For anyone not familiar with what makes Shakedry so revolutionary is its ability to be waterproof, highly breathable, and incredibly lightweight. Its weight and breathability make it incredible for active sports like cycling or running. These jackets weigh around 100-150g depending on features and size and can pack into the pocket of a cycling Jersey, all while being waterproof and preventing the athlete from overheating.
> waterproof, highly breathable, and incredibly lightweight
This is basically the way most outdoors products have been marketed since the previous century so I’m not sure how much we’re actually talking about here. What I was hoping to see in that article was something more quantitative — does “heavy and doesn't breathe as well” mean something is 20% heavier or 200%, etc.?
It's night and day different with other waterproof tech. Goretex publishes all the specs you want like hydrostatic head rating (how many mm of water pressure it can withstand), breathability, etc. Shakedry was better and lighter than anything else we've ever seen. The only con against it is that in high abrasion situations (like shoulder areas of jackets when wearing a heavy backpack) it can wear out. People in the outdoor and especially ultralight world loved shakedry.
Interesting. I have a fair amount of older ultralight stuff and while it definitely did the job I certainly felt that there was a sharp knuckle in the price curve where the extra cost wasn’t worth it.
Durability is a big factor now though since I’m primarily bike commuting where it’s about daily use & weight is less important.
>>> Durability is a big factor now though since I’m primarily bike commuting where it’s about daily use & weight is less important.
Nothing's more annoying than an expensive rain jacket or pants soaking through after a couple years of sporadic use. The crotch and knees of rain pants always wear out from the inside. Sunlight probably damages materials from the outside.
More and more I've learned to live without that gear, or to use it sparingly, by timing my trips and wearing fast-drying clothing. But sometimes it's just necessary.
Yeap – and the price differential usually means you can buy like 5 pairs of Costco/L.L. Bean-grade stuff which takes the sting out of losing or damaging something, or simply leaving spares at work in case you forget to check the weather.
Also, honesty compels me to note that if I wanted to shave weight off of my riding load out it’s a lot cheaper to start at the waistline.
> Also, honesty compels me to note that if I wanted to shave weight off of my riding load out it’s a lot cheaper to start at the waistline.
This is a total tangent but I recently added an electric mid-drive motor to my mountain bike and with the motor and the battery I was already adding a lot of weight, and now I have a rear rack and panniers and I use it to toot around the city and get groceries and stuff. Its just funny I am going the opposite direction, making my bike heavier while also making it less likely I will lose weight. Sure is fun though with 1500 watts at my disposal!
Oh, can I ever relate. I bought a cargo bike back in 2018 when construction on our subway line meant I was looking at a much longer commute to daycare with my son. I opted for an e-bike since it was going to be ~15 miles carrying all of the gear a kid needs.
It's been transformative since it basically removes most excuses for shopping, recreation, etc. — we put more miles on the e-bikes now than our car — and we often laugh at the way your mindset changes. I currently have a heavy duty chain lock which weighs more than my lightest road-bike weighed unloaded, have been known to dig into the panniers and find multiple changes of clothes and toys for the boy, etc. What's really nice is durability: they make incredibly tough tires these days as long as you don't mind them weighing twice as much.
I must say that the times I've been on a real road bike have definitely left me missing that feeling — it's basically the bike version of the jokes about someone selling their convertible and buying a minivan when they have kids — but what I really want is to rent a nice road bike on vacation since the safe & fun routes where I live really don't need any extra performance (I don't want to be the spandex bro slaloming around kids at 30+ MPH on the shared trails).
That sounds great! Yeah I’m fortunate I have a decent Fuji road bike too, and I’ve not taken it out since my recent move in to the city. But it would be nice to get some exercise and some of that sports car feeling! Absolutely love using the ebike for pleasure riding though and I agree it’s nicer to take the bike for groceries than the car!
Motorcycles are indeed super fun. Interesting to see the uptake in motorcycling from the low end of the power spectrum, vs the bikes that often have similar power outputs to an economy car.
At 1500W the human power component is ornamental really, and the vehicle becomes inappropriate for multiuse paths and bike lanes. Much closer to a moped (e.g. the 49cc Honda Ruckus), and probably faster!
I love any form of transport that isn’t a car! Love that the e-Moto or e-Moped or HighPower_eMTB segment is taking off, I’m just anticipating that we’re going to eventually see them become their own segment with different rules, regs, and facilities from bicycles.
> the vehicle becomes inappropriate for multiuse paths and bike lanes
I’m pretty much riding it in on the streets with the flow of traffic, where less power would have cars whizzing past me and would feel unsafe. If I do take it on a bike path, I slow down and don’t use the full power. It is easy to reduce the maximum power on the control interface and move at a relaxed pace. I’ve been cycling for 20 years, and I have no interest in behaving in a way which would be upsetting to other people. I know too that inappropriate behavior reflects poorly on the ebike community and could get them banned, so again I am thoughtful with my riding.
I recently learned that there's a special washing detergent and heat activated coating that you're supposed to treat Goretex with quite often. And sure enough when I did the water drops form beads again instead of soaking it. I'm curious to find out wether this will increase the lifetime significantly.
Sounds like the revolution comes from what happens when you sweat.
I read that most waterproof fabrics do a good job of keeping water out. It's what happens when you sweat that makes the difference.
If there's water on the outer layer .. the sweat staying inside (soaking you from within). This is where this fabric excels .. removing the external water layer; allowing sweat to exit.
In Florida, living between the coast and the everglades, rain is a daily occurrence. Having grown up there for 20 years, I feel that rain doesn't phase me at all.
I have questioned the averseness northerners have towards getting wet. Living in Maryland now, so many I've interacted with will just not go outside all day if there is rain. They've been raised by parents who've trained them to wait for the rain to stop, to postpone yardwork, to waste time and space fiddling with umbrellas.
Is it just a comfort thing, or is there a real advantage to waterproof/breathable clothing?
I get this — but in the Lakes district (England) or anyplace in Scotland, rain at 40F is still common yet folks are unperturbed and continue their daily outdoor activities.
It's amazing how effective a wool sweater and coat can be in those situations. They're very breathable and hydrophobic. I don't think they'd work for the pro cyclist but they're great for the layers-oriented worker.
A lot of this is because it rains so often if you didn’t get used to it you’d never do anything.
Same with golf, most golfers in UK and Ireland will have extensive rain gear, umbrellas etc to play golf otherwise they’d be limited to like 4 weeks a year.
When I lived there I had that gear too but when i lived in Texas I just didn’t play when it rained as I knew a sunny day was around the corner, year round.
Florida rains everyday in the Orlando area but only for an hour and most of th time it’s dry and sunny.
There is a world of difference if you can get into a warm place within minutes, or every now and then.
I also don’t care about rain when going shopping, or walking through the park, or for tourism. But I’ll be extra careful if I’m trekking or biking, as there’s just no option to quickly move to a resting place if I get too wet or too cold. It’s not like I’ll hop into a Starbuck in the middle of the mountain trail.
I haven't been to Florida for many years but this was my experience, when the rain drops it's like being in a shower. You keep wearing light summer clothing so you dry out quickly even if you get caught.
As others have pointed out, getting we when its 40F can quickly turn into hypothermia really fast. You can also get sweaty, then cold on a 40-50F day in a rain jacket if you're moving around a lot. Being cold and wet is no joke.
When I lived in south Florida, it would rarely rain 24/7. I now live in the PNW where it does rain 24/7 for about 9 months of the year. And it is cold.
My guess is that it's a suburban thing. People are almost always 'indoors', home or car. The standard for what's acceptable outdoor weather is high.
Visit a northern urban downtown. You will see plenty of people who pay little attention to the rain - not even rain jackets or umbrellas. They just go about their day.
Cold vs. warm rain is a huge difference. I lived in coastal California and road my bike to work all year, it could be 40F and raining, if you don't have a waterproof jacket you'll be freezing really fast. You'll be sweaty inside because they don't breathe perfectly but you won't freeze. In warm tropical rainy places you can just get wet from rain and not really worry.
This strikes me as odd. I live in Wisconsin, which is not particularly rainy, but also not a desert. I'm a cyclist, for recreation and utility. On rainy days, there are certainly fewer people out on the bike paths, but far from zero. Likewise during the winter. I see people walking past my house, and at the parks, when it's wet out.
There are also people who don't like to be outdoors under those conditions, or who think that it's brave of me to ride my bike to work at -20 F, but I remind them that people work outdoors all day in places like Alaska, and survive.
Naturally, thunderstorms get a bit more attention. Those can produce hail and tornadoes, or blow down trees, with little provocation.
I'd actually rather be out at -20F than +30F. Once things have frozen, there's no risk of being cold and wet at the same time, which is harder to dress for than just being cold.
That's the real issue in Maryland and similar latitudes. We often alternate between sub-freezing and above-freezing temperatures. Snow falls, melts, and then accumulates in large puddles. Bonus: on a particularly cold night, the puddle freezes on top, and then you fall through.
