There has been a lot of chatter about microplastics as of late. I even caught a show about microplastics on WBEZ while I was driving around. Gotta say, the show sucked. Why? Not due to the host or anything, but due to the fact the answer to almost every question was “we don’t know.” It wasn’t a case of quack science, nor was this a case of Facebook being human poison as multiple courts determined.
No, this isn’t even a case of Turd Standard Science that the two largest Quacks in Washington love. If anyone should be imprisoned for medical fraud it’s these two.
The Soybean Market
This weekend’s bathroom reading was AgriNews. They were talking about the current Illinois Soybean Association SpringBoard challenge. I didn’t dig deep into the announced winners, but, I didn’t see any research into microplastics. Keep in mind the main focus of these challenges is to create new uses and markets for soybeans because globally we can grow shitloads of them economically. Even if you are allergic to soy, if you eat, you eat something that ate soy. Eggs or poultry? Yep, soy a huge component of most feed mixes. Roughly 48% of all U.S. soybean meal. Globally 98% of soybean meal is used for animal/livestock feed.
Where does the meal come from?
Read the label on the back of your “vegetable oil” bottle. Farmers don’t raise huge fields of some generic plant called vegetable and your cooking oil doesn’t come from a zucchini. When you order fries at a fast food place they are almost always cooked in soybean oil “for health reasons.” Why? Soybean oil is abundant which makes it cost effective.
Research That Isn’t
Getting back to microplastics, the WBEZ show, and the Illinois Soybean Association, I didn’t notice anything in the way of microplastics researching being funded. This could be the largest market for soybeans while at the same time making us healthier while reducing crude oil consumption.
Do soy-based plastics produce fewer microplastics than crude oil based?
We don’t know. This is the first level of research that needs to be funded though. No matter which produces the least (assuming they aren’t the same) the other needs to be banned as food containers and cooking tools. Your non-stick pans and your plastic spatulas need to be replaced with the safer versions. This leads to the next research which can happen at the same time.
Do soy-based plastics produce fewer toxic microplastics that crude based?
We don’t know. We need to know. Research says we ingest over 900 tiny plastic pieces per day. Actual research, not the Turd Standard Science Kennedy uses, finds microplastics cross the blood brain barrier, exist in our liver, kidneys, blood, basically everywhere. You’ve all heard about BPA even if you don’t know what it is. Many of you bought one bottle of water over another because the bottle proclaimed it was BPA free.
Standard soda bottles are made from crude oil chemicals. Just think how much the soybean market would increase if it could be proven plastic bottles and other food containers were biologically safer for humans. Forget the whole socks in sandals tree-hugger thing argument. If plastic food containers made from soybeans could be proven to be dramatically safer for humans getting the crude oil containers banned wouldn’t take much. The general consumer wouldn’t even notice anything. Plastic soda bottles change all the time.
Autism
Despite what the super quacks in Washington spout, there is not an epidemic of autism. We diagnose it more because we got better at making the diagnosis.
Having said that, the one thing the WBEZ show stated that I did not know about was microplastics being found in semen. I did know about late in life fatherhood being linked to autism. Given the economy has been trashed by Donald Trump (both times in office) more potential parents are waiting for the now-or-never moment to have kids.
The research that needs to be funded here is Are the microplastics themselves physically damaging sperm cells or are the chemicals they contain doing it?
We don’t know. What we do know is that prolonged exposure to any unnatural chemical can damage human organs, perhaps even cause cancer. Again, BPA would be an example of this. Thought to be safe then linked rather convincingly to cancer. How about DDT? A synthetic insecticide so safe we sprayed children with it to prevent spread of head lice and fogged entire neighborhoods to kill mosquitoes to prevent the mosquitoes they spread.
It’s not a nutter whack-job conspiracy theory to ask if microplastics or a chemical they carry either alters the production of sperm or physically damages the sperm via perhaps tens of thousands of tiny impacts.
Summary
If the Illinois Soybean Association wants to dramatically boost markets for soybeans, they need to jump with both feet into microplastics research. Even if today’s soy-based plastics aren’t currently healthier, they could be. After all, we started with a soybean. Something humans can eat raw. I don’t think you will find many people looking to slam down a glass of crude oil.
You won’t find many Asian restaurants, especially ones that have sushi, that don’t have Edamame on the menu.
