This article is not specifically about LC, but it does seem to implicate everyday products we use as potentially having a role in developing metabolic problems with children most impacted:





Full article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...hthalates-study

I was born in '53, and very little was packaged in any kind of plastic when I was growing up.

I remember Prell shampoo bottles were made from a thick glass. I remember having a little jar of skin cream, Pond's maybe? Anyhow, the jar was made from white glass.

Toothpaste was always in metal tubes. Same with Clearasil when I was a teenager.

So I'm trying to recall when the switch to almost everything being packaged in plastic started.

Baby bottles had always been made from glass - in fact when they sent a "sample pack" of formula home with my first-born in 82 (they insisted even though I was breastfeeding), the tiny bottles they included were glass. But I know that women who bottle fed their babies at that point were mostly using plastic - the disposable plastic bag that fit in a bottle shaped plastic tube were available at that point.

I recall when we'd blanch and freeze peas and beans in the summer while growing up, we packaged the veggies in some kind of waxy thin cardboard boxes, although by the time I was a young teen, mom had acquired some pint and quart sized plastic boxes that could be reused. Eventually, she started freezing veggies in plastic bags.

Store bought bread used to always be packaged in cellophane - then they switched to plastic bags.

Meats were wrapped in butcher paper (or in our case since we had our own cattle, the meat was wrapped in freezer paper, which back then was mostly coated with wax instead of plastic). Now almost all meats are packaged in plastic.

But then practically everything is packaged in plastic now - fruits and veggies, (occasionally I find something that's packaged in cellophane), but even food packaging that appears to be thin cardboard, that cardboard is more often that not coated with a plastic to help protect it from moisture.

The switch over to everything being sold in plastic, or stored in plastic didn't happen overnight.

It would be interesting to compare the timeline of childhood obesity to the timeline of the switchover to plastic packaging.

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Then there's the use of phthalates in all kinds of personal care products themselves - That's another thing that would be interesting to see the timeline of when they started to use phthalates to stabilize those products and carry fragrances, since almost every lotion or cream or cosmetic on the market (unless specifically marked "fragrance free") has added fragrances.

Even if you seek out products that say they're unscented there's a difference between "unscented" and "fragrance free", because the unscented products often have a "masking fragrance" listed in the ingredients - that's added to cover up the odor of rancid ingredients, or ingredients that simply smell bad.


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My point is that it may not be just the diet these kids are eating (or that we ourselves are eating) that are making us fat. I'm pretty sure that the food itself, and the pyramid is the primary problem.

But I wonder just how susceptible the phthalates in food packaging and personal care products we use are making the general population to metabolic disorders, beginning as children.

I think the first plastic touching food I remember was in the Playtex nurser bottle my baby brother had in 1961-2. The plastic liner collapsed with the milk as babies drank so they didn't get a lot of air in their stomachs. In the 1950s my sisters & I all had glass baby bottles and cloth diapers.

Likewise, it was the same with disposable diapers.



I was more concerned about the ingredients in the bottles years ago, but the plastic everywhere is also a concern.

I don't use sunscreen, but hats. My lotion is from a woman who makes it herself, with actual flower essences. One buy lasts a long time. My soaps and haircare are all the same thing: we get the Dr. "Bronner's 18-in-1 Uses, Pure-Castile Hemp" at the health food store. Diluted, it's a body wash and shampoo and shaving soap in the shower and hand soap at the sinks. Dilute vinegar rinse for conditioner.

My hair is so soft, flake and itch free. My skin is happy. It has always been sensitive, and what was amazing is how, even in a mountain winter, I no longer have dry skin. Maybe that's why my lotion lasts so long This approach is certainly a budget saver, too.

But I can only think of what I routinely buy that I get in glass jars: pickles, kombucha, and jam. The occasional jar of shredded horseradish. Everything else is plastic.

I remember mustard in glass jars. Now, it's only the boutique brands who do that.