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When I was a kid, I remember my dad throwing out teflon pans once they'd chipped. He believed it caused cancer if the coating got into your food. I mostly cook

When I was a kid, I remember my dad throwing out teflon pans once they'd chipped. He believed it caused cancer if the coating got into your food. I mostly cook on iron. But these chemicals are in almost all food packaging, too. The thing is, they have been for almost 50 years. The trouble is that the damage they're doing is not noticeable on the scale of a few years, fast enough to force a change in policy, the way it was with saccharine or Thalidomide or DDT. So this may be one of those things people look back at in 2,000 years and say "this is what was in their water that brought down their civilization". But on the scale of one or two generations, it's going to be hard to prove what portion of the increase in cancers and birth defects these chemicals actually caused. I'd support a total ban, but it seems that governments are just chipping away around the edges of the problem.

bsder 4y ago
> But these chemicals are in almost all food packaging, too. Can we please just go back to paper bags, wax paper and aluminum foil, thanks? The whole reason we moved to these chemicals is that we needed to move away from the "chloro-" carbons which were ozone layer hazards precisely because they decomposed. Although, as I understand it, the vast majority of the problems come from 1) the factories that make them simply dumping the waste products into the environment and 2) all the military installations that spray this garbage as fire suppression foam and just let it run into the soil. Outlawing this stuff won't do jack if the military keeps spraying it around. And the laws were already supposed to stop the factory just dumping their crap but didn't (see: https://www.startribune.com/rare-pfas-factory-shutdown-in-belgium-costs-3m/600164617/ https://www.startribune.com/rare-pfas-factory-shutdown-in-be...).
- kube-system 4y ago
  Older packaging like paper poses less of a chemical concern than plastic packaging, but it poses more of a risk of food borne illness. Plastic have their downsides but they also are very good at keeping food safe.
  - hgomersall 4y ago
    So says the packaging industry. I'm yet to be convinced that plastic is required or even that it performs notably better than other more environmentally sustainable solutions.
  - CommanderData 4y ago
    In the short term. Long term plastics have been known causes of hormonal changes in the body and a host of issues. I'd take a slight increased risk of e.coli than generational deformaties. We've known about it for a long time, this article is from 2009: https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-men/2009/11/17/phthalates-threat-less-boy-more-girl https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-men/2009/11/1... Interestingly the science has been out there for more than a decade. But little is being done to regulate. I wonder why.
- ceph_ 4y ago
  There was an article posted recently about a lab testing paper straws and finding pfas chemicals in nearly all of them. They're used for their water resistant properties. And there was no way to tell from the packaging.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Aluminum isn't that good, either. Especially not when the contents are acidic. (Lazy first hit for aluminum health risk https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651828/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651828/ ) I'd opt for reusable glass containers in a few standardized sizes. Could also be made out of almost unbreakable stuff like it is used in all sorts of laboratories.
jabl 4y ago
> When I was a kid, I remember my dad throwing out teflon pans once they'd chipped. He believed it caused cancer if the coating got into your food. AFAIU that hasn't been proven. Teflon cookware is dangerous mostly due to the precursor chemicals used when manufacturing them (so the people most affected by this are those living downstream of the chemical plants, not the end consumers), and noxious gases released if they overheat. But why risk it; there are certainly situations where teflon is indispensable, but cookware isn't one of them. > I mostly cook on iron. Well, me too. The added advantage is that an even somewhat adequately cared for cast iron frying pan will last forever, whereas these teflon things last only a few years. There's a reason why every bigger supermarket over here as a long row of teflon cookware for sale, the market for cast iron or stainless stuff must be tiny in comparison because they last forever. > I'd support a total ban, but it seems that governments are just chipping away around the edges of the problem. The EU is working on some kind of broad PFAS regulation, to get out of the vicious cycle of the industry just replacing one banned PFAS with a new PFAS compound.
- bjelkeman-again 4y ago
  PFAS regulation coming next year (2023) for 200 compounds https://chemsec.org/eu-puts-200-pfas-out-of-business-but-thousands-remain/ https://chemsec.org/eu-puts-200-pfas-out-of-business-but-tho...
  - morsch 4y ago
    And it's only taken 20 years!

bsder 4y ago

> But these chemicals are in almost all food packaging, too. Can we please just go back to paper bags, wax paper and aluminum foil, thanks? The whole reason we moved to these chemicals is that we needed to move away from the "chloro-" carbons which were ozone layer hazards precisely because they decomposed. Although, as I understand it, the vast majority of the problems come from 1) the factories that make them simply dumping the waste products into the environment and 2) all the military installations that spray this garbage as fire suppression foam and just let it run into the soil. Outlawing this stuff won't do jack if the military keeps spraying it around. And the laws were already supposed to stop the factory just dumping their crap but didn't (see: https://www.startribune.com/rare-pfas-factory-shutdown-in-belgium-costs-3m/600164617/ https://www.startribune.com/rare-pfas-factory-shutdown-in-be...).

kube-system 4y ago
Older packaging like paper poses less of a chemical concern than plastic packaging, but it poses more of a risk of food borne illness. Plastic have their downsides but they also are very good at keeping food safe.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  So says the packaging industry. I'm yet to be convinced that plastic is required or even that it performs notably better than other more environmentally sustainable solutions.
- CommanderData 4y ago
  In the short term. Long term plastics have been known causes of hormonal changes in the body and a host of issues. I'd take a slight increased risk of e.coli than generational deformaties. We've known about it for a long time, this article is from 2009: https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-men/2009/11/17/phthalates-threat-less-boy-more-girl https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-men/2009/11/1... Interestingly the science has been out there for more than a decade. But little is being done to regulate. I wonder why.
ceph_ 4y ago
There was an article posted recently about a lab testing paper straws and finding pfas chemicals in nearly all of them. They're used for their water resistant properties. And there was no way to tell from the packaging.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Aluminum isn't that good, either. Especially not when the contents are acidic. (Lazy first hit for aluminum health risk https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651828/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651828/ ) I'd opt for reusable glass containers in a few standardized sizes. Could also be made out of almost unbreakable stuff like it is used in all sorts of laboratories.

jabl 4y ago

> When I was a kid, I remember my dad throwing out teflon pans once they'd chipped. He believed it caused cancer if the coating got into your food. AFAIU that hasn't been proven. Teflon cookware is dangerous mostly due to the precursor chemicals used when manufacturing them (so the people most affected by this are those living downstream of the chemical plants, not the end consumers), and noxious gases released if they overheat. But why risk it; there are certainly situations where teflon is indispensable, but cookware isn't one of them. > I mostly cook on iron. Well, me too. The added advantage is that an even somewhat adequately cared for cast iron frying pan will last forever, whereas these teflon things last only a few years. There's a reason why every bigger supermarket over here as a long row of teflon cookware for sale, the market for cast iron or stainless stuff must be tiny in comparison because they last forever. > I'd support a total ban, but it seems that governments are just chipping away around the edges of the problem. The EU is working on some kind of broad PFAS regulation, to get out of the vicious cycle of the industry just replacing one banned PFAS with a new PFAS compound.

bjelkeman-again 4y ago
PFAS regulation coming next year (2023) for 200 compounds https://chemsec.org/eu-puts-200-pfas-out-of-business-but-thousands-remain/ https://chemsec.org/eu-puts-200-pfas-out-of-business-but-tho...
- morsch 4y ago
  And it's only taken 20 years!