I'm not trying to win some kind of misery Olympics. But mid-temperatures can be tricky to handle in ways that aren't obvious.
i'm a northerner (chicagoland) and i loved rain, and never understood the point of umbrellas after having one as a little kid for going to school. i think there are lots of us, but rain at 35 fahrenheit drains heat faster than rain at 80 fahrenheit, so it's true we liked warm rain way way more.
If I tried to work in my yard while it’s raining it would cause too much damage that’s too much work to repair . I don’t even do yard work for a couple days after it rains. This is solely for practical reasons for me.
This is what makes ShakeDry so revolutionary. The nonsense brands have been saying about waterproof and breathable is actually real.
I’ve done 30 mile runs in the pouring rain w/ my ShakeDry jacket and come out “dry” at the end. The material never wets through. The only downside for me is that it does wear “warm” so I mostly wear it in under 45F degree weather — which coincides nicely with Portland’s rainiest weather.
My jacket was around $300 and more than worth every penny.
So your sweat is able to evaporate through the membrane leaving you dry? This is the biggest issue I’ve had with so called “breathable” membranes. (I assume you still sweat in < 45F weather because I still sweat even in freezing temperatures when running, depending on other conditions, etc)
I wear a Patagonia capilene baselayer and am often surprised by how dry everything (both myself and the baselayer) are beneath the ShakeDry jacket. There’s exceptions for sure: harder efforts, slightly warmer temperatures, times when the wrists off of my shirt “wick” water up into the body of the shirt/jacket, etc.
Overall though for cold (32-45F) and rainy weather like we get a lot in the PNW, it’s an amazing fabric.
> As a result of a class-action lawsuit and community settlement with DuPont, three epidemiologists conducted studies on the population surrounding a chemical plant that was exposed to PFOA at levels greater than in the general population. Studies have found correlation between high PFOA exposure and six health outcomes: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Are you saying that's the case for exposure to it when wearing clothing with it on?
To be clear I'm not diminishing the experience of the people who live around the plant where it was produced if that's what you're referring to, where clearly it had a terrible effect, but my understanding of that was DuPont dumped thousands of tonnes of toxic waste in the ground near the plant that went into the groundwater, which is very different from wearing the product.
The CDC's ToxFAQs page on Perfluoroalkyls [1] is one starting point, refer to the full 993-page report [2] for all the gritty details. Here's a high-level summary of the evidence on cancer risks:
> The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC 2017) concluded that PFOA is possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), and EPA (2016e, 2016f) concluded that there was suggestive evidence of the carcinogenic potential of PFOA and PFOS in humans. Increases in testicular and kidney cancer have been observed in highly exposed humans.
Less research on PFOS that aren't PFOA though, so there's room for dismissing the available evidence if you're so inclined.
I am a disinterested observer in all this but the issues seem to be in the concentrations involved in the production of the materials, not in the wearing of them.
The grandparent comment seems to imply that wearing these materials is a cancer risk but it really doesn't seem like that is the case. Am I wrong? I can't find anything that indicates it is an issue.
(I live in an old house with some asbestos-wrapped ducts, I think asbestos is bad and should not be produced anymore but I also think that the duct wrap in my house is not endangering my family.. this seems like that sort of a situation to me.)
The people wearing these things are probably not at any risk, but producing these chemicals means that they eventually end up in nature, which means in ground water, farmland, etc.
These flourinated organics don't break down in nature, they are known as 'forever chemicals'. They just stick around and get concentrated as they climb up the food chain. Like dioxins, the best way to get rid of them is burning them at sufficiently high temperatures, which apparently not all industrial incinerators reach.
I guess if enough of this stuff is pumped into the environment eventually some fungus or something will learn how to decompose it, but there will be a lot of cancer case before we get there.
As a runner myself, does being waterproof make that much of a difference? I've done pretty cold runs with various layers of under armour (or related) and while you don't stay dry, you do stay warm, and you will dry out pretty quickly if the rain stops.
Only thing I can think of would be very rainy and very windy weather but those are pretty rare in my area.
When it’s very wet, being truly waterproof and breathable makes a huge difference. It’s both much more comfortable and keeps me much warmer over the course of a 4-8 hour long run.
4-8 hour runs! I can't pretend to understand. I'd top out at ~3 hours at max marathon long run. I would love to do an ultra someday, but not sure if my knees are gonna let me. Take a few extra steps for me next time!
I remember US army like 10 years ago compared different fabrics and have found eVent was performing significantly better than Gore Tex. Does ShakeDry really better than alternative according to some realistic tests?
ShakeDry is much better than eVent in my experience running in very wet weather. eVent is fine for shoes (I’m pretty sure it’s what Altra uses in the weatherproof Lone Peaks) but for both weight and performance, ShakeDry is the better jacket material. I’ve spent way too much money on running gear over the years and ShakeDry laps the field in waterproof + breathable.
To be honest, I don’t particularly care what performs best according to research. I’m the one wearing it while running and ShakeDry is best for me.
I’ve had Neoshell shoes and they were fine as well. But never worn anything w/ that fabric or Futurelight. But from the branding that is very alpine/mountaineering focused, I’d guess that Futurelight is going to be too warm/heavy to be practical for running.
Sughoi (sp?) had Neoshell bike gear and new composites often focus on higher asp markets like mountaineering before they go into running, etc. These products are about breathable water barrier, not about warmth. They will come!
It seems like you’re saying that all monolayer products are better than all composite layers.
I would agree that optimal PTFE is a mini layer, bc it’s got such poor air perm.
However, the ‘working’ layer in futurelight and Neoshell has about 1/3 the material as PTFE and much higher void volume, making for higher flow rates. It’s worth checking out.
For those who don't know, FortNine is a YouTube channel from a Canadian motorcycle gear seller. Their producer has a physics background and makes excellent videos. Like xkcd, there's a relevant video for so many things even tangentially related to motorcycling.
> The only downside for me is that it does wear “warm” so I mostly wear it in under 45F degree weather
Yeah. For cycling, I wear short-sleeved summer jerseys under the Shakedry down into the 30s Fahrenheit. It gets pretty warm and sweaty in the high 40s but beats alternatives. (I'm up in Seattle.)
I don’t eat meat, I’ve never driven a car, I don’t fly in airplanes, I don’t have kids, and I live in a tiny apartment. How many of those are true for you?
I’ll allow myself the planet-killing indulgence of the jacket — which pales in comparison to those other steps I’ve taken.
Plus, I have a chronic illness that will already likely significantly shorten my life anyway. I’m not too worried about the health effects of a jacket that I wear 75 days a year.
If humanity up and disappeared tomorrow, most of the environmental damage from cars, overpopulation, etc. would sort itself out in a couple of hundred years.
PFAS, however, are extremely chemically stable and some of them will still be around in 1,000+ years time. They also bioaccumulate, and biomagnification occurs in predators (similar to mercury). It is a massive problem and the repercussions will be with us for a very long time.
If you don't care about your own health, fine. But don't try and take a moral stance about caring for the environment and then complain about PFAS products going away. Being slightly uncomfortable while exercising is a very small price to pay for not screwing up the planet.
Life on Earth is what's special, not us. We're just animals, nothing more.
Given that multiple species can evolve to fill the same niche, I would expect that as long as life of some kind survives on the planet another species would evolve to replace us.
That’s the problem. The product isn’t made for you. It’s made for society. And society does all the things you listed. From a society perspective, the product is bad, for the environment but also for cancer. We can’t unfortunately have a supply chain where we sell some products to people that don’t drive a car.
> We can’t unfortunately have a supply chain where we sell some products to people that don’t drive a car.
You’re dangerously close to getting it here.
Why don’t we work towards developing societies where driving a car for any truly non-essential reason is seen as one of the most selfish and anti-social things you can do? Yes, this would be a massive amount of work. Yes, it would cost a ton. Yes, people wouldn’t like it.
But then we could sell all products to people who drive cars as little as humanly possible. A huge improvement!
> I don’t eat meat, I’ve never driven a car, I don’t fly in airplanes, I don’t have kids, and I live in a tiny apartment. How many of those are true for you?
as an earth-noid I appreciate the service you're doing for us here, we need more like you; but weaponizing those points makes the endeavor feel like a big exercise in virtue signaling -- I very-much hope you chose to live your life that way for a greater reason than one-upping someone on the internet.
| Why it works for road cycling but not much else.
My guess is that road cyclists have a tendency to buy new gear on a shockingly frequent basis, so if your jacket only lasts a year it's not really a problem.
Road cyclists don't wear backpack and don't touch rocks or branches like most other outdoor activities.
Backpack + body movement will rub and wear out the naked goretex membrane quickly.
And of course, rocks and branches will cut it.
Weird, I'm a keen cyclist and very into outdoor gear, and I've never heard of it. There are now many waterproof fabrics though, it's very hard to tell one strong claim from another.
Depends what distances are You up to and in what weather. If You bike in warm weather and can simply dry off at home / in a hotel after a race, than no big deal. The cycling jersey might do just fine with some basic windbreaker against the chill.
