I have absolutely no in-depth scientific understanding of the topic, and tend to be wary of any sort of panic-inducing press releases and such, so have no idea of the validity of the concerns, methodologies, etc.
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Wow. Fascinating conclusion that it’s probably healthier to cook food at home, than have a diet of cheeseburgers.
Whoda thought it? Scientists, eh? Doncha just love 'em.
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What surprised me in that reporting is that a source of the phthalates might be the plastic gloves that food preparers wear. Plastic wrap covering stored food as well.
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People sometime like to not think about things even though it is pretty obvious. Like smoking, should there be any surprise that inhaling burning smoke and tar is a bad idea?
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Good know. It is good to narrow down the source of phthalates and therefore draft a policy to reduce this exposure.
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Dammit. Do you think that might be why I have this persistent cough and can’t breathe as easily as I did a few years back?
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Ha ha ha. How about something even more simple than this? How about that people are surprised that routinely eating fast food make them overweight?
“They said that they weren’t aware of just how many calories they were consuming and that the companies used false advertising to say that they were healthier than they actually are. These lawsuits, as an overarching theme, also “claim that companies failed to warn consumers of the harmful contents of their food”
https://lawstreetmedia.com/issues/law-and-politics/weighing-obesity-lawsuits/
In all honesty, I think sometime we know something is bad, but we just don’t know the magnitude of the damage, so we like to convince ourselves that it isn’t that bad…it is probably ok.
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LOL. This reminds me of when the law requiring fast food places to list calorie counts on their menus came into effect. My idiot co-worker, who is quite overweight but always on some “healthy eating” kick or another, came in one day FULL of righteous indignation that her favorite “healthy” bran muffin from Starbucks contained over 500 calories and 50g of sugar!!! How could anyone possibly have known that a food consisting of 12oz of flour, sugar and butter would be so highly caloric and bad for you??? 
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I think, though, that people (er, most people) don’t actually think about the ingredients: they see “bran” and equate it with “healthy” and that’s it - no further thought required.
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I agree. In short, a lot of things make sense with full information, but without the actual information, then it is just a more fuzzy picture. I think it is valuable for scientists/engineers/nutriationists to give a sense of magnitude. For example, knowing the muffin is 500g of calories and not 400, and not 300 (A Big Mac is 563 calories) must have help your coworker to have a better perspective.
In this particular case, I agree with Ernie, it appears that the unhealthy component is not from the foods themselves, but rather from other components: "Many products contain phthalates, including take-home boxes, gloves used in handling food, food processing equipment and other items "
If so, this is something we can reduce.
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Well, except for that pesky law requiring gloves on people who prepare food…
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Well, think of it this way, maybe now the government will have more evidence to change that policy too. Maybe people will realize that gloves are not protecting people as much as they think. Honestly, I don’t ever cook with gloves at home (I doubt anyone does), and I have never gotten food poisoning from home cooking.
Actually I have cooked with gloves one, but that was really to protect my hands from the very spicy dried habanero. 
I do (rarely), but only when preparing and washing squids or certain seafood, or vegetables with colourings like beets. Or like in your case, the super hot chilis.
But some people didn’t want dry hands and when they wash dishes, they use gloves.
Off subject, but when they operate you, they wear gloves too, and directly touching your organs!
Yes, but wearing gloves for dish washing is to protect the hands. Same as me wore gloves for hot chili. The industry protocol for wearing gloves is to protect the foods. As for surgeons, believe it not, it was in my original post, but I removed it. Yes, again, in that is to protect the patients more. Though everyone benefits.
Looks like for the time being, we can only choose the less worse solution. How about the plastic made from vegetal like potato, corn etc.
