It seems I shouldn’t have posted this without context
TL;DW
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yes the video is (at least partially) about Teflon, hence the cynical title
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no, Teflon (or generally big Fluoropolymers) are not the problem. Ingesting them does nothing to you, because as long, chemically inert polymers they just pass through you from one end to the other
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The problem are perfluoroalkyl acids: C8 (PFOA) and later substitutes such as C6/GenX, PFOS, PFHA, PFHxS which are chemicals used to start the Teflon polymerization. They are short-chained carbon-fluorine molecules that coincidentally mimic the structure of fatty acids, thus can accumulate in our bodies without a way for our bodies to break them down.
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These chemicals leach into the environment from factories and accumulate in everything, to the point that the whole water cycle has been contaminated (yes that shit comes down everywhere with the rain)
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There is conclusive proof that PFOA exposure is linked to a number of organ damage and cancers, particularly testicular cancer and kidney cancer, with likely links to lung and pancreatic cancer not reflected in the study due to survivor bias (they died before the study was concluded)
For more information about this subject I recommend watching this documentary by independent journalism platform Zembla. That talks in detail about the company DuPont (Chemours) and PFOA. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3kzHc-eV88&pp=ygULWmVtYmxhIHBmb2E%3D
We poisoned the planet for us
We did not do anything. A very small group of people indeed knowingly and willingly poisoned the earth for a bunch of monies.
You’d think they’d be jailed for that, but here we are
I’m more inclined to think that they weren’t willing, but rather that they just didn’t work on the implications. Occam’s razor. Don’t assume evil when stupidity, or laziness, or simple plain cost cutring can explain things.
Teflon found out and yet did nothing. That is willingly.
May have started innocently but there was a point they knew and didn’t care. That is the point where execs should be getting harsh sentences from
and they keep making the shit.
fuck
“We poisoned the planet”
Fuck off! Unscrupulous greed industrialists poisoned the planet knowingly and tried to hide or minimize the fact from the public.
I’m curious where this money actually went. Like which specific people have it right now.
These persons paid a lot to have laws that exempt them from any responsibility.
Sure, of course they’re legally immune. Just curious who they are anyways.
Yay, my generations lead poisoning. Fuck capitalism
Use stainless steel and cast iron and nothing else
If you watch the video, it says there is no reason to switch, as teflon is not poisonous. The catalyst chemicals in manufacturing when released into rivers and other places is the biggest source. Then some shoddy packaging of fast foods.
PFASes are not only used for your pan.
Carbon steel, glass, clay, ceramic, aluminum, and enameled cast iron are all great too!
Also stainless steel has the potential to leach chromium into foods. Research into this is still preliminary.
For anyone who can’t be bothered to watch the entire 1 hour episode: It’s not really about frying pans.
The PFAs are everywhere by now. Butter on a pan will do jack shit to save you. It’s really fucked up. You should watch the video.
Yup your most likely sources are stuff like:
- your water supply
- any coated paper materials coming into contact with (hot) food and beverages, eg. Burger wrappers, coated paper coffee cups, microwave popcorn, pizza boxes, etc.
We didn’t poison the whole planet so our eggs wont stick. A small number of people poisoned the planet to get rich
This is the truth!
Firefighting foam used at airports. Every airport, every military base with an airstrip practices routinely with PFAS. They are still doing it.
It is everywhere. Water, soil, rain and you.
I lost a coworker to brain cancer this year that was caused by his exposure to PFAs when he was a firefighter. This shit is fucked.
I happen to live near one. The city had to shut down a well until they could install a filter.
I also have an undersink RO system, but people shouldn’t have to do that.
Got myself a set of ceramic coated pans just a few days ago. Am very happy with them. No PFAS at all and much better anti stick than my old teflon pan.
Enameled cast iron is like magic.
Worst case I let it soak for a bit and it comes out clean with just a brush in a minute.The trick is to use wooden spoons to prevent scratching. Egg sticks to the scratches and forces you to make more scratches as you attempt to scrape it off.
This puts me off it. I like to be able to use metal tools on my pans
I known, me too. But wood is basically uncookable biodegradable plastic that doesn’t give you cancer. So you use it, wash it and re-use it. It gets soaked in food and oils and stuff probably grows in its pores. But at the end of the day you don’t eat the spoon and I haven’t heard of anyone getting sick from a wooden spoon infection. but I’ve heard of millions getting cancer from “somewhere”… Pfoas.
