[_DeadFred_]

PSA: Check your bike lube. I was shocked to find out mine was basically just PFAS I'm dumping into my garage/the forest trails. I have to think bikers care more than average about nature/where they ride, and apparently we don't care all that much.

[Theodores]

I appreciate your concern, however, as a cyclist, I have a good idea of how many oils and solvents I use and it is chicken feed compared to what car dependent people use. What next, concern about the dust coming from the brake blocks on my bicycle and the plastic nanoparticles that come from the tyres?

I use WD-40 on occasion and I think the nudge is needed to not breathe that stuff. But again, the aerobic benefits of cycling outweigh the problems of breathing WD-40 needed to lube the cables every winter or so.

But I like the idea of the American driving his two tonne monster vehicle to the trail to then be concerned about a speck of PFAS dropping off the bike onto the trail.

There is bike shedding with the original article too. I don't eat processed foods including candy bars so those wrappers are not something that ever get into my house. However, I see the toxins as the refined sugars, variously saturated fats and other non-food ingredients in this garbage. Worrying about the PFAS chemicals in the wrapper is a bit silly when you regard the whole product as toxic.

A similar bit of bike shedding goes on with 'pesticides' sprayed on crops. People worry about a bit of glycosphate sprayed on their lettuce but overlook the fact that most of what they eat is definitely not healthy. They worry about the 'pesticides' on the lettuce and ignore the burger, 'cheese' and bun, none of which are what the body needs.

[_DeadFred_]

Do you not clean off/lube your chain somewhere you care about, whether the forest or your home? Just because cars suck doesn't mean I don't want to be aware if I'm handling liquid PFAS and dumping them directly into my living space.

Do you not think it's worthy talking about a food company dusting their packaging in (potentially obscured as to not be detected) forever chemicals? If nothing else than as reinforcement of 'oh yeah, this is why I choose inconvenient snacks over convenient'?

Because sometimes I really want cheap/easy/junkfood. A bit extra calories or fat, I'm going to give in. But straight coated in obscured forever chemicals just because (the article says there really isn't even a purpose for them in this situation). Nah, I'm good bro. We have snacks at home (the snack, a bad batch of frozen humus I put too much lemon in).

[Theodores]

I lube my bike on rare occasions, when it gets to the stage of dry/orange chain or gear levers that risk thumb injury to use. Then it is minimal effort with WD-40 by the bins. I then ride on actual roads that are heavily polluted by car dependent people before getting to the 'bike superhighway' that is the canal path, which I mostly use to get me where I want to go.

If there was excess oil on my bike then I am okay with it dripping off on the stupid junction they built for the car dependent people. It is an industrial waste ground.

I only got into the avoidance of processed food on a whim, to see if I could last a week without added sugar. I was buying garbage in the supermarket at the time, not sure what junk to buy, and I just thought to give vegetables a try. I had never gone a day of my life without refined sugar to that point. I felt so much better after that week that I decided to keep going, and I researched it, to find that there wasn't anything wrong with a modest amount of sugar, however, it was the rubbish that came with it in processed foods that I was also avoiding. Again, on their own, there is nothing wrong with things like palm oil.

I started buying vegetables that I had never bought before, even if I had eaten them. I now feel ashamed to have lived for so many years without buying vegetables that I now consider essential. Right now I haven't got any swede in the cupboard (rutabaga in American English), which is a problem since I eat that almost every day. Before my accidental nutrition experiment I had never bought swede. I also always have beetroot on hand, whereas there was a time when I only bought it pickled in jars. Nowadays I have no interest in the processed form, there was nothing wrong with it pickled, but my preference is to have a fresh bunch of beetroot, give it a scrub and get it in the pot for lush, succulent flavour.

All of these vegetables have phytochemicals in them, which I never really appreciated. But I did have pale, pimply skin then, whereas now I have skin that never gets the slightest blemish and has a glow to it, as if I have caught the sun. I have gone from feeling mildly ashamed of my body to being a bit vain, which is far better. I eat all that I want without any feelings of remorse such as those I might feel after demolishing a large chocolate bar or big bag of crisps (potato chips).

