What a ridiculous world we live in. The board members should be facing prison sentences, the company's liquidated and the money back to the people.
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And that’s basically it!
The money should be put into a cancer fund to pay for research and people's medical bills from the cancer all this shit causes.
Carbon steel or cast iron all the way.
Stainless steel! Neither of those is something you want to use to simmer a tomato sauce.
Why's that? I've never owned any of the 3, all pans have been some form of nonstick.
Carbon steel and cast iron cookware have reactive metal surfaces that will rust if left exposed to moisture and air, especially when heated. To use these materials of cookware you need to season them which involves washing the surface clean and applying a very thin layer of oil which you then heat up to a high temperature (usually past the smoke point, but not strictly necessary).
The heating of oil in contact with the metal causes the oil molecules to polymerize and bond to the metal surface. Done properly, this gives your cast iron and carbon steel cookware a smooth, glassy, slightly brown protective polymer layer which prevents rust and helps foods release (though not as well as nonstick pans). The seasoning process can be repeated as many times as you like and it builds up more and more layers which darken over time. A well seasoned piece of cast iron or carbon steel cookware will look shiny and jet black, though this is not necessary for cooking.
The downside of these materials is that acidic or basic foods can damage the polymer layer and dissolve it right off the pan with enough heat and cooking time. Tomato sauce is a classic example of an acidic food that will eat away at the seasoning of a cast iron or carbon steel pan. A well seasoned pan can still be used to cook a tomato sauce, but not one you plan to be simmering for hours and hours (like some Sunday meat sauce like you’d see in Goodfellas).
Stainless steel (as well as enameled or porcelain coated) cookware is nonreactive so you can use it to cook acidic or basic foods no problem!
Ohh right, I didn't think about how acidic tomatoes are. I love tomatoes, but some of the people around me get absolutely horrible stomach pains apparently.
Anyway, we make tomato based sauces at home, but never have we simmered anything for several hours like that cooking scene in Goodfellas. Should I? Would it be significantly better?
Sure, or enamelled cast iron.
A bit ironic that a group labeling themselves the "Cookware Sustainability Alliance" is fighting to continue making unsustainable cookware.
Both the fact that they have a voice that influences politicians more than their actual voters and that they're allowed to call themselves that name is really a perfect representation of society.
Available at a thrift store near you, with no carbon cost!
Used cast iron is usually better than a lot of new stuff. Back in the day, it was common for the pitted surfaces to be ground smooth.
Now you can only get that with some “premium brands” that are willing to take a grinder to a pan before throwing it in the box.
Buying thrift store cast iron is risky, it may have been used to melt lead.
Keep in mind that nonstick cookware is still very safe when handled correctly. The problem lies in the manufacturing of these needed chemicals. When these chemicals get into the environment, because of improper safety management, it will stay there for hundreds of years, taking it's toll on flora and fauna.
very safe when handled correctly
Too many people are not educated about that.
The problem lies in the manufacturing of these needed chemicals. When these chemicals get into the environment, because of improper safety managemen
Which is one of the reasons for that law, see:
Dubbed "Amara's Law" after 20-year-old cancer victim Amara Strande, who in 2023 succumbed to a rare type of liver cancer linked to PFAS after growing up near a Minnesota-based 3M plant that dumped them into the local water supply, the new regulation bans the chemicals and any items made with them from being sold within the state.
And how do you dispose of it correctly? Cookware shouldn’t need to come with an MSDS sheet
Just use cast iron and stainless steel. I don't own anything else.
Don't forget carbon steel!
And enamel cookware. It's lasting forever.
I got some Belgium made enamel cast iron. It’s fantastic.
I hate how we allowed these ghouls to make the word "nonstick" synonymous with teflon/PFAS. It makes it sound like if you use a regular pan, you constantly have to scrape off burnt food or something. That's just not true, a well-seasoned regular pan can be just as "nonstick" as one with a PFAS coating. It's a fake non-problem that was invented to sell this garbage that poisons us and the environment. If it was up to me, the executives at dupont and anyone else responsible for this psyop would be sent off to labor camps (with humane working conditions of course)
GenX was basically told that "Teflon is inert, it can't hurt you."
Well fuck me.
It is chemically inert. It just becomes a problem when you physically abrade it into billions of microparticles that become embedded in your tissues...
So, asbestos 2.0?
Likely, if we’re being honest.
