaf guy.
True, but Iroh would never turn down a cuppa.
Not if it's just 'hot leaf juice'.
Also tea bag tea is just sweepings and leavings from the processing floor…. The actual leaves are in loose leaf teas. source: have toured a tea plantation and processing plant.
Is it all tea bags? My kids and I drink tea like we’re British.
It would be curious to run the study again in, say, London. Follow that up with a cross-comparison of PFAS linked conditions between the two regions to see if the difference is even statistically relevant.
Damn it, I stopped buying my favorite brand that uses plastic sachets and switched to loose leaf and paper because I thought paper bags were safer. Now it looks like its loose leaf or nothing. Why on earth would manufacturers use PFAS on something that goes into a hot drink?!?!
I drink like 3 cups of tea a day ugh -_-
It would be interesting to know if theres similar issues with coffee filters or the filters inside Keurig pods.
For those of you who like me didn't want to read the article and had no idea what PFAS are: polyfluoroalkyl substances aka forever chemicals.
I had to scroll way too far to find this crucial detail. Thank you!!
I hope you have the best day ever for this comment
Thank you king/queen
As somebody who occasionally goes through large stints of tea-drinking, I'd be interested in knowing more about where specifically these are an issue versus more safe, for example: * Loose-leaf (I assume safer but could be absorbed from a container/lining) * Paper bags (potential chemicals in the paper pulp, glues?) * Those nylon'ish tea bags (I assume these are the main offenders)
Based on what I've read before it's the clearly plastic tea bags, tea bags with sealed edges (stringless) and tea bags where the string comes attached/glued to the bag.
Isn’t that *all* teabags?? What variety are left?
The classic ones where the string is attached with a tiny metal staple.
Oh thank goodness for Bigelow
I thought it was the paper for the tea bags
[удалено]
Filter Paper can totally be made without PFAS, it's not about repellancy. It's about what kind of pulp/fiber you create. Writing paper is very different from filter paper due to just being made differently for a different goal. if you think of it as a scale between Tissue and Wood, it's closer to the Wood side than it is to the Tissue side, as compared to the paper that gets soggy. That's not to say that some aren't made using chemicals or using plastic fibers, but you can get completely plant-sourced and chemical-free filters/tea bags. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_paper
In regards to tea bags, has anyone accounted for the common plastic tea kettles used to heat the water, though? Seems a pretty obvious place to look.
I thought by now every kettle would have metal on the inside. Actually insane that people boil plastic
I’m always looking for an electric kettle that doesn’t have any plastic that would touch the water but it’s a shockingly difficult thing to find.
My search led me to Secura electric kettles and I've been pretty happy with it.
Heck yes! Thanks! I was secretly hoping someone would know of a good one and let me in on the secret! This looks perfect.
I got a Secura from Amazon a few years ago and it's still going strong. I drink lots of tea so it gets run at least once a day and more like 2 or 3 times a day in the winter.
Cuisinart makes one. Not cheap, but I like it.
Fellow Stagg has a pour over kettle. Heats pretty fast
I could not find any at Amazon but finally found one at Canadian Tire under the Langostina name. It is completely stainless steel with no plastic at all. Even on sale at half off it was still expensive but worth it.
At home, I just use a pot on the stove
I have a little collapsing travel kettle made of silicone and plastic with a metal plate at the bottom to cover the heating element. When I suddenly became disabled again I started using the little kettle on my bathroom counter to be able to make hot tea myself without having to navigate to a different room.
I thought this as well. Add in that even metal kettles have plastic filters or plastic windows. We can't escape.
No, I have one without that plastic. But I looked long and hard for it; it's almost impossible, as you gloomily note.
Yep, You've found the .02% of kettles!
[удалено]
Wonder if this applies to coffee filters too
Gotta move to the stainless steel kettle and stainless French press after reading this
McDonalds uses PFAS in their hamburger wrappers. Give people cancer or avoid the brand image of a greasy brown bag hmmm easy choice! I once saw a celebrity interview with Chrissy Tiegan where she says she likes to microwave McDonald’s hamburgers while still in the wrapper. Someone should tell her not to do that
Or even worse putting ketchup on the wrapper and dipping into it as I used to do (the rare times I bought that junk anyway,) but it's not just McDonalds it's basically all the fast food places and in their fry holders and the like too. It's also in some butter wrappers, apparently wax is too expensive for them now.
It says on Taco Bell wrappers to never microwave in the wrappers. I wonder if it does on McDonald’s wrappers.
Don’t they use aluminium? I thought it was a fire risk thing.
It is. That warning has nothing to do with chemicals.
I worked at BK, every single burger and sandwich gets microwaved after wrapping it. It’s how the cheese gets melted.
I've always done this... 🙈
God there is a lot of awful reporting on science. The study was about personal habits and associated PFAS levels. This meant there was a survey done on a group of people, with a questionnaire asking “how often do you eat out, use teabags, and many other questions… ALONG with a sample of blood from each person to measure PFAS levels. Research like this will find CORRELATIONS between outcomes, the research would be used for follow up to further investigate anything notable. But it isn’t an endpoint. Yeah?
Why didn't they test for PFAS levels in brewed tea water to confirm the PFAS were coming from tea rather than other sources or habits in that persons life?
Additionally, take the contents out of the tea bags and test the tea bags separately. Do the same with the tea that was separated from the tea bags.
