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The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulati
by elil17 4y ago
The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulations. The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants.
You should throw away nonstick cookware from before 2013, but new nonstick cookware sold in the US does not have PFOA. I believe the EU followed suite recently.
Edit: After doing more research based on many comments here, I realized I was wrong. The brand Teflon replaced PFOA with GenX, a different fluorosurfactant that's probably worse than PFOA. From what I can tell, fluorosurfactants are more or less required to make PTFE and it seems quite likely that all fluorosurfactants are toxic. Personally I choose to use Teflon for eggs and stainless or cast iron for everything else. That feels like a decent trade off to me comparing years of life lost from liver cancer to time spent scraping scrambled eggs off of pans.
I want to add that a lot of cool startups are working on PFAS remediation. One I know of is Cyclopure, they make a Brita filter replacement that filters out PFAS (it's very expensive at the moment, though). Probably worth it if you live near a chemical plant, airport, or US military facility (airports and military bases both use PFAS fire-extinguishing foams which they typically fail to contain).
- gilrain 4y agoI assume they switched to a less studied but very similar analog, like happened with BPA? Edit: Yep, of course they did. > Another potential concern is that other PFAS are now in use. For example, hexafluoropropylene oxide (HFPO, also known as a ‘GenX’ chemical) is often used to replace PFOA in manufacturing processes, while perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS) is used as a replacement for PFOS. New PFAS also continue to be developed. These chemicals haven’t been around long enough for researchers to fully understand if they might have the same (or even different) health effects. https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/chemicals/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid-pfoa.html https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/chemicals/teflo...
- amluto 4y agoI think the end goal is to not use a similar analogue. The problematic chemicals are fluorosurfactants used in production, and they are not actually useful in the final pan. Manufacturers are working on getting rid of them: https://www.solvay.com/en/article/eliminating-pfas https://www.solvay.com/en/article/eliminating-pfas As far as I know, PTFE itself is also a “forever chemical”, but it’s an extremely inert polymer and is unlikely to be particularly dangerous as long as it doesn’t get too hot. (PFOA and PFOS are water soluble. PTFE is not.)
- gilrain 4y ago> Manufacturers are working on getting rid of them. It might be more ethical to stop selling the dangerous product until a replacement can be found, but I’m not a huge chemical manufacturer.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoMany stopped selling a generation ago, but the chemicals last longer than a generation…
- arcticbull 4y ago> ... but it’s an extremely inert polymer and is unlikely to be particularly dangerous as long as it doesn’t get too hot. You mean like on a stovetop?
- 124816 4y agoUsually beyond the range you normally cook at, but definitely achievable if you leave a pan unattended for a minute, or use it with insufficient coverage. Pet birds are extremely vulnerable, and there's plenty of stories of them dying due to nonstick cookware. I get little benefit from nonstick cookware, so for me the "canary in the kitchen" aspect was enough reason to eliminate it from the house.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alfor 4y agoWhat is replacing PFOA? Is it something already present in what we eat or is it a ’new’ molecule that living organisms have never seen before?
- californical 4y agoI am far from an expert, but there are hundreds of extremely similar but slightly modified versions of PFOA that haven’t been proven unsafe, so are still allowed, but they’re all so similar it’s hard to believe that they’ll have different affects. We’ll see though in another 30-50 years how much they’ve hurt us again! Some info & includes links to other sources: https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/pfas-chemicals-should-you-be-concerned-a2708998896/ https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/p...
- stjohnswarts 4y agoPTFE is still perfectly safe. This is a scare tactic and click bait. PFOAs have been out of vogue for a long time.
- nerdawson 4y agoWhy take the risk for a minor convenience? Get stainless steel cookware and you’ll quickly learn how to avoid sticking by controlling temperature.
- daniel-s 4y agoI know nothing about this, please explain.
- wahnfrieden 4y agonyc restauranteur frank prisinzano explains it well on his instagram highlights (a kind of mini, continuous cooking course). start with learning his crispy egg technique
- harrydehal 4y agohttps://www.instagram.com/frankprisinzano/ https://www.instagram.com/frankprisinzano/ Watched his cacio pepe. He doubled down on reminding to always use dry pasta. Not bad. Subscribed.