For me there is no such thing as too much fruit. Notionally in the UK you are supposed to eat 'five a day', as in portions of fruit or veg. I am on something way upwards of that because almost everything I eat is in the 'five a day' category. This is to the detriment of perfectly healthy foods such as pasta and rice, I just don't have room on my plate for such things.

Animal products became a bit of a chore and I found that I didn't really need them. So all of that went too. I found out that all the nutrients, micro or macro are far more abundant in vegetables and other plants. I thought I needed animal products for protein but I eat so many pulses, legumes, beans and whatnot that I am probably getting way too much protein just from my favourite plants.

I ended up not needing a fridge or a freezer. Both are turned off at the wall with no conceivable need to turn them on. All the vegetables have phytochemicals in them that keeps them good at room temperature, plus they aren't refrigerated in the supermarket.

I get a few plastic bags and a few tins, with a few glass jars for herbs and nut butters. I use a bread machine so there are a few paper bags from flour. Most of my waste is vegetable trimmings or fruit peelings, all of which can go back in the ground. I reuse the plastic bags that potatoes come in for my waste, so, rather than drag out a huge, smelly black bag of rubbish, I just have a football sized bag of vegetable matter to take out. I don't have a bin as such, just a small re-used bag on the counter top that I take out every couple of days. The small box of recycling will take about a month to have enough worth taking out. I should say that I am not even trying to reduce my waste, it is just a happy bonus that I have cut that down by at least ninety percent.

I have had one or two bad apples, but, apart from that, I have no food waste. Gone are the days of wholesale fridge clearances, taking out rotting things. This is curious because I do not use a fridge or freezer, yet my food is unbelievably fresh with nothing going to waste. Again, there is nothing deliberate about this.

I also question the convenience of convenience food. At the supermarket I only have to go in and out to pick a few vegetables and a bag of fruit. I have no shopping list, as, if I forget potatoes then I just make do with sweet potatoes, nothing is that crucial, I can just buy what is new season, on offer or what I fancy. I keep all of my receipts because I just happened to keep my first receipt from the 'experiment'. Coffee went at an early stage and I reckon that my entire food and beverages bill is far less than what I used to spend on coffee. Electricity and heating bills are down too.

I do not see myself as deprived of any processed food goodness and I don't see chocolates or even coffee as desirable. I want those phytochemicals in vegetables and only see downsides in junk. The whole digestive tract changes considerably from tastebuds to bacteria in the gut so I am not eating fruit out of an obligation to eat 'five a day' but out of genuine desire. I get genuine pleasure, as in a high, from eating really tasty food. With the processed food I had not been getting such sensations for a long time, just that feeling of loathing that you get from doing stupid things like gambling (where you lose all your money, I am not a gambler, but I have put money in a slot machine before).

There is also the small matter of 'the streak'. The pandemic set me on this journey, in a roundabout way. Before then I always put deadlines and others first, so nutrition was always something that 'was not me'. But nowadays, as I see it, a whole food, plant based diet, moderate exercise, maintaining an optimal weight and no alcohol is the way to go. I have never felt better and, touch wood, I never have days of sickness. This is my 'streak' and a desire not to break it is a motivator. That fateful day in the supermarket putting the junk back on the shelves to back up to the vegetable aisle was purely a whim, but I have not looked back. I just wish I had that thought twenty years earlier.

I did ask Google where animals get vitamin B12 from, which is bacteria or supplements. In the UK we have a yeast extract product fortified with vitamin B12 and that is the only processed food I buy. That and iodised salt covers me for what can't be obtained from plants. I do have some vitamin D supplements that I dabble with, but that is about as 'health nut' as it gets. I am not eating kale with quinoa and chia seeds blended into a smoothie with side portions of blueberries, just standard greengrocer stuff.

My point is to not sweat the small stuff. We only have so much decision making bandwidth and back to basics nutrition comes with consequences. I don't have to fear my teeth falling out or excuse myself from a meeting because of strange bowel movements, worry about forever chemicals or worry about the ethical minefield of animal welfare. It is easy to over-complicate our lives. Simplicity requires a very different skill, but a skill my grandma had all along.