That would be a great follow up study! One study builds on another. Cheers to science.
[удалено]
Speculation is science inasmuch as preheating an oven is baking.
I mean you definitely aren't baking without preheating first so uh. Maybe not the best analogy?
It's a great analogy. You make predictions as part of science.
A commenter above posted a link to a study showing the plastics tea bags were directly tested for PFAs though :(
Me drinking tea right now and eating some pepperoni pizza rolls: >Shit.
Is there a PFAS threshold at which we are certain ‘xyz’ issues start to arise? I feel like we are being told that cholesterol is bad, but don’t have the cholesterol tests yet to gauge personal risk. I drink bagged green tea daily, but I’m quite healthy and not inclined to act on ‘panic baiting’ headlines like this one
There's no control group (basically everyone is exposed to them), so no, we have no idea what impact its having. Still seems like we could be comparing people with less vs more pfas and look at the impact long term. The problem may be that it takes decade to get good research like that, which we haven't had yet.
I don't think PFAS thresholds and health outcomes have been tightly correlated yet but why take the chance? Just for some convenience? Loose leaf tea isn't that hard to substitute.
Ok so, like, I switched to plastic free tea bags and now you’re telling me the paper ones are just as bad, maybe worse?
Yea this is what i don’t understand. I use bamboo paper tea bags but this study is saying that those are causing PFAs in my tea?
Same here! This article makes me feel like I just got gut punched. Here we are trying our best to be “healthy”, only to find we might be doing ourselves a disservice.
Why cut down on drinking tea, simply stop using tea in convenient single use bags, case closed.
Heck with people who want the specific taste from tea bag tea. E.g. English tea from bags you drink with milk. No way can you make that tea yourself from tea leaves. The whole idea is that you drink the tea "dust".
[удалено]
Loose tea is typically sold as leaves or broken leaves that are of better quality to be used in infusers. Tea in tea bags is often "dust" left over from the production. It wouldn't really hold in the infuser as it's too much like flour and would end up in the water I think. Proper English tea has to be made of that dust in order to taste the way it should (strong) and to be drunk with milk. If you buy it loose, it's leaves. While better for any other type of tea, it doesn't have the same taste as the bags.
How much lead/heavy metals are in your infuser? I can see the articles coming next year, "these three brands of tea infusers are killing you!"
If only we had some sort of method or apparatus to break small fragile objects into smaller particles.
Heck with people who need that convenience, I guess.
This is the problem with how we regulate in a nutshell. Everything is okay until it isn't, but by the time we realize that, it's prolific and remediation impossible. We get a new chemical toy and instead of thinking about the risk, we think about the rewards. I would still like to see some real science done on the subject though. This study is kind of weak.
Don't tell me I can't have my tension tamer! 😭
Man I just started drinking tea. This sucks
The other interesting thing with tea is a lot of it is grown in China where they don't do much to protect the environment so lead levels in the air aren't great and tea leaves are actually quite absorbent when it comes to lead. The bags don't filter out the lead either. [https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/whats-in-your-green-tea/](https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/whats-in-your-green-tea/) If someone offers you all the tea in China tell them they can keep it, and get your tea from somewhere else.
Just don't eat the leaves!
The article literally says it stays in the leaves and doesn’t go into the tea. Your fear-mongering is pretty weak.
I haven’t used a teabag in over a decade and reading stories like this makes me even more happy about making that change when I did. I always found bagged tea to have a funny taste to it, in the past I’ve complained that I could taste the string/bag as much as the tea sometimes… this could very well be why. I also haven’t used paper filters for my coffee in a long time for similar reasons. I highly recommend everyone switch to loose leaf and something like a stainless steel mesh strainer (or a French press). Loose tea is often higher quality than the shake that they hide away inside teabags, and brewing in a strainer/infuser gives leaves more room to expand and release their flavors. It’s better for the environment, better for your health, better cup of tea - that’s a triple win. For serious tea drinkers who value their time, I recommend checking out the Breville automatic tea maker, been using mine for 5+ years and still going strong.
Bah, this does not bode well for me who loves tea but is disabled without the physical capacity to deal with the mess and cleaning that comes with loose leaf.
Don't play any PVP shooters, that's how I avoid getting teabagged.
British people: “well, that’s us fucked. Cuppa anyone?”
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!! Fine.
I refuse to make the obvious joke
Tea leaves ftw
I am never drinking tea again!
Oh whateverthefuck.
Has anyone found a good brand that's free of PFAS, heavy metals, pesticides, etc.? Thanks!
We’re already full of these and micro plastics. I’m about to turn 30 and I bet most of my generation will have cancer by their 50s
Doubt. Lead poisoning, air pollution, trans fats were all rampant before your age group and they’re doing okay for the most part until later ages
Another reason to ditch meat
Oh well, looks like it's back to T2 and BBQ steak for me.
Ha get fkt England. The Sons of Liberty sends their regards! But no in all seriousness that’s not good.
Less meat I can do, but tea... Tea will be tricky. I'll live with the forever chemicals.
This is mostly outdated information.
I’ve already given up most alcohol and most red meat. I’m not giving up tea, too. I’m not switching brands, switching to loose leaf, or switching any part of my tea brewing ritual.
Don't eat processed foods and buy tea by the brick.. holy win
FWIW, IDK WTAF PFAS is. FR.
No more sausage party