- wahnfrieden 4y agotry his limone if you liked that one. another expression of simplicity and straightforward principles. I don't know what he currently has up though because he deletes his videos routinely
- Panino 4y agoI cook with stainless steel, including eggs (probably the most challenging food here, IMO). For an over-easy egg, it's sufficient to simply pre-heat the skillet until butter will sizzle and quickly melt (but not brown) when added. For scrambled eggs I do the same, but also continuously rotate the eggs off/on heat. This not only cooks the eggs to a beautiful custard type texture, but also mostly if not entirely prevents sticking. Almost everything else doesn't require particular consideration on stainless steel IMO. Potatoes can be more difficult than others though. Hash browns are easy, but little stir-fried potato cubes tend to stick. With meat, generally, the food will unstick when it's sufficiently cooked, which is a handy coincidence if you ask me. I'd love to get any pointers, too.
- oblib 4y agoMy wife and I tossed out all the Teflon cookware we had about 25 years ago and replaced it with cast iron and stainless steel. We've not missed it at all.
- enraged_camel 4y agoThe thing I dislike about cast iron cookware is that it is extremely heavy. I sprained my elbow last year and couldn’t use any of my cast iron pans for three months. My mom hates them too, and avoids using them whenever she visits.
- oblib 4y agoSome of ours are pretty heavy too. We also have some stainless steel pots and pans we use a lot and they're quite a bit lighter. But I should also mention we stopped using aluminum cookware back then too.
- dd36 4y agoUse carbon steel.
- Pxtl 4y agoGod, this. I've got tennis elbow and I dread lifting heavy cookware.
- nathanvanfleet 4y agoThis is like "BPA is bad, here is a new kind of BPA..."
- rajeshp1986 4y agoThere are tons of cheap chinese cookware on amazon that probably still uses older Teflon. There is no way this can be regulated. I'll stick with iron skillet.
- pier25 4y ago> I want to add that a lot of cool startups are working on PFAS remediation Just use cast iron stuff. Done.
- bpodgursky 4y agoThis is about removing PFAS from your tap water. Using cast iron does not fix this. Reading the rest of the paragraph would have made that very clear.
- elil17 4y agoOr from ground water. Or from all the leachate once everyone throws out their Teflon pans.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pmulard 4y agoI cook eggs on cast iron without them sticking, but it requires maintenance on the seasoning. The trick is to use some butter when cooking with eggs, and they slide right off. A quick wipe with a paper towel and the pan is clean (leaving butter residue helps keep it oiled for next time). Cast iron is a pain to clean if you burn food and the burnt pieces stick, but the investment into learning how to cook with it is worth the reward imo.
- christkv 4y agoI find boiling the pan helps unstick stuff
- BenFrantzDale 4y agoAlso: chainmail scrubbers are amazing. I can’t recommend them enough.
- stjohnswarts 4y agojust don't scrub hard with them, they absolutely will remove/scratch up your seasoning. had to re-season a pan recently because my roomie doesn't understand you need to preheat cast iron to pretty hot before you cook a bunch of cheese and egg omelets in it. He felt guilty and went to town with the chain mail scrubber when you just need to gently scrub with it.
- krono 4y agoJust scrub with a bit of salt and a paper towel when it's still warm and rinse with a bit of cold water.
- aceazzameen 4y agoYep! A small amount of thick kosher salt and a paper towel is all I ever need if something sticks to a cast iron or carbon steel pan. Do it while it's still hot and it's easier. And if it's stainless steel, I boil some water with a drop of dish soap and baking soda. Whatever is stuck lifts off by itself.
- Zigurd 4y agoThe risk from burning a Teflon pan is enough reason to avoid it. I first heard about this from a person who kept rescued birds. Apparently birds are especially susceptible to toxic fumes. People overheat pans all the time. It seems crazy to not take that failure mode into account in evaluating Teflon's safety. I also do not FW fluorinated ski wax.
- sudosysgen 4y agoI personally use a temperature-control induction stovetop to make sure it can never overheat.