Shakedy is however a gamechanger for anyone doing ultra distance and self supported racing. The ability to bike through a rainy night without worrying about Your upper body being wet is nothing short of amazing. And I say that as a proud owner of a not-too-old Goretex Pro mountain jacket and some older membrane jackets before that.
The tradeoff here is that it's very prone to abrasion. You can't currently use this technology for purposes like hiking because backpack straps, scraping against rocks etc would put small holes in the external membrane. Perfect for cycling though!
I'd call attention to the "Upper Midwest": Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. These are all states with severe winters and frequent snowfall, and all ban the use of studded snow tires.
> "Introducing New Gore-Tex Products with Innovative Expanded Polyethylene (ePE) Membrane for AW22" didn't exactly catch my eye. I sent an email out to Gorewear and asked about it, but there was nothing to test and it fell off my radar.
> As it turns out, that press release was a big deal. Expanded polyethylene is the future of the Gore product line.
That sounds reasonable, and by the way, today I learned we were so casually wearing Teflon clothing all the time just to be comfortable in rainy days. That's atomic.
Why is this demonization of Teflon aka PTFE? I mean yes PFOA and PFOS are pretty bad, but PTFE should be pretty safe if you don't overheat it. I mean I just purchased a non-stick cooking pan and it contained PTFE coating; should I be worried now?
I’m not telling you to cook differently or but a specific pan, but I don’t get it. I’ve had the same metal pans for about 15 years and they work as well as ever. Just about nothing sticks to them. I don’t need to worry about what might seep out of them into my air or dinner, they were extremely economical, I think they look nice, etc.
Why is there even a market for potentially harmful cookware? Was it driven by marketing or am I mistaken, and my pans aren’t any good?
> Why is there even a market for potentially harmful cookware? Was it driven by marketing or am I mistaken, and my pans aren’t any good?
Eggs. There's a reason almost all professional chefs, despite knowing more than anyone about how to season metal-based pans, use nonstick pans for eggs. (And sometimes fish.)
What am I missing out on? Something must make teflon/nonstick better than cast iron here, but I have never had any problems with eggs or fish in my heavy pans.
I can believe nonstick is X amount faster for Y different dishes. I am still easily able to cook crepes, omelettes and fried eggs perfectly with my well seasoned cast iron pans.
I'd note that nonstick pans are usually coated aluminum and so a fair amount lighter than cast iron pans. If I needed to produce a certain number of eggs per hour, that would be a big thing for me. But should society decide based on this?
It’s funny you would say that. A fried egg in one of these steel pans [1] is so much better that it is almost a different dish. The white gets a wonderful crispy texture. Pan seasoned by heat only. No oils. And it is non-stick after that.
If you're talking about carbon steel it takes a little more technique and especially more oil to use for things where you want a non-stick situation. It's not a ton of oil but there's definitely been a shift in the last couple decades and it just doesn't work with the infinitesimal amounts of fat a lot of people try to cook with now.
Where teflon nonstick is as foolproof as you can get, as long as the coating hasn't worn out things basically won't stick. It also makes cleanup very easy even for things where you don't specifically need nonstick, which is very practical for how a lot of people cook, especially people who don't particularly enjoy cooking. Can't really put carbon steel in the dishwasher either, which again people who enjoy cooking and maintain nice gear look down on, but is just a practical consideration that a lot of people weigh heavily so you can't ignore.
If you're talking about cast iron that's a different thing. A lot of overlap with teflon nonstick but some things aren't comfortable or practical in it so it's not a complete replacement.
I'm not specifically an expert on cookware or anything but I have like 20 years of professional cooking experience so not totally ignorant either.
Your pans are good, they’re actually bad for the industry because they have no death and the industry wants to sell you something “better and improved” every year.
Indeed. Over here every slightly larger supermarket has an aisle full with various Teflon cookware. Cast iron and stainless? Nowhere to be seen, you have to go to some specialty shop to find them. They last forever, so the market must be tiny compared to all the coated stuff that wears out in a few years.
If you have pet birds (or plan to get any), the vapors it releases will kill them horribly (slow death due to seizures). Humans don't absorb as much and have a lot more mass, so it's not acutely harmful unless overheated (used for searing or other high-heat processes). Even then it's not going to immediately kill you, just increase your risk of cancer significantly.
I think the issue is more in manufacturing and disposal not use. Don't overheat your pan and you are fine. The garments also used PFAS based coatings for water repellent coatings which are also bad.
Yes. i.e. 400-500F is much more likely to be harmful to health than 300F. This is why teflon pans are not a good choice for things like searing meat, where you really want the surface to be very hot. Of course, you can still do plenty of cooking at 300F.
Or just preheating oil — you can easily get a pan within that range in just a couple of minutes if you put oil on the bottom and turn the stove on high
That's correct, best used for more gentle cooking like eggs and fish that really stick and not high heat searing. Can withstand normal levels of heat but higher heat can degrade the PTFE coating and release harmful chemicals. Don't heat the pan too much with nothing in it.
Cooking in Teflon cookware been associated with liver cancer.
More generally, ingesting anything your body can’t break down doesn’t end well. It typically builds up and causes cancer. E.g. asbestos, silica lung, stomach cancer from chewing tobacco, etc.
It’s just overkill. I am not worrying too much about fluorine based plastics but I’d rather have it used sparingly for exotic use cases.
btw I’d recommend cast iron over non-stick for frying pans. Liberally used oils on heat treated pans work the same as nonstick coatings but require much less care. PTFE surfaces are more suitable for stew pans and rice cookers than pans.
I think this particular use case of PTFE makes it very prone to breaking up into small particles and ending up (quite permanently) in the environment and potentially in you. They're not very strong garments.
But this is true of most plastic fabrics, and plastic fabric is to blame for much of the microplastics in our lifestyles. Just throwing a nylon top into the dryer and you'll see all the lovely little plastic fabric particles making their way into your laundry.
Make sure you don’t scratch it, and don’t overheat it. There are studies that appear to show it might not be ideal even following that, but it’s not completely clear I think. It should be fine if you treat it correctly
I must be a weirdo.... I just wear lots of wool, and a thin windproof/rainproof jacket with armpit zips. I get sweaty but I stay warm (as long as I'm moving)
Wool + wind shield is actually pretty hard to beat.
The modern materials can be effective while being very light weight and take up little space. But I think these are much more niche concerns than most people like to acknowledge.
I think the real reason the modern materials are more popular than wool+ is that they are more profitable when marketed, and hence are heavily marketed.
The problem is most wind shields are equivalent to wearing a plastic bag. The moment you start sweating, it creates a terrible, sticky, humid environment.
For active use, you’ll often stay drier under a water-repellent treated breathable fabric that doesn’t pretend to be waterproof. With most “waterproof/breathable” fabrics, you’ll get soaked from the inside long before you get soaked from the outside.
As someone who lives in QLD Australia, I’m used to that sticky humidity I guess — the rare times I need to deal with cold and wet, wool and a wind shield jacket is fantastic for me. Very different environment than most others in this thread though I think.
Wearing a waterproof shell gets you pretty steamy. Apparently this ShakeDry fabric is actually breathable. I wear wool + shell (note, waterproof shells likely contain PFCs), but I hate how humid it gets. I’m very intrigued by ShakeDry after reading this thread.
Not going to lie, being able to fit an entire waterproof jacket in it's own pocket the size of a wallet, and slip it into some a small day pack is a pretty big win for travelling.
But generally speaking I do think we're going a bit crazy with the exotic materials in travel/active gear. It's probably just not necessary for a lot of people's use cases.
Fjällräven is a very well-established Swedish brand that makes exactly this, and even have their own brand of wax. As far as I know, none of their products have any synthetic membranes.
Here in Denmark, "Fjällräven" is a household name to the point that it can be used to refer to their small backpack model.
Their waterproofing wax is a mix of paraffin and bee wax. So if the whole point is to avoid petrochemicals or avoid animal products, this isn't a solution.
A combination of beeswax and microcrystalline wax (made from petrolatum) works the best, but beeswax alone will provide fine water repellency, just slightly less durability and ease of application.
I enjoy my Driza-Bone coat — has been going strong for about 8 years now; just re-proofed it. Oil/wax-impregnated cotton is also easily repairable, unlike fancier materials.
It is a bit on the heavy side, though. Not really good for sports/cycling/etc, I wouldn't imagine. Also gets a bit ratty/threadbare wherever it gets repeatedly creased and un-creased.
But it really does work, and is long-lasting. I had previously been buying a new raincoat every few years due to some tiny crack in the waterproof layer that can't be easily fixed.
This is what I use because I've had it forever and it's cheap. It's heavy and high maintenance though. And if you're in wet conditions for hours it'll soak up a ton of water and just get even heavier, and take forever to dry.
There's probably no perfect solution here but this definitely isn't a direct replacement, though sure it's practical for a lot of applications.
That's exactly the scenario that Shakedry was designed for.
