Explanation: The Romans used lead-lined cookware not in ignorance of its dangers, but wholly cognizant of them - the Romans recognized lead poisoning from various sources, and regarded lead as ‘unwholesome’ to human health.
They used lead widely in many applications that they could be forgiven for thinking were not dangerous - they understood how to prevent lead leaching in pipes, and used lead in writing tablets. Less forgivably, in cosmetics. But most dangerous of all was the use of lead pots in making ‘defrutum’ - sweet wine
jellysyrup, which wealthy Romans loved to put on everything. The thing is, the process uses lead specifically because other materials won’t do - copper and iron leave an aftertaste, while lead vessels actually make it sweeter, as leaditselfacetate is slightly sweet.What’s a little harmless poison in your condiments, after all?
The explanation is practically perfect, so focusing on two small tidbits:
Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
(It’s also easy to prepare at home. And as long as you do it in a normal cooking pot it’s completely safe. Great to use over vanilla ice cream.)
Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
Defrutum is not a jelly, it’s more like a syrup: grape juice reduced to a half of its volume, to concentrate flavours and as a preservation method. I’m almost sure that it was available for a wide range of people, not just wealthy ones.
I’ve seen it referred to by various terms and I’m not culinarily educated enough to tell the difference between any of the words. Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me! I’ll fix it in my explanation though!
It was available to a wide range of people, but it was a frequent visitor primarily to the tables of the wealthy.
Lead itself isn’t sweet; lead acetate is. There’s a bit of acetic acid even in grape juice, and as you boil it in the lead container both things react together.
I’ll correct that too.
Syrup, jelly, must; it’s all Greek to me!
The main difference is texture: a jelly is firm and lumpy enough that you can hold it with the side of a knife and spread over something else (like a toast), but you’d have a really hard time pouring jelly over something by tilting the container. In the meantime a syrup is a thick liquid, so it’s runny and you can pour it over.
Traditionally, the source of that difference in texture is a substance called pectin, found in plenty fruits. Grapes do have pectin, but once you squeezed them into juice most pectin went to waste with the pomace and skins, so even if you reduce the juice for defrutum it’ll be still a runny liquid.
Must is simply grape juice, ready to be fermented into wine, although in Latin the word mustum also sometimes pops up for young wines. Additionally, in the context of Catholic masses it’s grape juice suitable for communion.
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It was an interesting comment that added to the discussion, unlike yours , , ,
TIL Romans knew leads are bad …
Yep!
“Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome.”
- the Roman engineer Vitruvius, in De Architectura, written between 30 BCE-20 BCE
That’s honestly just kind of sad. Knowing the problem but ignoring it for the convenience afforded. Human nature at its finest.
In two thousand years,while we have grown immensely as a species, in some ways we really haven’t changed, making this meme painstakingly appropriate.
They didn’t live too long. Parasites in garum, parasites in water, epidemics, wars.
The fact that harm from lead they even noticed is remarkable, considering how many other things there were to fear. A very subtle civilization.
‘Defrutum’ is exactly what I would name an alcoholic fruit syrup if I was a drunk Roman.
I would have gone with “IV Loco”
We also put lead in gasoline knowing damn well it would come out the tail pipes and people on the streets would have to breathe it. Several decades of leaded gasoline passed until someone developed an alternative to fix engine knocks. If that had never been invented we would still be pumping lead into our streets today as a “cost of life” or more realistically, a cost of doing business.
Piston aircraft still use it. Which makes it doubly annoying when some tit in a cesna decides to circle around town at 1000’.
Not just making a noise, also cropdusting with TEL.Cars still offgas other heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel), and rhe wear from their tires also distributes heavy metals. Tractors do the same in our fields and have for decades. It’s not good. Instead of developing drones for the military, we should develop them for our food supply first.
The industrial revolution and it’s consequences
Thank you Clair Patterson!
Obligatory Veritasium link
We use Teflon-coated cookingwear even though we know it’s poison.
Yes, yes, I know, technically it’s not a problem if you don’t scratch or over-heat it. But in my experience, 99% of non-stick pans get scratched and over-heated.Technically scratches should not be an issue, since teflon is very inert and will go through your systems without affecting anything. Over-heating it will make toxic without a question and I’ll throw out any overheated cookingwear and just get new ones.
If you’re paying attention it’s not difficult to keep the temp below the temperature where teflon starts breaking down (260°C / 533 K): sunseed oil starts smoking at 230°C, butter below 200°C and heating oils to their smoke point is already something you should avoid if you care about your health.
Problem is how they make that shit. These factories have been dumping pfas into the environment for decades. And many factory workers got sick or infertile. That shit will give you cancer if have a lot of it in your bloodstream.
When you scratch it you’re making microplastics though, and they’re going right into your food.
Boy do I have something to tell you!
https://labs.waterdata.usgs.gov/visualizations/microplastics/index.html
If it does get scratched you can use sandpaper to turn it into a normal pan.
Teflon isn’t poison. The decomposition products are, but so long as you aren’t a moron and don’t leave your pan on the stove with nothing in it you’ll be fine
Also, a lot of nonstick pan coatings are incredibly shortlived and end up in your food if you continue to use a scrarched pan.
I will never use Teflon again. Even using it correctly will kill a bird in the same room. Canary in a coal mine. I won’t touch the stuff. Stainless steel or cast iron.
My uncle’s parrot he had for a really long time died because he put up some kind of new shades for his living room that off gassed something deadly to birds.