- nrjames 4y agoGenX contamination in the Cape Fear river (from Chemours) has been a problem for years. There's more info on this page: https://deq.nc.gov/news/key-issues/genx-investigation https://deq.nc.gov/news/key-issues/genx-investigation
- jahewson 4y ago> scraping scrambled eggs off of pans. Wait, what are you doing to your eggs to get them stuck to the pan? Welding them?
- hombre_fatal 4y ago> The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants. I was curious about bioaccumulation in plants vs meat and chanced upon a study that looks at PFXX presence in vegans vs omnivores: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1438463921001231 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S143846392... Meat, fish, and water showed the highest correlations, though eggs and fruit seemed to have lowest.
- DevX101 4y agoI appreciate you updating your comment with an informed update that contradicted your initial argument. When a consumer chemical is discovered to be harmful, there's a tendency from companies to ask their research chemists to come up with a new chemical that shares the same beneficial properties but without the baggage of the provably dangerous chemical. There's a VERY good chance that the new chemical simply hasn't been studied enough and that long term study will show comparable biological properties (harm). I personally don't trust 'BPA-free' plastics for this reason. And try as much as I can to use steel/glass containers for liquids. At this point, I'm assuming anything 'teflon-like' will have negative impact on humans, until it has been proven safe in long term studies. You don't want to be an early adopter for industrial chemicals.
- elil17 4y agoI do not trust BPA-free plastics either. I have switched from cans to tetrapaks where possible. My confusion came from some misleading industry documents I read which suggested that PFOA/PFOS/C8 had been replaced with a process that did not require fluorosurfactants. I feel like the information about these chemicals is so confusing, it's hard for a non-chemist like me to understand.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y agoWould it not be better to switch to glass? Isn't tetrapak lined with plastic too?
- elil17 4y agoGlass packaged tuna and tomatoes are very expensive compared to tetrapaks. They are lined with plastic but it doesn’t use hardening agents as I understand.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y agoIs there any technical reason why cans use BPA and Tetrapak not?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- retcore 4y ago>That feels like a decent trade off to me comparing years of life lost from liver cancer to time spent scraping scrambled eggs off of pans. Are you sure you meant that just how it reads like? I mean your life isn't something I want you trading for a while scraping your frying pan. Please forgive my impertinence, but if you're so down on your own value I can't help but stop and ask.[edit] ask if you're ok?
- julianlam 4y agoI don't what to be that hipster guy needlessly advocating for cast iron, but why don't you use that pan for eggs? I don't properly season my pan, and while my eggs don't slide off like they would on nonstick, they usually come off in one piece, albumen and all. I clean my pan with a stiff bristled brush, no soap.
- purpleblue 4y agoI use stainless steel pans, which are great. They are pretty much indestructible and not as expensive as I imagined. I think it's less than $100 for a stainless steel frying pan and I just use butter or olive oil to oil the pans and it's great. Sometimes things get burnt but an SOS pad a little elbow grease and it's back to normal.
- stjohnswarts 4y agobarkeeper's friend is your friend with stainless steel.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoI pointed this out on reddit and got downvoted all to hell lol. Thanks for taking one for the team. I love my hexclad set.
- lr4444lr 4y agoYou can do eggs in cast iron without breaking thr yolk: it just takes practice.
- js2 4y agoI use cast iron skillets for eggs, fried, omelettes, even scrambled. A well-seasoned pan at the right temp with a bit of butter or ghee and my eggs basically don’t stick. I use a silicon spatula. I won’t lie: it takes a bit more care than a Teflon pan, but I ditched my Teflon pots and pans years ago and haven’t looked back. Everything in my kitchen is cast iron, stainless, ceramic or glass.
- acchow 4y ago> to time spent scraping scrambled eggs off of pans. At the right temperature on a stainless steel pan, there’s not much scraping needed to clean it off. Just a dash of water after you take the eggs off and some light scraping with your cooking utensil
- sva_ 4y agoSo I take it, I should throw out my nonstick pans and just use my cast iron pan from now?