Health agencies haven’t done that much investigation (wheeeee regulatory capture) into wtf microplastics do in nuance to all of our various biological systems, but we do know that microplastics basically pervade everything at every level of the food chain at this point. So it’s more about answering the question of “how much did we fuck ourselves” now.
Has there been any evidence to point out that PFTE is not inert?
This article seems to be about the production of PFTE, which is well-known to be quite harmful, but the end product is as far as I know not unsafe to use.
Capitalists furious at suggestion they value human life over money
ftfy
How about the suggestions that they are selling a product that should last for several lifetimes but instead lasts for 5 years if you treat it very well?
I moved to using cast iron and steel pans, I found even hand washing non-stick pans they eventually just get scuffed up after years.
I'd rather just use a few more drops of oil on a regular pan.
Is it really that bad? Sure it might be linked to cancer but so are lots of other things.
I personally just use normal cookware plus some vision stuff. All you need to do is salute some onions ahead of adding other things. The juice from the onions acts as a natural non stick.
In reality no one can say for certain, but a lot of research is pointing to long term exposure being bad. The problem is that the research to determine how bad will take decades (and has been going on for decades at this point). Right now it's being used as the boogeyman for every sort of ill from causing cancer, infertility, issues with lactation, liver failure, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, and auto-immune disorders. Basically the preliminary research says that it at least in part impacts all of these things, we just don't know how much.
On the flip side bacon also causes cancer and high cholesterol at some level. That's not to make light of the situation, but it does give some credence to your earlier statement.
The thing people are missing in these discussions is what are they willing to live without if we don't use these chemicals. Going without non-stick cookware is literally the tip of the iceberg. How do we feel about cars, furniture, and mattresses being more flammable because they don't have the fire retarding forever chemicals? How do we feel about stain resistance, oil resistance, water resistance, and slip resistance in everything including shoes, umbrellas, clothes, oven mitts, jackets, and more? How do we feel about needing to clean everything including clothes, appliances, and floors more often. How about in industry where it's used as a fume suppressant so smelly chemicals don't waft as far or fire fighting foams the next time an electric car catches on fire? This stuff is even in the wrapping of your food so the it doesn't go through the packaging and cause a mess as easily.
Dupont coined the phrase "Better Living Through Chemistry" and that chemistry is PFAS. It's in your clothes when you buy them, it's in your detergent when you clean them, it's in the cleaner that you wipe your washer off with, it's in the floor sealant of the laundry room that washer is in, it's in the gloves you wear while cleaning that laundry room, it's in the carpet in the room next to the laundry room, and the list goes on and on.
Dropping PFAS chemicals fully would probably send us back to the 1960's or we'll end up replacing it with something just as bad that we don't know the effects of yet.
It's not just the use itself, but also how irresponsibly it is produced. Exposing pregnant workers to high levels, dumping it in community water supplies, on farmland etc.
Also the EU did ban them last september (effective in 2026) for essentially all of the uses you outlined, most of which I dont think are such a big deal and just minor inconveniences. It's not like the 60s were terrible in terms of living conditions.
We also used to use asbestos for a lot of the uses you outlined and we got rid of that without too much inconvenience, but you could have made similar arguments about it back then.
And any reduction is a good thing, it's not an all or nothing thing. DDT was banned, but can and is still used where there's no better alternative. And just categorically saying any alternative must be just as bad is just a non-sequitur, there's no reason that should be true. Cookware is a good example, cast iron works just as well, is not as bad, the only downside compared to teflon is weight. But it's not like sending us back to the stone age or anything...
Can't even use a Teflon pan if you have a budgie or the fumes will kill it.
So I think it is probably quite bad.
Yes. Get as far away from that shit as you can.
Never really had any issue with Teflon (and Teflon substitute) pans, but I've been impressed with the non-stickiness of my dirt cheap "ceramic" wok.
All real nonstick cookware is Teflon or chemically related to it. I almost always use cast iron or carbon steel but they are not nonstick, you have to control heat and acidity for them to release well. You can even see in nonstick pans that liquids will tend to bead up and not spread out because of the surface, versus in any other pan you'll only see water bead up when you hit certain temps. I can only achieve something like a French omelette in a nonstick pan, carbon steel has always been a disaster, because of that me and a lot of other people keep a nonstick around just for certain egg and crepe recipes.
Wikipedia makes it sound like not all Teflon pans require PFOA, which is the actual problem here (not that the article describes it clearly).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-stick_surface
PFOA/PFOS is in lots of other household shit though, like raincoats