[aziaziazi]

Not sure for all the PFAS but Teflon (PTFE) is often added in “winter lube”.

The "summer lube" have better performance, but they wash after some rain.

Winter lubes tends to be slightly heavier (depends on brands), got additifs (PTFE and so) and last longuer under the rain but get eventually washed anyway. The performance is a bit worse but common mortals shouldn’t feel the difference.

Most bikes I repair in the workshop craves for oil (poor performance) OR got way to much (sand stick in it and wear your chain).

A best practice is to put 1 drop in every barrel (round stuff between two links) or 2, on the inner side of the chain only. That’s it. When the chain turns black the oil is dirty. Clean it (or swipe with a cloth, not great but way better than not cleaning at all) and apply new oil.

Also:

- belts are great, clean, silent and long lasting. But they require a frame with them in mind

- avoid lube sprays!!! Or use supercarrefully with protections and so. People tends to (without wanting to) lube other parts that doesn’t need it: frame, derailleur, gears and wheel in the best case. Tire, brake rims and disk in the worst case (this is very bad). Lube bootles are cleaner, cheaper, smaller, last longer, fast (10 sec once you used to it) and easy to apply.

I ride ~120km/week in dirty-oily Paris and swipe+oil my chain every two month on summer and one month in winter (probably slightly not enough). I use summer oil only because don’t want drop more PTFE on the road.

Edit: how to know if your chain needs oil: it should look slightly shiny but not greasy, oily or dirty or matte.

[colordrops]

Same with some granite countertop sealer I bought in a spray bottle. Had to dig online for a while before I could figure out what it's made of, which is almost pure PFAS. Crazy considering we prepare foods near it.

[amluto]

A bunch of the lubricants that are FDA approved for incidental food contact contain PTFE. It’s unclear how harmful the teeny tiny particles of PTFE are.

[more_corn]

They bioaccumulate because the “forever” part means they don’t break down. The reason they’ve been banned in food wrappers is that they accumulate to levels that become toxic. We should avoid them every way we can.

[amluto]

This is an oversimplification. Quartz doesn’t break down either, and yet people don’t worry about bioaccumulating sand when they go to the beach.

[red-iron-pine]

you don't absorb quartz through your skin and is inert if it gets into your stomach. small particles won't hurt your guts and will get pooped out; ingesting dirt is something that is not uncommon with animals, including people.

[kyleee]

Wild, thanks for sharing. Any brands or other details you uncovered? I’d bet that most/all common products for countertop sealing may be implicated?

[colordrops]

Granite Gold Sealer

I wasn't able to find the exact chemical, but the ingredients list from their website lists: "Fluorinated Polymer" which is another word for PFAS.

https://granitegoldse1.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/...

[kyleee]

I bet Matt Mullenweg really dislikes this - PFAS and WP Engine combined

[mtreis86]

Try Boeshield instead, it's wax suspended in solvent.

[l1tany11]

There are much newer products than boeshield which have a lot higher wax content, preform a lot better, and don’t have the nasty stuff in them like naphtha.

Silca ss drip, ufo drip, flower power wax are all drip on lubes that all test better than boeshield (last longer, less chain wear, etc).

Boeshield is only 2.5% wax.

[Centigonal]

FWIW: TriFlow contains PTFE, which is an exceptionally inert PFAS. the process of manufacturing it involves some nasty PFAS chemicals which are then dumped into the environment, though.

[teaearlgraycold]

Do you know if Rock "N" Roll has PFAS in it? I don't see anything mentioned online.

[giraffe_lady]

I looked into it a couple years ago and can't find anything. I believe it does though.

It doesn't have the consistency (or price) of a ceramic and it's not an oil or wax. It's something suspended in a volatile liquid. If you spill some it evaporates quickly and you can inspect the residue which is the actual lubricant. I don't know what else it would be but PTFE or PFAS.