You get the warmth from something else underneath use the very thin Shakedry shell to keep the rain and wind out. Except that with a breathable fabric you won't get (as) sweaty[1].
If you pair it with arm and leg warmers you can cover a really big temperature range, like you might encounter on a multi-day cycling tour without taking up much space or weight.
Despite the marketing you can still get a bit sweaty with Shakedry if it's hot weather.
What some of the industry has been doing is switching to shorter chain PFCs… eg C6 instead of C8 which have a shorter half-life in the environment (and presumably the body). They are toxic but less so.
As for the PFC-free DWR membranes that apparel makers have been using, I don’t know enough about them but I don’t believe them to be toxic per se.
From the article (so, the replacement is not just another equally bad chemical with an acronym that starts with "PF"):
When it comes to Gore Fabrics, it has actually telegraphed its next move, at least to an extent. Back in September, a press release went out but never got much traction. I remember it coming through my inbox at the time and the title "Introducing New Gore-Tex Products with Innovative Expanded Polyethylene (ePE) Membrane for AW22" didn't exactly catch my eye. I sent an email out to Gorewear and asked about it, but there was nothing to test and it fell off my radar.
As it turns out, that press release was a big deal. Expanded polyethylene is the future of the Gore product line. Like existing products, it's available as a three-layer fabric with a membrane-embedded between an inner and outer face fabric. It still carries the "Guaranteed To Keep You Dry" promise and it's still a microporous breathable design. What's different is that it is free of PFC [ed. Per-fluorinated compounds] and half the weight for footwear and clothing. It's currently unavailable in any cycling product, so for now, it’s a waiting game to see how it performs.
I wasn’t too clear but I kind of switched topic from the membrane to the DWR coating to give an adjacent example of how the industry has approached reducing PFCs.
ePE refers to a replacement of the ePTFE membrane (which, in a 3 layer piece, is sandwiched between the liner and outer shell). That’s not what I’m referring to.
What I’m referring to is the DWR coating on the outer shell (that keeps the membrane from “wetting out”). Traditionally it was PFCs but there are non-PFC options now
TFA mentions Gore is putting a lot of money into R&D for PFA alternatives. They may fail, not sure if that is what you meant. But they will certainly try.
no other class of materials is anywhere close to perfluorocarbons in many properties, such as low affinity for both water and hydrocarbons (and consequently fats), and ultraviolet resistance coupled with softness
additionally such levels of resistance to biodegradation are rarely found in combination with either of the previous two qualities
no other known organic compounds, out of the currently 182 million assigned cas numbers, are as thermally stable
we are not talking about the kind of research and development that a company can carry out over a commercially viable timescale; we're talking about fundamental breakthroughs in material engineering
perfluorocarbons were discovered almost a century ago, and nothing equaling or exceeding their properties in these ways has been discovered since
moreover, there are fundamental reasons to suspect that nothing ever will be; fluorine is the most electronegative element that exists or ever will exist, if we restrict ourselves to ordinary atomic matter, and there aren't any plausible room-temperature substitutes for carbon chains in this role either
so it wouldn't be surprising if the company tries to palm off inferior polyethylene substitutes as 'gore-tex' in preference to just declaring defeat, but it's not plausible that they're going to discover an equivalent or better non-perfluorocarbon alternative within the next decade or two
ok as a single layer this is the best we can do, but maybe we can combine different materials - different layers of fabris to make it work on a similar level?
I know you're being sardonic... but it will likely be another fluorine based chemistry that is hopefully more biocompatible (flush out of body easily), and not cause undue harm.
The perfluro- line of chemicals are quite amazing.. if it werent for them being completely obnoxious and stay in the body like lead.
What is it that makes fluorine added to carbon chains so much more versatile? I kind of get why carbon is so versatile, but what is that makes fluorine so special and why can't some other potentially less harmful halogen do the job?
Edit: Ah adding chlorine destroys the ozon layer, what's why.
Fluorocarbons have a low London dispersion (induced dipole) force due to the high polarization of the C-F bond. This is responsible for many of the unusual properties of fluorocarbon solvents, particularly high gas solubility and extreme hydrophobicity. It's also just inert, much moreso than chlorocarbons (which tend to be quite toxic).
My undergraduate research project at involved identifying poly-tert-butyl-methacrylate as a polymer with similar hydrophobicity (as measured by the wetting angle) to the fluorocarbons, but I don't think anything ever really came of it. It may be unfavorable for other reasons; I don't remember.
Fluorine forms the strongest bonds to carbon that are available (much stronger than a carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bond, also stronger than carbon-chlorine). It acts like an immovable stub preventing further reactions, which is great for materials like nonstick coatings, but also prevents natural breakdown in the environment.
You are getting dinged on semantics but I’m here to +1 you for Nikwax. Its major competitors, like Gear-X and whatever else all use PFCs, and do not indicate this on the label. While the entire Nikwax portfolio is PFC-free
And yea, when people put sno-seal or whatever else on their winter boots they typically call it “waterproofing” even if it’s not technically the same meaning of that word as what you would say about a rain jacket
Nikwax doesn't waterprood anything. It makes water on the surface of materials bead and not wet out so fast. The fabric needs still to be, "waterproof".
People are ripping on your for the technical difference between 99% waterproof and 100% waterproof. It really doesn't matter in practice since your body is going to sweat _and_ some of that will never, possibly leave the garment you're wearing.
Nikwax is amazing for crossing the threshold of "I'm freezing cold because I keep getting new water on my skin" and "I'm slightly damp, but warm".
Unless your tent/garment also has taped/sealed seams then it'll never be waterproof; this is why some garments are marketed as being only 'water repellant'.
I am not optimistic about the future of sustainable specialized materials.
It seems very likely that the same structures that give modern high tech materials their unique abilities are the same ones that make them so environmentally unfriendly.
I remember reading something about the trillions of chiken bones we discard annually are something of a problem. "The dose makes the poison" seems to apply to the environment as much as it does to the individual.
That doesn’t make much sense. Every atom of calcium in a chicken bone came from a field somewhere that now has to be augmented with more calcium. The easiest way to supply that calcium is to grind up the chicken bones and sprinkle them on the fields - if you go to a garden center you’ll find tons of products that list “bonemeal” as an ingredient. Since chickens require 3-5x their biomass in food and calcium in their meat is digested, there will never be enough bones to replenish the calcium used to feed them.
I find it hard to believe that the meat industry throws their bones away instead of selling them back to the fertilizer manufacturers that supply their feed vendors. Only chicken bones thrown in the landfill by consumers are lost and these are hardly a problem compared to the volume of other crap we discard.
Depends on the landfill, I guess? I would imagine that most modern landfills are lined with heavy duty plastic sheets to prevent all the toxic crap from leaching into the groundwater. What happens to that stuff? I guess some of it will biodegrade over a long period of time, and I'm sure all kinds of animals will attempt to feed on it, but the vast majority of the bulk is no longer part of the ecosystem. For better or for worse.
In my part of the world we incinerate most of our waste and turn some of the waste heat into electricity. I wonder what happens to the organic matter in that scenario. Most of it probably ends up as toxic ash which is pretty useless?
I think mining landfills is a cool idea in theory, but I've never heard of anyone doing it (the closest is processing old mining slag for more materials).
Curious what the problem is? Animals with bones have existed for hundreds of millions of years. The environment knows what to do with them. PFCs by contrast do not exist naturally in the world and they act as a toxin in the environment.
The problem is the concentration that nature has never experienced before. Alcohol is natural but in concentrations that required distilling is a poison.
Or in Norway it turned out throwing into fjords pieces of stones that are a by-product of quarry is very problematic. It releases into water copper and other metals within years poisoning plants and fish. Through natural weathering it takes thousands of years to release the same amount.
I can't speak to the actual problems from chicken bones, but scale may be part of the explanation.
We are producing something like 50 billion chickens for slaughter every year. I don't think that estimate includes laying hens or culled males, either. The scale of chicken production is bonkers relative to natural bird populations.
The most abundant wild bird species is on the order of 1.5 billion. They are sparrow-sized and that's not their annual number.
Framed animals dwarf wild mammals and wild birds by mass:
In theory, scale shouldn't be an issue. After all, you need enough farms to produce feed for those animals. It's just a matter of processing those by products into fertilizer and distributing it over the massive area that is used for crop production.
Although industrial farming could be considered an environmental problem, regardless of the chickens.
What does 'discarded' mean here? The end user discards them but that does not require that they are dumped. They can be crushed, composted, used as feedstock for some other process, etc.
trillions of kg/yr of anything will effect the environment in some way, since "the environment" is just the emergent properties of all of the things in the earth system and trillions of kg/yr of stuff is a lot of stuff. If you added (or removed) 10^12 kg of water (or literally anything else) to the planet, it would change the environment in detectable ways.