Oh yeah wood cooking stuff is ok, my spoons are wood as I normally use a spoon with a stainless steel saucepan, then it’s a metal spatula on cast iron and I also use it over a fire pit so wood is something I would want to avoid there.
The trick is to use any cast iron, carbon steel, stainless and heat the pan then add oil before cooking. zero stick when done after heating
Doesn’t work though if I want to fry something with little or even without oil, which I do on occasion.
Yeah unfortunately. I wish we can have pans with built-in temperature sensors
I have a 12 inch stainless steel pan, i preheat it and then add oil but some amount of sticking is inevitable, especially around the edges where ever the food isn’t touching the surface of the pan, the oil burns and polymerises on the pan and it’s a pain to remove, even with barkeepers friend, that’s why I got a 10 inch ceramic hard anodized aluminum pan for cooking eggs and small quantities of foods. I just use the big pan when cooking in bulk now.
I generally use either wood or plastic when cooking with an anti stick pan (although, supposedly ceramic coating can take more of a beating than teflon).
To be fair only like 0.1% (yes I made this number up) of all Fluoropolymers end up in frying pans.
Most of it is used in industry, building, medicine…
Which is wild because if you knew how to properly use oil/butter and a cast iron pan… they won’t stick to your pan.
We literally created a world of idiots that don’t know how to do anything.
I recently switched to cast iron, and I have no fucking idea why I wasted so much time and money on nonstick over the last many years. They are better than nonstick, easier to maintain, and make food taste better as well.
you are so much smarter than everyone else
Look it’s not my fault people didn’t get an opportunity to learn these skills because they were instead sold cheap, poisonous bullshit. Why would anyone learn if they didn’t have to because there was an easier, cheaper way? It’s not really the fault of individuals who don’t know any better when society isn’t going out it’s way to teach them such skills. Hell, I didn’t learn this until I was in my early thirties, because my parents had used teflon cookware all while I was growing up.
But, please, read it more as me thinking I’m better than everyone else rather than someone who got lucky enough to learn these skills eventually who is disappointed that we were sold poison as an ‘easy’ solution.
While I agree and have switched to cast iron and stainless steel, it’s not enough. No pfas were used in the manufacturing of my cookware, plus I expect to save money by never having to replace it. However the documentary starts showing how ubiquitous the chemicals are and for how many uses. While we all absolutely need better cookware choices, it’s only a drop in the bucket of so many consumer and industrial products.
Our part includes increased awareness and better choices for many things we come into contact with every day. However it’s critical to better regulate, to hold companies accountable for the damage they’ve done, bring them to justice for impact on public health and coverups, etc …. And that’s not just unlikely but really impossible
Cast iron is generally safe but not entirely without risk. Old pans are sometimes made with lead and some newer cheap pans from sketchy sources are made with cadmium and/or lead
Generally if you get like a lodge or whatever you’re fine though. Biggest risk there is that it leeches iron into your food, which is usually beneficial unless you have some uncommon health concerns
A stainless steel pan are also generally safe but have similar issues: low quality pans and excessively scratched pans can leech nickel and chromium. 304 and 316 stainless ($$$) are more resilient against this issue. Stainless takes a bit more technique than cast iron for stuff like eggs and fish but it’s not that tricky (preheat pan, add fat/oil when hot, basically). It is also far more responsive to changing temperature (rather than retaining it) and much lighter so it’s easier to use for sautéing and such. Cast iron is superior when heat retention is needed: stews, soups, curries, roasts, etc
Ceramic coated cookware is a mess. Some did use PFAS/PFOA and still does, some ceramics have lead and cadmium, and some coatings just suck. I got one pan to experiment with that was lead/cadmium/pfoa/pfas free but the nonstick properties dulled after 2-3 months of daily use. It was not scratched or chipped; I took care to not use metal implements or wash it with abrasives. I did use high heat at times though which potentially degraded it. It was like $50 too. Researching online after I see there are “good” ones for $80, fuck spending that on a single pan.
I’ll stick with cast iron and stainless steel. Can use metal utensils, covers basically every scenario, and cheaper. To be clear, “well sourced” doesn’t mean expensive. A 10” lodge cast iron skillet is $20 online. A tramontina 12” 304 stainless frying pan is $35.
