[eestrada]

The most disturbing is "Raw Cow Milk from Farm in Glass". It still is loaded with plastic, even though it is one of the least processed things on the list.

My only question is was the cow milked by hand or by machine? The tubing in a milking machine almost certainly contains plastic.

https://www.plasticlist.org/product/29

[9rx]

> even though it is one of the least processed things on the list.

It is in a glass bottle, so maybe not the greatest example: https://www.sciencealert.com/glass-bottles-actually-contain-...

Straight from the cow would be far more interesting with respect to what you are bringing up, albeit beyond the scope of the broader discussion.

[giantg2]

Many livestock feeds have some level of plastic in them.

[kylebenzle]

I visited the largest pig farm in Ohio and they grind up bags of old dog food, plastic bags and everything. Literally pallets full of expired food, just dumped into the grinder. Then they spread the waste and sell it as organic fertilizer, plastic is now everything.

[dehrmann]

Hay is often bound up into bales with plastic twine. Cattle happily eat bits on accident. They used to use wire, but that caused a much more serious problem for the cattle.

[CalRobert]

Silage uses insane amounts of plastic wrap and then is left in direct sunlight to decay

[giantg2]

They used to use natural twines like jute, which was better. They really don't eat much of the plastic stuff. The larger pieces of it do kill them (choking, cholic, etc).

[kylebenzle]

Now we will wrap the bales in 5 to 10 lb of plastic each, so they last longer!

[cyberax]

Milk is really great at extracting plasticizers from plastic. It contains natural fats and emulsifiers, after all.

I'd expect that it can pull all kinds of chemicals from the milking equipment.

[purple_ferret]

No chance any commercially available milk is getting hand milked.

[xnx]

Fortunately, raw cow milk is unnecessary for humans (good for baby cows though!) and easy to avoid.

[eestrada]

I bring up raw milk because it is minimally processed (I don't even consume it personally). I used it as an example because it shows how much plastic is embedded in the food chain and ecosystem by looking at one of the least processed items on the list.