If we want to be charitable, then perhaps you’d see that my point was specifically about how the scale was important, and that averaging impact out over the entire globe was perhaps not the correct scale
Yes, but it’s less common to have completely unknown effects and from the perspective of pollution they have the desirable property of being broken down quickly when discarded or if bits flake off during normal use. That still doesn’t mean you can’t overload the ecosystem but it does mean that problems can self-correct more.
The natural/synthetic distinction is arbitrary, but you are both right.
The correct approach would be to get more granular and specify that we only want to elininate chemicals, whether natural or synthetic, that do not break down or are toxic.
If you find a natural source of PFAS ("forever chemicals") then it isn't any better.
People want to own a dream. Buy it for life, effective, durable, but also easily compostable! Very cheap, but hand made by workers paid a living wage with fair trade materials imported from pro-LQBTQIA green democracies.
Everything is permitted if its commerce. The right for a business to exist supersedes the right for a human to exist. There is no cause and effect, only commerce. The market is the only thing that exists. Markets will still exist after the end of men.
Given our ever-expanding definition of "environmentally unfriendly" and our ever-contracting definition of "sustainable", I'm actually not sure that anything actually makes the cut in the long run.
Everything "effects the environment" in some way, after all.
This is more or less the argument of various population-reduction advocates. There's simply no way, with current or foreseeable technology, to sustain 8 billion humans AND still have a planet left a few centuries later.
If we want there to be humans in the far, far future, more of us need to start going childfree NOW, and encouraging others to do so, AND working on sustainable ways to have a decent standard of living without eviscerating the Earth.
The problem being that everybody always wants to force someone else to be the one to have no children and a crappy standard of living, while they get to be one of the people selected to remain.
> It seems very likely that the same structures that give modern high tech materials their unique abilities are the same ones that make them so environmentally unfriendly.
This certainly seems plausible, but on what basis do you find it likely?
> Gore is committing to a "goal for being free of PFCs of Environmental Concern." That doesn't affect the ePTFE membrane though because, according to the brand, ePTFE "is inert, insoluble in water, extremely stable and not biodegradable. Therefore, it does not degrade to become a source of PFCs of Environmental Concern."
Gore continuation: biodegradable:degradeable ::(->) unbiodegradable:undegradeable
It's more of a case that they as a business have no way of making money without this pollutant not that the pollutant itself is not an issue.
I have worn plenty of boots with Gore-Tex reinforced regions and they most definitely break down and become frail and brittle given enough kilometers of trekking.
I'm honestly not convinced how much good Gore-Tex does in a boot. I've bought boots with Gore-Tex because I liked them for other reasons but I'm not sure they were appreciably more water resistant than those that were "waterproof." Certainly my heavy leather boots (or my winter books that have rubber or whatever on the lower part of the boot) are more resistant.
It's also a great deal less effective for footwear in my experience. However, it can be a reasonable tradeoff if you don't want to wear a heavy boot for 3-season hiking.
I recently learned that the thing that makes saranwrap cling to things is a derivative of PVC that might not be foodsafe. There's a newer formulation that uses a different chemical, but apparently doesn't work as well.
Side note: I wish HN would change Wikipedia links to desktop by default. It seems most people post the mobile version. It is a bit annoying, because when you are on mobile, a desktop version gets switched to mobile by wikipedia; but if you are on desktop, you end up with a mobile version which is not optimized for desktop reading.
I filed a ticket with Wikipedia about this exact issue years ago. I get pinged every other year when a new ticket is merged with it. Apparently, some journalist wrote an article years ago about mobile Wikipedia being a better experience on desktop, and now they refuse to do anything about it.
I've seen browser extensions which intentionally change to the mobile URL on desktop. Some people consider it the superior interface.
Ironically the whole thing should be done with CSS, not with different URLs. That's such an old concept. Shows how outdated Mediawiki is. But make sure you donate to Wikipedia today! lol
Hey now, you can do that with mediawiki if you want (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/?useskin=timeless ), for some reasons wikipedia/WMF decided they did not want to. Not mediawiki's fault.
I'm comparing the desktop and mobile links in Chrome on desktop. The mobile link is missing sidebars, some menu items are hidden behind a hamburger icon, and the margins are wider. Perhaps navigation to some other pages would be harder.
But so what? For the purposes of reading an encyclopedia article, it's perfectly readable. The mobile page is better than most desktop web pages out there.
> I only use cast iron or stainless steel and it makes me wonder why I ever bothered with non-stick before.
Because they are incredibly useful when it comes to certain kinds of food, especially eggs and fish.
I find all the "self-congratulatory" posts on the topic of non-stick pans, and demonization of people that use them, of the "thou doth protest too much" quality. Tons of renowned chefs, like Jacques Pepin, have spoken of the benefits of non-stick. There are ways to get closer to the quality of non-stick with other techniques (e.g. a meticulously cared for and seasoned cast iron pan), but it takes a lot more work and is still finicky.
I totally get it if you don't want to use a non-stick pan because of health or environmental concerns (I find there isn't much to be concerned about if you're not using too high heat on the pan), but this pretending that non-stick pans aren't super useful is silly. I'd challenge anyone to make a perfectly light and golden French omelette with, say, just butter on a non-nonstick pan (it can obviously be done, it's just way harder).
I'm a fairly poor cook and I have to say, the "make a French omelette on a cast iron" challenge is just about the easiest challenge I've ever done. Cast iron + butter is incredibly non-sticky (ditto for carbon steel, which has the same seasoning properties but is thinner). I've read online so many times that French omelettes are The Reason to use nonstick pans; I was shocked when I first tried making one on seasoned carbon steel. It just didn't stick at all. I suppose it makes sense, though: how else were French omelettes made prior to the invention of Teflon?
And my first attempt was just on a cheap pre-seasoned Lodge pan and it worked like a dream. It's not particularly finicky and didn't require meticulous labor — the seasoning is way less physically delicate than nonstick coatings.
Lodge is reasonably good and cheap for both cast iron and carbon steel — they're a bit less pretty than the higher-end stuff because they have the pebbly look of unsanded steel, but in practice it doesn't make a huge difference for cooking. Solidteknics pre-seasoned pans are amazing, but pricier, and are a nice hybrid between cast iron and carbon steel (and they're smooth, like vintage cast iron / carbon steel).
In general I would recommend buying pre-seasoned pans — the initial seasoning is the laborious part, but with pre-seasoned pans you just skip all of that. Maintaining seasoning is pretty easy, it's basically just "use the pan" and "don't put the pan in the dishwasher." If it looks like it's getting old or messed up, just wipe a tiny bit of oil on it and cook at high heat.
Personally I also think carbon steel (or Solidteknics "wrought iron") are better than cast iron — they're lighter, heat up faster and more evenly, and they're still pretty durable. But they're a bit more expensive, and they all are similarly not-sticky.
Yeah, agree on both fronts, carbon steel is wonderful.
I wanted to add, regarding cast iron, you can always sand the pan down a bit to smooth out the surface.
On of the biggest benefits to iron or steel cookwear is that you can easily remove and re-apply the non-stick coating. Lodge has the directions on their website. Just make sure you buy pans that have oven safe handles as you bake them repeatedly with a thin layer of oil to build up the seasoning.
We do crepes and eggs on some old lodge ware cast iron skillet.
Behold my l33t level 10 cookware maintenance skillz:
We got it on sale for like $20, new, but then I accidentally left outside for a few years, which created some rust spots.
I fixed it by hitting it with a stainless steel pot scrubber and dawn for about 120 seconds, then put it in the oven at 350F with some canola oil on it for about an hour.
These days, I scrub it with a nylon brush (no soap) or wipe it out with a paper towel.
I've never been able to do a decent crepe or egg in non stick, due to uneven heating.
I threw out all our nonstick stuff after I observed the coating routinely coming off into food.
The exception is for eggs, we have a dedicated pan we only use for them, and although I've just read the other comments here about how easy it is to fry an egg in other pans, I find it goes much better in nonstick. And only frying eggs + using a plastic spatula seems to pretty much eliminate any wear on the coating.
I polished up a lodge cast iron pan to get a smooth finish, seasoned it properly with grape seed oil, and cook with butter. It works so well, it feels like I'm using a non-stick pan.
Not sure why, but using a little butter instead of oil seemed to be the key.
I use butter with either my cast iron or stainless steel frying pans, and my eggs turn out better than they ever did on non-stick. I think simply using butter or olive oil makes cooking easier but also more flavorful.
I cook scrambled eggs in a stainless pan with a decent amount of butter (about 20% butter). It's actually pretty easy to clean. Soak the pan in water for five minutes and use a steel wool brush and everything comes off easily.
Many people recommend seasoning pans by overheating polyunsaturated fats; screw that it also creates a bunch of bad chemicals.
Your number one concern should be health, then taste second. Chefs' obviously have different priorities so don't care what they have to say. Most restaurants produce unhealthy food containing a lot of sugar, processed oils and sodium but that tastes good as that's what customers demand.
Cooking eggs on a stainless pain isn't particularly difficult, you just need to change your technique and use quite a bit more preheating along with more oil or butter than you traditionally would for a non-stick pan. So, it's useful in that sense, but it's not as if we wanted for pan fried eggs before non-stick existed.
