this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 139 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

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 ~~jelly~~ syrup, 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 lead ~~itself~~ acetate is slightly sweet.

What's a little harmless poison in your condiments, after all?

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 60 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] RustyShackleford@literature.cafe 21 points 2 months ago

Details and extra information like this are why I come to these topics.

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[–] PierreKanazawa@fedia.io 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

TIL Romans knew leads are bad ...

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 48 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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
[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That's honestly just kind of sad. Knowing the problem but ignoring it for the convenience afforded. Human nature at its finest.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 19 points 2 months ago

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.

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[–] BastingChemina 5 points 2 months ago

They were also using asbestos and knew it was causing respiratory issues.

They had cloths made of asbestos that they were cleaning by throwing them in a fire. However they knew that slaves in asbestos mine were getting sick because of it

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

'Defrutum' is exactly what I would name an alcoholic fruit syrup if I was a drunk Roman.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

I would have gone with “IV Loco”

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 69 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mxcory@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 2 months ago

Luckily that is beginning to change. But it is crazy that it has taken so long to do.

There seems to be two octane ratings that now have an unleaded replacement. (I don't know how many there actually are in use.)

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] superkret@feddit.org 66 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

If it does get scratched you can use sandpaper to turn it into a normal pan.

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[–] Korrok@lemmy.blahaj.zone 57 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Me using my scratched teflon pans.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

That's every "non-stick" pan after 1-2 months of daily use.

All non-stick, "scratch resistant" pans are a marketing gimmick designed to have the average consumer-moron buy 30 pans in their lifetime, than simply learn how to season pans properly and hand 2 or 3 Iron/steel pans down their family lineage for generations, across hundreds of years.

[–] Ibaudia@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Ceramic ones are a bit better but for the most part this is correct. There really isn't a clear reason not to cook with steel or iron, they tend to be the best options for 99.9% of applications. Only thing that I can think of is cooking eggs at a lower temp, but iron does that fine if the seasoning is really good.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

My scanpan has been in use for at least 6 years unscratched

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't even know what my pans are.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

😏 be like me and use a cast iron skillet that weighs a ton, never is slick like you see on the internet, and is a removed (really Lemmy? Auto censor?? FFS) to clean

In all seriousness, I just made scrambled eggs on the ol' beast and they turned out decent. Far from non stick but it's non cancer at least.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

(really Lemmy? Auto censor?? FFS)

That's your instance, ml is a turd like that.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I have no clue how Lemmy works. I made an account and just assumed that was that.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Each 'instance' has slightly different rules that apply. Mostly it doesn't affect users, as you can interact with other instances just fine.

Lemmy.ml censors a number of common curses and is run by Uyghur genocide deniers.

[–] MerchantsOfMisery@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well that's unfortunate. What are more ideal instances of Lemmy? Thanks for the explanation, by the way.

[–] Klaymore@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago

I'm on sh.itjust.works and haven't heard of any issues with it, it's been working pretty well.

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[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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).

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

AESTHETIC reasons?? girl lead poisoning isn't worth a pretty pot.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Everyone makes fun of California's prop 65 warnings, but this is exactly the situation they exist for: knowing which colorful plate sets to avoid at Crate & Barrel.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The problem is it doesn't have a minimum quantify before reporting is required, so 1 pay per trillion of any of 10,000 different substances triggers the warning, so there isn't anything that doesn't require the warning.

The standard essentially requires an unachievable level purity along every step of the manufacturing and distribution process in order to NOT have the label.

The result is over-labeling, which results in products that we should actually be concerned about sneaking into our homes because we ignore warning labels.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Ok but can we make fun of the fact that they aren’t required to specify which material? Like let me decide if it carcinogenic enough

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago

Except the law was really poorly worded with no downside for false reporting. As a result literally everything has the label on it, up to and including a generic message at the front doors of the store telling you that going in the building will cause cancer and reproductive harm.

[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

But it doesn't work when every manufacturer puts those stickers on literally everything just in case.

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[–] portuga@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wait you guys don’t cook with asbestos?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Would that be bad? I though it was only a problem when it is air born.

[–] portuga@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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

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