- m3kw9 4y agoI cook scramble eggs in cast iron and while it sticks a bit you wash it right away while it’s hot in water, takes less than a min. Given that you seasoned it and you don’t burn the egg
- smohare 4y agoIt’s exceeding easy to cook eggs on stainless steel or cast iron. If it’s a compelling reason to stick to Teflon this implies to me you’ve never bothered to spend 5 minutes learning to cook eggs on these substrates.
- caned 4y ago> Personally I choose to use Teflon for eggs and stainless or cast iron for everything else. OT, but are you trying to avoid cooking eggs with fat? Once I started making mine, over easy, with well-seasoned cast iron...I just could not go back to non-stick. Less than half a tsp of butter for two.
- _8j50 4y agoWould brita help for drinking water?
- daniel-cussen 4y agoMy attitude to Teflon is any harm to the pan is a kick in the balls to me. Because of the incredibly harmful effect on testosterone, it mimics testosterone hormone--almost identical shape, so what it does is it gets in the testosterone receptors and makes men less masculine. And it gets lodged in there. I suspect it's a driving factor in the surge of transexuality and male infertility (low sperm counts etc) because it's fucking everywhere and can impede masculinization very directly. Because the thing is, if you're going to be a man, you better be a hell of a man--then you get all the rewards--but if you're defective, not quite as resourceful, tolerant to pain, audacious, quick (testosterone increases your brain speed a bit), or like have a weaker frame, receding jaw, any one of dozens of signature flaws you get treated so much worse. So compromising masculinity--in particular what's called the brain waves, what that is is partly brain waves, which determine frequency of the brain, so you end up a bit slower, like 6 Hz instead of 7 Hz. Huge role in determining how much respect you get as a man. Second testosterone alters the brain, so more risk-seeking more pain-tolerant, and frequently, toxic masculinity ie plotting ways to take advantage of women, or more violent, or more dead-set on premeditated crime. Teflon is also bad for women, who also produce and need testosterone in their own smaller quantities, it eg helps them be toned and thin, and is insufficient to trigger eg facial hair development. And I think when they are expecting a boy, there's something going on there, their testosterone helps that boy develop properly, not sure. It's just a remarkable chemical that is great for bacon and eggs. So just super conservative with it, never put it under anything, only cook with a dedicated plastic thing, never permit anyone do anything with it. And guess what? It's just as effective--exactly as effective--as it was when I bought it, I successfully protected the surface and my masculinity with my conservative attitude toward it.
- tresqotheq 4y ago> The brand Teflon replaced PFOA with GenX, a different fluorosurfactant that's probably worse than PFOA "regrettable substitution" as they call it, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/harmful-chemicals-removed-from-products-often-replaced-with-something-as-bad-or-worse/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/harmful-c...
- ce4 4y agoI switched to enamel non-stick pans and iron pans, and for me eggs work best when cooked with lard instead of vegetable oil. Lard went somewhat out of favor but i find it better for pan cooking than oil: probably due to the higher viscosity it creates a stabler lubrication film that doesn't break down as easily as that of cooking oil. Works even with stainless steel pans. Downside: different "lard" taste and the grease is harder to wash off your hands.
- sbochins 4y agoThis comment and the subsequent edit is the usual result when looking deeply into the actual chemicals we consume and knowing whether or not they’re safe. The various ways toxins are in our food supplies and things we interact on a day to day basis is almost unavoidable at this point. Hopefully there will be a major shift at some point.
- eatbitseveryday 4y ago> scraping scrambled eggs off of pans Use a dollop of butter to cook the eggs and a lower temperature.
- abrokenpipe 4y agoYou should try ceramic coated cookware, I have found it to work great for cooking stuff like eggs.
- nikau 4y agoAnodized pans perform similar to teflon without the risk. There are copper based ones that have good heat retention/distribution.
- ranguna 4y agoThe earliest ban I could find for the use of PFOAs in the US was early 2021. For the EU was mid 2020. > I believe the EU followed suite recently. Seems the US is the one following suite in this case. I've found earlier laws in the US that companies need to report on the use, but no global ban earlier than 2021. I could be wrong though.