Basically, yes, it's certainly possible to get non-stick properties with a well-seasoned, very well-maintained pan. But even someone like Pepin, who has more than enough knowledge and experience to keep a pan in good working order, went the route of "that's too finicky, nonstick is just easier."
Making eggs on stainless steel is definitely more difficult... I'd say it's pretty easy with cast iron or carbon steel though, which were the traditional ways to make eggs pre-nonstick pans.
The low-fat diet myth was dispelled years ago by more rigorous scientific studies. I grew up for decades thinking butter led to heart attacks but that was a criminally bad pseudoscience that people accepted as fact for almost the entire duration of my life, and it makes me angry that I got fooled for so long.
I think the evidence that low-fat diets, popularized by the now infamous food pyramid in the early 90s, were a colossally bad idea is pretty irrefutable these days.
But, in any case, yes, for decades the nutrition experts in this country recommended replacing fats with carbohydrates and that was just horrible advice that wasn't supported by the science.
I posted upstream in favor of nonstick pans, but I will say that oil and butter can be part of a perfectly healthy diet. I'm less sure about fluorocarbons
What is the difficulty with fish and eggs? I ask because I used to use eggs to deglaze my cast iron skillet. Cook something and then when I'm done cook scrambled eggs in it to soak up all the debris. As a plus side the eggs have the flavor of whatever you're cooking.
(To be clear, I'm really interested in what the issue is. This isn't meant to be asking a question as a form of sarcasm.)
There are many egg preparation methods, e.g. a French omelette or over-easy or sunny-side up, where a non-stick surface (and here I mean either a non-stick pan like Teflon or a well-seasoned traditional pan) is essential. Using scrambled eggs to deglaze an iron skillet definitely isn't one of these methods.
It's absolutely not essential for over-easy or sunny-side up (I don't know what a French omelette is). I just use butter or olive oil, and they turn out better now than they ever did without burning or sticking.
I watched your video you linked to, and all that Jacques Pepin said was that it was easier to use a non-stick pan. But he didn't say it was essential at all. He just said it was easier, which I think we can all agree upon.
> Because in the early 2000s there was a war on natural fats.
Non-stick was popular well before the early 2000s, its popularity is not due to any “war on natural fats” that occurred at that time. (And the early ’00s is late for that, anyway.)
Non-stick is (and has been for a long time) most popular for particular forms of cooking that use natural fats, whereas particular steel designs (sometimes referred to as “waterless” because of their properties in other applications) were specifically promoted (including in the early 2000s, though they were around before and remain on the market now) as eliminating the need to use fats as one would with conventional and non-stick cookware.
> in the early 2000s there was a war on natural fats. Nutritionists declared all fat bad. We now know that to not be the case.
Saturated fats were and remain to be generally thought unhealthy (if we say things like 'all' or 'always', we're almost certainly spreading misinformation; the world doesn't work that way). Other fats (polyunsaturates and monounsaturates) are believed to be healthy or neutral. There is ongoing uncertainty and debate; the degrees and nuances change; we don't get sure, hyperbolic answers.
I'm not a grammar and spelling critic, but I'm going to be a style critic here (sorry to the parent; lots of people write this way): Hyperbole commonly leads to misinformation. 'War', 'all fat', 'nutritionists declared', 'bad' etc. divert us to an emotional, adversarial contest with a strawperson enemy, rather than into the pursuit of truth, whose object is always nuanced and whose pursuit is difficult enough as it is.
"A war on all fats" is a pretty good summary of a lot of popular nutritional messaging in the '90s though. Low fat or fat free was a big selling point on lots of food packaging, even when it didn't make sense. Magazine articles about how you could cut just a bit more fat out of this or that recipe. I'm 100% in agreement that the reality is more nuanced, including that dietary fats, some more than others, can be harmful to health when consumed in excess. In other words, that it's not just the other extreme from that 90s consensus. I think the GP would agree too (the only hyperbole in their post was a statement attributed to nutritionists of the time). But the war on fat was real, and had a big presence in the culture.
No, it's pushing hyperbole. It tells the world your emotional position - you think it was a war. Let's try something more factual, that reveals the underlying issues - if we know the facts.
Low fat and fat free is still a big selling point. Look at the NYT article on the FDA's plans, for example.
The first paragraph of the introduction, in case you don't have access:
> Since medical research first established a potential link between dietary fat intake, obesity, and cardiovascular disease [1], multiple components of the public health continuum have waged war on dietary fat. That war has generally been successful, not necessarily at preventing obesity or heart disease but at convincing Americans that dietary fat is bad for us.
It doesn't read as if they're describing their own position, emotional or not. It's a characterization of the public messaging surrounding dietary fat.
Low fat and fat free is still a big selling point
Yes, that's mainly because of aforementioned public messaging.
For stainless, I've found it to be a combination of making sure there's enough heat before adding food, being OK with using a bit more fat (e.g., oil, butter) than I initially expect, using the right utensil while cooking, and deglazing as necessary.
I use stainless for acidic foods (e.g. tomato sauces) and frying eggs. I use cast iron for pancakes, meats, and other items that benefit from the pan not being a perfectly flat texture or heat retention.
If I had to have a single pan, I’d probably go high carbon steel.
The trick is get the pan hot (not smoking hot, you’ve preheated too much), then put 1-2tbsp butter or cooking oil in the pan and spread it around. It should sizzle a bit and then mostly disappear, leaving behind a nonstick coating.
> They weren’t completely wrong about fats, we just know there’s a difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats now.
We knew that in the early 2000s, too. And in the early 1990s, which is more when when the war on fats was actually happening; by the early ’00s, the diet trend had focused on low-carb diets, reversing the war on fats.
Good point. You can find research that links saturated fat to increased blood cholesterol back in the 1950s.
Perhaps it's only a reminder how much the zeitgeist may be divorced from science, or how little impact the latter actually has on the former unless it's convenient. Though that's for another discussion.
Do you know the chemical composition of your pan’s seasoning? There are a decent number of carcinogenic compounds (for example acrylamide) produced just by heating natural foods.
I don't season my frying pans at all. I hand-scrub it clean with SOS pads every time. I don't believe in seasoning the pans and just use butter or olive oil every time. I'm not a Michelin star chef, so to me it doesn't matter, but for example my kids really love my pork chops that I make on the $20 cast iron Lodge pan, so that's good enough for me!
I'd never heard of scotch pancakes, but they look like what we make in north america. I use a cast iron griddle and the swipe of a lightly oiled rag. The trick is to get the griddle to exactly the right temperature before making your pancakes, using drops of batter to make "test pancakes." The drop should be big enough to get a few bubbles; when the bubbles stop closing in on themselves, the bottom should be a perfect golden brown. It can take several minutes of fidgeting before you dial it in, but if you're cooking with cast iron, that's the whole lesson: over-temperature burns and sticks, under-temperature sticks and burns.
I grew up in the area during the worst of the dumping. It destroyed basically all of my baby teeth and created cavities in a couple of adult teeth that no dentist has ever seen before. None of us at the time understood why it was happening. I had so many teeth basically just crumble that I had steel caps on one with a spacer where another was missing. Both my parents assumed it was something I was doing/poor care when I was at the other one's house. Turns out it was the goddamn water supply.
My stepdad actually worked at the plant long enough to retire from there too. I think he had mesothelioma from asbestos, or god knows what from the plant.
I was gifted a nice Our Place pan set for Christmas which uses Ceramic nonstick [0]. Ceramic nonstick doesn’t use PFOAs or PTFEs so some people think it’s safe.
From Our Place’s FAQ [1]:
> our Always Pan uses a sol-gel non-stick coating that is made primarily from silicon dioxide which is known in the cookware industry as "ceramic non-stick." It's tested not only to the standards of a ceramic coating (meaning no heavy metals are able to pass through the coating) but also tested to the standards of a polymeric coating (which means that absolutely nothing can pass through the coating).
They seem to be refuting that things can pass through the coating, but isn’t the concern more around the coating itself leaching into the food? And the claims around impermeability of the coating go out the window once it wears down too, right?
I’d love to believe that these pans are safe. But is it just wishful thinking until more extensive testing has been done?
I'm reasonably sure non-stick ceramic pans are unsafe. They are certainly disposable, and misleadingly marketed. Also, the stuff under the coating should be cookware grade iron. It is fine if that leaches through. Why are they concerned about heavy metals leaching through? Is manufacturing leading to lead contamination or something?!?