He knew about not using Teflon but not about window shades, or uv resistant plastic products off gassing being hazardous. He was devastated. Some of the shit sold to us is genuinely toxic. It’s really messed up when you think about it.
Yes, including in MDF, laminate, most finishes on wood, most plastics, most paints and perfumes. Cement and concrete. Tires. Car exhaust. And there’s a lot I’m missing.
Just a FYI, teflon products produced after the removal of PFOAs in 2013 are safe to use.
EDIT: Perhaps PTFE is also bad
PTFE is still allowed and can kill birds from the fumes.
Hmm - I’ll have to research more on that. Thanks
PTFE fumes only happen if you leave the pan on the stove with nothing in it. Normal cooking activities don’t reach a high enough temp for it to decompose
I’m just not going to risk it. That’s not a big enough margin of safety for me compared to something like cast iron.
Watch Dark Waters, the only reason PFOAs got outted was because the DuPont themselves did the reaseasch that showed if was toxic, then Robert Bilott basically dedicated his life to uncovering their coverup. The company then basically for all intents and purposes renamed PFOA so they cant be sued for selling it anymore. The F is the important part. So basically now someone would need to do a huge amount of research out of their own pocket to prove that PFTE was safe… “trust me bro” - DuPont probably
They still create microplastics.
Get carbon steel as well. Similarity to cast iron but lighter and just as cheap
Sure :) I like suggesting cast iron because it’s easy to get secondhand/refurbish
I bought a nonstick wok and my friends kept using steel wool and chipping it and I kept freaking out on them about it. I’m like STOP IT, I’d rather it be dirty than this!
They used to make fun of me freaking out about it.
I feel a bit vindicated with my freak outs now.
You should have thrown it away after the first chip. Anyone reading this, THROW AWAY your chipped Teflon!! Replace with cast iron
Cast iron is, of course, the best. But cooking in that takes more time and energy.
My family (parents etc) have mostly learned their lesson now after all the news coverage, but before that I used to resort to hiding my good non sticks whenever they were staying over. If my parents complained about the shitty old pans that were available, then I pulled out my very sticky nonstick ceramic pan that they had roughed up despite my protests. I’m never throwing that shitty ceramic pan away, it’s way too effective as a rhetorical ploy now.
Friends I still mostly don’t trust since I don’t know their kitchen habits well enough, but they’re less likely to try to help with cooking anyhow, only with dish washing and there it’s easy to hide the wrong sponges.
If your chipped nonstick is teflon, then it’s garbage now imo. I would never cook in it again, too risky imo.
And I now realize that I’ve become paranoid in my own kitchen.
Cast iron
You say this like we don’t still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they’re “safe for use” because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).
Would you be talking about plates, spoons and such, when saying, “kitchenware”?
Because I don’t see something like a wok having a heavy metal being sealed behind something else, since the surface needs to be some metal anyway and I don’t know of any transparent metals.On another note, I recently got gifted a melamine crockery set, by the company. And since this is a product that could easily be problematic if the manufacturing process were not perfect (and I don’t see the company not cheaping out), I only use the stuff for keeping peels and other waste, before throwing it out.
Wait you guys don’t cook with asbestos?
Would that be bad? I though it was only a problem when it is air born.
Yeah kinda brings some texture to the dish. Don’t see what the big deal is, specially if you sprinkle some lead and uranium 14, to counterbalance
I though it was only a problem when it is air born.
Also Uranium 14 doesn’t exist to my knowledge
Probably thinking of radioactive Carbon-14. Uranium-238 and -235 are the most common isotopes of that element. Uranium-14 would be tricky, since the negative 86 protons (electons?) would make it highly unstable, and also a different element.
Also you are correct that asbestos is dangerous when you breathe it in, but it’s banned widely because it’s brittle and very easy to get particles of it into the air through accidental damage.
Neutrons
Jimmy?
You cook with plastic pan?
Ever cooked microwave food in it’s plastic packaging?
Well you know. One is WAY worse. Like we still have not found that much proof of plastic being very bad
Lead is more dangerous to humans. Plastic is worse for the planet
That is indeed what I meant to say. Though if we want to talk about worse things we can just at both farming and climate change. THOSE are really really bad
Someone correct me if I’m remembering this incorrectly but I do remember seeing a article explaining how we have discovered that plastic has been making men infertile due to the male body collecting micro plastics in the balls to the point that if not stopped in time the plastic will start killing sperms and making the man sterile Edit I think I found the video that informed me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IoH41Qzv__0 Upon searching I’ve found a lot of the sources claiming that there is a correlation between plastic count and sperm count seems to be coming from India which is odd but yet again if you want to study people surrounded by garbage India is the place to get a large sample size but I’ve also found some sources saying that plastic is more specifically affecting hormone production https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXq1Sm95GlQ&pp=ygUYcGxhc3RpY3Mgc3RlcmlsaXppbmcgbWVu
Correlation is not causation. There is currently no definitive proof of anything. It sure as hell is not good for us. But I’ll take the plastic over the lead poisoning every day.
I’m just saying one is acutely more dangerous.
Edit: while I have not watched the entire video, she even says the studies are incredibly small. You can not say shit if you test less than 20 people. These small studies’ results may point to a larger study being interesting to do, but nothing else.
micro-plastics in the brain
The article I read said Alzheimer patients had 10x the amount of plastics in the, compared to peoples ithput Alzheimers.
Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/21/microplastics-brain-pollution-health
In the study, researchers looked at 12 brain samples from people who had died with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. These brains contained up to 10 times more plastic by weight than healthy samples.
People downvoting this comment are just mad that you’re right.
