They can make Teflon without the forever chemicals. They choose to make it the way they do because it is cheap and easy to scale. Rather than develop better solutions that don't poison us they choose easy money and are rewarded for it.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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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.
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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
This means that now that everyone knows what is required to produce non-stick pans, they will vanish from stores because 99% of humans are well meaning and will not buy destructive products.
Just kidding. My parents (>70yo) told me as achild not to use teflon pans, because they are 'unhealthy'. We all knew. We just don't care.
Not "we". You. Many of us actively campaign against it.
Given the ratio of people who actively campaign against it to people who don't care, I think it's pretty safe to say "we don't care".
Thx for being in the 1%
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"We poisoned the planet"
Fuck off! Unscrupulous greed industrialists poisoned the planet knowingly and tried to hide or minimize the fact from the public.
To be clear: This image is directed at the greedy industrialists.
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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.
you are so much smarter than everyone else
Literally a minute of googling. Takes more to make up arguments why youd still use a pan that kills you and has built in planned obsolesce.
hello friend, the pan doesnt kill you. there is no PFOA in the pan you buy and is used to cook the food you buy in a restaurant, which you've done hundreds and hundreds of times. its the production of the material on the pan that produces the anti-life compounds.
we don't get cancer from using nonstick pans, we get cancer from the PFOA in the groundwater that was made during the production process.
it takes literally a minute of googling, but thank you for the condescending message, couldn't have lived without it
Ingesting teflon particles is bad for you and all the studies assume you are not scraping your teflon pan when in reality the teflon coating DOES flake off over use and following the procedures manufacturers tell you to, thus you are ingesting teflon flakes wether you like it or not.
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.
Did you read the article? Have you tested your ground & drinking water? If you do drink water then you are at risk. Pans are not the problem, firefighting foams & industrial leaks are.
I only drink Brawndo, so I'm good.
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
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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.
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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.
Just learn to use a stainless. The entire trick is literally only preheating.
I might, in the future, get myself a good (set of) steel pans. But for the time being, I have a pretty new set of brand name ceramic coated pans, that I got a very good deal on and that have much better anti stick characteristics than what I’ve seen steel being capable of doing and good steel pans are out of my budget rn.
should i tell you?
Ceramic-coated cookware looks nice and seems like a safe option at first. After all, 100% ceramic is completely safe for cooking purposes. However, a coating of ceramic is usually hiding bad materials.
The soft ceramic coating isn’t the most durable and starts chipping after several months of everyday use. When that happens, lead and cadmium that is sometimes found in the coating will end up in your food and later in your body. Lead poisoning is one of the most dangerous types of metal poisoning and can result in abdominal pain, headaches, infertility, and other health complications (and in severe cases, coma and death). Even when the coating is lead-free, chipped cookware can still present dangers — it’s usually neurotoxic aluminum that’s under the ceramic coating.
Thanks but I specifically bought a set that was lead and cadmium free. Besides that, I don’t use those pans daily, so they’ll still last for a while. Maybe I’ll get steel after, but as of now, I like the characteristics of a good anti-stick coating a lot more than steel.
Also, as soon as they chip, they will be replaced anyways. Why would I cook with a broken pan? You wouldn’t use a steel pan with a hole in it either.
The „the aluminium underneath is unhealthy“ is just as terrible an argument as „the steel pan hurts more when you drop it on your foot“, imo.
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.
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Yay, my generations lead poisoning. Fuck capitalism
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