There is an older technology that involves coating cast iron with actual ceramic. It is non-stick "enough", lasts generations and is safe. Example (high end) manufacturer:
Sadly it seems to be everywhere. It even lines the inside of microwave popcorn bags. It also lines the inside of disposable fast food containers very often. I haven't watched the movie you mentioned so I don't know if you know this stuff already.
probably neither any kind of fiction, nor any kind of movies, but least of all fictional movies, are a good source for information about scientific facts, toxicology, or risk assessment
It is a dramatization of a real story, one that happened to be testified to in congress not long before the movie came out. Please take people in good faith.
i don't think the grandparent poster is posting in bad faith, i just think they're getting their information about that real story from an intentionally unreliable source
movies lie to you on purpose to manipulate your emotions
there are lots of reliable information sources about pollution risks, like mmwr, the cochrane collaboration, msds, toxicology textbooks, wikipedia, epa assessments, and so on
there is no need to make yourself dumber by making life decisions contingent on beliefs you acquired from movies
i am not going to subject myself to hours of manipulative propaganda for which truth is not even a consideration in order to write a 'rebuttal' nobody wants to read, thus implicitly affirming all the errors that i missed or that didn't seem important enough to mention
dramatizations are works of fiction
literally everything in them is false with the occasional exception
every word, every facial expression, every event, every chemical reaction, every purchase, every article of clothing, every motivation
the exceptions where they say something objectively true are enumerable; the falsehoods are not
don't base your beliefs or life decisions on fiction
finding out what is true and making good choices are hard enough without deliberately sabotaging the process
I think it's a perfectly reasonable response to your assertion that "movies lie to you on purpose to manipulate your emotions" in order to defend the GP comment.
If that's a ridiculous question, it's only because your assertion was equally ridiculous given the context of the thread.
I have some items from Fjallraven which is made from a cotton/pollyester blend and I find it to be amazingly breathable and water resistant (when waxed).
The thing is, I own so much waterproof gear but I hardly do a great amount of anything in the actual rain, even if hiking or camping, I usually avoid wet weather, I suspect a log of people do?
I spend a lot of time in the snow but the was cotton works fine for snow.
Cotton retains water. It’s the worst possible fabric for wet weather. Many people have died from hypothermia caused by their own sweat freezing in cotton garments. It could be argued that the entire motivation for creating synthetic fabrics is to eliminate the water soaking property of cotton.
I have a jacket from that brand and you can put the greenland wax on it. This fall, when it got rainy I started applying it layer by layer to find how much you need and for vertical parts one or two is good enough. For elbows, shoulders and such, places that get really wet, at least five layers made it that being in the rain for 30 minutes is fine. This is about 1/4 of the wax bar. I hope I'm doing it right though!
Wow there's definitely a money making opportunity to hang on to and resell any goretex shakedry (single layer goretex, Columbia had a similar thing called out-dri). There's really nothing else like it that's as light weight and water proof yet breathable as it was. People paid a premium for it when it was in production. The value is going to skyrocket if it's not available new anymore.
I don’t think the material lasts long enough to have multiple users. My experience of ptfe and related chemicals is that they wash out and the material degrades over time worth wear, so they don’t stay water-repellent very long.
If they didn’t degrade quickly, they wouldn’t be such a threat to the environment.
Goretex isn't a coating though, at least with their membrane stuff like shakedry. The fibers themselves are PTFE. It doesn't wash away over time. As I understand it the environmental risk with these jackets is from the production process and PTFE use there. Once it's a membrane it's inert and stable.
Yeah you're thinking of older style goretex membrane laminants. They'd have 2 or 3 layers with a goretex membrane inside and an outer shell of non-waterproof fabric to protect the goretex. The outer shell would be treated with a PFC spray to make it water resistant and keep from soaking up and holding water (which makes the inner goretex layer not breathe).
Goretex shakedry came out a few years ago and changed things dramatically, it's just one layer of the unprotected raw goretex membrane. No need for coating with PFC and much, much lighter than the laminants. It's not as durable so there are some trade-offs but for people that can work with its limitations it is incredible waterproof tech. It's what we always wished rain gear was--light, breathable, waterproof.
I can’t reconcile that with what the OP states:
"While the Shakedry fabric has been great for its characteristics as a cycling jacket (waterproofness, breathability and lightweight), the membrane also contains PFOA [ed. Perfluorooctanoic acid] chemicals, and Gore is dedicated to being PFOA-free by 2025[…]”
Certainly seems like shakedry is being phased out because it contains a (banned) toxic chemical. What am I getting wrong?
I can’t find that in the article. Do you have a source for it?
Regular gore-Tex is still on the market and it’s also based on PTFE so I must assume it’s the special formulations in Shakedry that are now banned. I e whatever PFOA is.
The number of global PTFE producers is limited - yes, there will be knock off apparel layers, but there are less than a dozen producers of the base layer. Many of them are preparing for a post-apparel world given the new restrictions.
Historically Gore has made their membranes from ePTFE. Other companies have made their membranes from electrospun PU due to Gore's patents. My understanding is that PU is widely viewed as inferior to ePTFE for performance and durability. So if Gore plans to switch from ePTFE to PU, it's a step backwards in terms of performance. This at the same time that the industry has switched DWR coatings from C8 to C6 and soon C4, which while more environmentally friendly are significantly less effective and durable.
At some point we're going to just move away from WPB rain gear and go back to waterproof but nonbreathable gear (e.g., silnylon and silpoly) and rely on mechanical ventilation (pit zips, 2 way front zips, wrist and waist cinches) for breathability.
It really depends on the products. E.g. I'm not sure quite what PolarTec NeoShell is, but I can confirm that it's noticeably more breathable than regular Gore-Tex.
Is there any non-petrochemical tech on the horizon for this? There many natural surfaces that seem to magically shed water; it seems a shame to me that gore fabrics is replacing petro-plastic with another petro-plastic instead of going straight to a sustainable option.
Not sure if use of recycled materials is responsible, but I bought a new Patagonia R1 fleece pullover a few years ago and it was utter garbage compared to its 20-year old predecessor (technically, same model). Probably the worst-fitting item of clothing I own, and the fabric is incredibly uncomfortable. Meanwhile, chest zipper on the original has gone out, but it fits as well and is just as comfy as the day I bought it.
The design of the R1 hoody has pretty conspicuously changed as Patagonia’s customer base has shifted away from climbers and hikers and towards the fashion conscious with disposable income.
Regarding the fit, though, their sizing more generally might also have deliberately changed. I’d expect a “large” to be bigger in some places, for example, than it was twenty or thirty years ago, for the obvious reason.
omg i just noticed the exact same thing regarding Patagonia : their same models R1 and similar in current fabrics are plainly annoying, compared even to 10 years ago.
Sadly i gave some away that were of the good vintage when i moved to a hot climate. i wish i'd kept them. (and i'm sick of the hot climate...miss snow)
I have one and I can't compare it to your 20 year old model, but I wear it skiing everday in winter, maybe 140 days of the year, I have fo 3 years and so far it's fine.
Generic clothing follow up: Is there some sort of guide to materials and fabrics within a weather context? Like a diagram of a guy and you click "-20C + biking" and it dresses him up and you can see all the layers and recommendations. There has to be something out there.
It might be better to find a tailor/repair shop. I lost a favorite pair of ski pants when I sent them in for azipper replacement. Not sure if something got mixed up in the paperwork but I requested they be returned, not replaced if the repair was too expensive/difficult. The pants I got lasted many more years but the others would have too.
Unfortunately zippers are just hard to replace if the teeth get damaged. They tend to be sewn in early in the assembly process.
I love Columbia pocketable rain jackets. The website says it's made of "Omni-tech waterproof" fabric. Does anyone know what this means? A bunch of chemicals that will eventually hurt me?
There is already an XVIII century technology and WWII popularized option called millerain. But it requires some maintenance and isn’t “light” as preferred by cyclists and runners.
Mushrooms have a protein that can do so on their outer layers (hydrophobin). Worked in a biotech company that was researching it, not sure what came out of it.
For most regular activities, old fashioned things like wool coats, oiled leather, or waxed cotton work remarkably well. Waterproofing imo is only a major issue if you're having to save on weight/space (and cost, I guess). It's hard to run 10k in a wool greatcoat in the rain.
The last time I wore a heavy wool greatcoat in solid rain while walking, it stayed dry for a while, but got much heavier as it took up water, then started soaking through on the shoulders after about an hour. Admittedly it is antique and I'm guessing it has lost its original waterproofing (lanolin?).
Oiled fabrics like a traditional stockman's jacket can last a working day, but they weight a lot relatively, they need occasional re-waterproofing if used, and are not particularly cheap: https://drizabone.com.au/search?q=Oilskin
Yep - the original waterproof fabrics were oilskin, waxed cotton, and leather. They've mostly been replaced by PU coatings, though you might still go for the old school stuff for abrasion-resistance.
Wicking base layers work pretty damned well. Cyclists did that for ages. When we could finally afford polypropylene is was a godsend. Way cheaper than goretex.
It is, and you’re totally correct to point that out. Also “you know what he meant” is not a good reason to downvote you, because no, nobody knows what is meant by “chemical” if it isn’t literally “chemical”.
One could guess that they meant “synthetic chemical”, as if that was somehow meaningfully different than a “natural chemical”, but it’s not and it’s just as wrong.