Of course if you ever eat at restaurants none of this matters as they’re generally using the cheapest aluminum and steel pans they can get that are beat to utter shit
Can’t we just have AskCulinary back? Please? Kenji…?
I’m so happy that my parents taught me to always use cast iron pans, or at least nonstick with a ceramic layer instead of PFAS
Just to be fair though: ingesting Teflon residue from the pan isn’t the problem, it’s the chemicals needed in the production process to get the Teflon onto the pan, leaching out from the factories into the environment.
It’s not the idiots fault for being uneducated and being lied to
Funny how some commenters immediately assume that you are excluding yourself from that.
Because what you say goes for so many things, it affects us all invariably. And it reaches very far into time. I mean who still knows how to make their own tools from sticks and stones.
But OP said that this is not what this video is about!
Teflon residue from the pan isn’t the problem, it’s the chemicals needed in the production process to get the Teflon onto the pan, leaching out from the factories into the environment.
The original thumbnail had a fork scraping a nomstick pan if anyone is curious
Wrong use of PTFE. There are applications… Not consumer products where PTFE is one of only a few things that can work.
Oh we did?
yeah what’s this WE business, I didn’t do ANYTHING
Recently replaced our teflon skillet with a ceramic one, Paris Hilton branded 😂
Ffs watch the video or read the post; Teflon is inert and completely safe, the issue is that to boost the speed of production they used PFAS which are very much dangerous at extremely low quantities, and yet it’s everywhere including rainwater
Edit: the post didnt have a description when you wrote your comment, still please do watch the video
Sure, but if you’re gonna replace a pan anyway, it’d still make sense to buy something else than Teflon because they’re usually manufactured irresponsibly.
It’s good to remind people that if they have a durable good that works fine, but its original manufacture was problematic, then it’s generally better to keep it as long as it’s doing its job. Even if the replacement is less problematic, it’s impossible to make anything without some kind of impact. Keeping durable goods going is better.
Important for this thread is that cast iron, at least right now, is usually made in coal fired furnaces. It’s an incredibly dirty industry. Now, if I need a pan I will tend to prefer cast iron and then use it forever. But don’t throw stuff away that’s perfectly functional.
Yea for sure.
I was mostly thinking about if you already need a replacement.
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u dumb phuk
I’ve not watched the video, but the wording/tone/language of the title stinks of sensationalism and pseudo-science.
If I were to click it, which I won’t, I imagine it’d be clickbait and/or nothing to do with eggs or pans.
EDIT: Based on feedback. I did click. The actual video title is “How one company secretly poisoned the planet” and despite sounding a bit clickbaity, it’s actually on-topic.
I guess my BS detector has been on overdrive recently.
EDIT 2: I watched the whole video and now I feel sad.
You really shouldn’t comment on the content of a video that you purposely have not watched. It comes across as smug and ignorant. Veritasium videos are well researched, and he does his best to not sensationalize. To suggest that he would promote pseudo-science is absolutely laughable.
Do better.
Well, sorry. The problem is, experience with the Internet has taught me to be wary of clicking things like “we poisoned the whole planet”.
This time it was a false positive. Added clarification to my comment.
I don’t know what the video is about but here is my opinion on what it’s about
Ffs, are you trolling?
I’ve updated the post with a short TL;DW section to address your concerns
Thanks. Also added an edit to the end of my comment clarifying that it’s legit.
It’s a veritasium video, titled how one company poisoned the world.
Still click bait but it’s youtube and they have the mighty algorithm to answer too.
Good video well produced and worth the watch
I mean, it’s clickbaty, sure. But also, it’s not wrong
I’ve not clicked and I know it’s almost certainly talking about Teflon
So very much to do with pans, and likely anything cooked in those pans (e.g. eggs)
Edit: okay it’s PFAS in general, Teflon is just a common type people are familiar with
Teflon is not a type of PFAS and is actually safe
Sorry yes, you’re correct, it’s a PTFE. Which is touted as a safe alternative until you find out burning it (about 250 degrees) produces PFAS.
Now if someone perfectly uses the pan and never leaves it on high heat without anything in it, they’re probably gonna be fine. But I’ve lived in the same house as an idiot who has done exactly that, so I’m inclined to think that it’s not an entirely uncommon thing.
Then you’ve also got the post-use phase of the pan’s life where it could easily end up in a waste incinerator, and we already know we have a problem with PFAS hanging around in the environment.
“This one trick pans don’t want you to know”