In most casual English conversation, “chemical” is implied as “[man made] chemical”, though I will admit that may not be obvious to people for whom English is not a first language. It’s obvious to (almost) any native speaker what is being said, and to willfully ignore that is to be pedantic for the sake of arguing.
So which of the following count as "man made" chemicals?
Alcohol or vinegar from humans intentionally fermenting things?
A metallic aluminum alloy?
Sulfuric acid (which sometimes occurs naturally)?
Turpentine?
Soda-lime glass?
I get that it generally refers to substances that are more on the very artificial side, requiring advanced knowledge of chemistry to produce, and to have a connotation of harmfulness / toxicity. But it's not at all obvious what the speaker would consider to be a "chemical" because that varies from speaker to speaker.
Often, yes: novel compounds can have side effects which take years to understand (e.g. DDT‘a impact on bird populations lasted past the point where its effectiveness was rapidly tapering) and depending on what characteristics something was picked for you can end up with something which doesn’t biodegrade and is thus a long-term problem if it doesn’t turn out to be harmless.
The fact that these are man-made is irrelevant to their harmful effects and framing it as if it was contributes to the persistence of the natural fallacy.
The natural fallacy application doesn’t seem appropriate: the problem isn’t where they were produced but rather that they’ve never before been part of the ecosystem. We’d have the same concerns if these novel chemicals were introduced by meteors or something but that’s extremely rare whereas chemists produce a wide range of compounds every year.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. But the context is that most people operate with heuristics of the natural fallacy type. Hence this is not mere pedantry for pedantry’s sake, the intention is to provide an actually-helpful clarification/correction.
It’s a good question and in my opinion, it depends entirely on the compound.
But that wasn’t the point of my comment. I am calling out people being pedantic and nitpicky just to argue, instead of recognizing the very obvious intent of the great-grand parent’s comment and debating something with merits, like whether man made chemicals are inherently bad.
I don’t think that is what people are suggesting. Rather, man made is unknown. At least the long term affects are. We can confidently say that natural chemicals, even if they’re bad for you, likely won’t have a giant, unexpected impact on the world. Whereas there are a lot of man-made chemicals that are likely harmless. But less is know about the long term affects of injecting it in to all of earth’s various natural systems.
For many people, yes. It's also a very common belief that one and the same state of the environment is bad if traceable to human actions, but good otherwise.
The working premise in many environmental discussions is that humans carry an inherent moral taint and whatever they do creates a problem that needs to be corrected, because it came from an evil source, regardless of whether the resulting state of the world is good or bad.
I have a Carradice poncho too, love it, but I think we're just in a different market segment; it's perhaps 'all' to an every-last-gram-shaving more 'cyclesport' audience.
(I also have a couple of pairs of brandless rubber galoshes that would be unaffected. They're waterproof but I actually wear/wore (when I was cycle-commuting) them year-round - more to protect leather soles from the pedals than uppers from the rain.)
Thinking about it for a minute, I’m not sure why we need fluoropolymers for waterproof technical fabrics. Unless I’m very much mistaken, PDMS rubber, polypropylene, polyethylene, and other materials provide similar levels of water resistance, without requiring the use of fluorine-containing compounds. Most explanations I read for Gor-Tex-type materials using PTFE (e.g., [0]) reference the hydrophobicity of the material, which is (IMO) similar to explaining why cars are powered by rockets because rockets are very fast. Cars are, of course, not typically powered by rockets because it is not necessary.
PDMS rubber, polypropylene, polyethylene, and PTFE all have very high water contact angles (a measure of the strength of interaction of water and the surface) and low water uptake [1]. I work with a stretched polypropylene film (Celgard — a material that is often used as a support/spacer material in Li-ion batteries) and it’s extremely hydrophobic. I used a piece of this film to build a bubble trap ([2]), for example (bubble traps typically use PTFE membranes…). It is not optimized for water resistance, so it does wet eventually, but it’s pretty good for “not trying”. Surfaces coated with PDMS (or glass coated with short PDMS chains — i.e., silanized glass [3]) are extremely hydrophobic.
The only time I personally use PTFE (or PFA, MFA, FEP, or ETFE) is when I need materials to be resistant (including both resistance to chemical degradation as well as swelling) to strong organic solvents (like NMP, THF, etc.) or strong acids and bases (like piranha, aqua regia, or a nitrating solution). These conditions are unlikely to be encountered while cycling.
This all said, I’m not an expert on the design of Gor-Tex type materials. However, I assume it is highly related to the pore structure of the materials to prevent liquid water intrusion (the same as for membranes designed for membrane distillation). Given the similar hydrophobicity of these materials, it seems like it should be possible to produce similar results with PP, PE, etc. And this is all before introducing the ability of nanomaterials and nanopatterning (perhaps transferred with imprint lithography [4]) to produce metastable ultrahydrophobicity [5] on the surface of materials.
They're good jackets in my experience--truly waterproof and breathable like goretex, and very inexpensive. They are very very fragile though and easily rip or tear open from any sharp objects, like getting poked with a branch. As I understand it's basically like tyvek house wrap material but made into a more flexible material for clothes. Goretex stuff is more durable in my experience.
As the article says (see also this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33856967 ), that's exactly the direction they're planning to head. Given that their PE membrane isn't on the market yet, there must be some R&D issue or other, but that's life in R&D.
PTFE also repels oil. That means that the holes in the face fabric and the pores in the membrane don't get clogged up with oil from the wearer's body. Do those other polymers have that property? I honestly have no idea how significant this is compared to the hydrophobicity though.
The PTFE in GoreTex is expanded (ePTFE) and while it chemically does not bind to oil, oil can mechanically clog the pores. For decades GoreTex has had a layer of polyurethane on top of the ePTFE to prevent this.
Shakedrys don't use DWRs, and not all DWRs use PFCs. "Wetted out jacket" also isn't a thing that happens to shakedry apparel. By all means, criticize use of PFCs for environmental reasons, but there's no need to fabricate criticisms.
Outdry extreme is exactly the same as shakedry, it's just one layer goretex (or equivalent PTFE membrane). The non-extreme versions laminate on extra fabric layers for durability--just like other more traditional 2 and 3 layer goretex gear. Outdry is the same as goretex just not licensed from the company.
Given that many cyclists also have deep climate anxieties and conservative (with a small'c') attitudes it sounds as though 1970's era pvc coated nylon and cotton will make a resurgence
Whilst PVC is most frequently made from salt and oil, in some regions of the world PVC is made without using oil feedstock at all (substituting oil-derived hydrocarbon with bio-derived hydrocarbon feedstock). PVC is therefore far less oil-dependent than other thermoplastics.
I wish that we'd come up with a replacement that's just as good first, and only then phase out the original. As an example of the right way to do things, consider that nobody banned leaded avgas before the FAA found and approved a safe unleaded formulation.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make with that. I don’t know this stuff but I know how too look it up on Wikipedia, and it looks to me like it was phased out because regulators threatened a ban:
“In November 2008, National Air Transportation Association president Jim Coyne indicated that the environmental impact of aviation is expected to be a big issue over the next few years and will result in the phasing out of 100LL because of its lead content.[45]
By May 2012, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA Unleaded Avgas Transition rulemaking committee) had put together a plan in conjunction with industry to replace leaded avgas with an unleaded alternative within 11 years.”
Because the regulators weren’t stupid. They knew an overnight ban would ground flights (impacting jobs, economy in remote areas etc) so they gave the industry some leeway.
I can only assume that current regulators don’t have an incentive to wait when it comes to this problem. Perhaps they think not too many job are impacted, and no remote village will go without their mail service, etc?
Personally I don’t have a problem with some middle-and-upper class cyclists having to use regular Gore-Tex for their leisure activities so my kids don’t get poisoned. They’re not coming to take away your existing jacket, just continue biking like you’re used to…
The FAA had plenty of options to replace 100LL for decades but didn't have the balls to make any compromises at all. Most of the aircraft could have been trivially run on 93UL or even automotive 93 and the few that couldn't could have been trivially modified. It was politically untenable to subsidize any upgrades to the GA fleet and/or airport facilities, however, so they dicked around for an eternity and eventually someone came up with a more expensive cocktail of random other chemicals.
They can calculate the years of life lost if people excercise less due to no available substitutes, and compare it to the current expected years of life lost from the chemicals.
Considering they are called forever chemicals, I suspect the results will favor the ban.
Someone's running hobby is not as important as clean water. Neither is your omelette. I'm sure there are professional and medical uses for those clothes, but we can't just spew crap that never goes away into people who don't get a choice not to consume it.
Also didn't they have unleaded avgas for years? I thought the leaded gas was just to keep some really ancient engines running? Probably wouldn't have been that expensive to subsidize replacements if so.
It also seems like using these things in items like jackets is a lot less problematic than using them in ski waxes, which by design erode from the ski and get distributed in the environment. Jackets more or less stay in one piece.
The ski waxes use pretty small amounts, as I understand it. Anyway, they are indeed being phased out from ski waxes in many places/contexts. The FIS are phasing them out from all competitive skiing, to begin with.
