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Nonstick Cookware Industry Furious at Suggestion They Should Stop Causing Cancer (futurism.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 19 points 2 years ago (8 children)

You’ve never known anyone to forget a pan on the stove? I know several and even did it once myself

You’ve never kept a nonstick pan despite visible damage to the coating “it looks ok…”?

You’ve never kept a “good” non-stick pan past its recommended life expectancy?

What about the broiler? Even though I should know better, it was just this year when I finally made the connection that I’ve been using a non-stick baking sheet under the broiler for decades.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    No, no, don't know, not sure what that means

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    You can find online a lot of surprisingly short life expectancies for non-stick pans. Most commonly you should replace after 5-7 years or any visible sign of damage to the coating. Do you make sure to replace all your pans by then?

    PFOA was legal until I think 2012. That’s not only a failure of the government to establish safe standards, but all too many people kept that cookware years past when it was no longer used, perhaps even until today.

    Non-stick cookware can off-gas toxic fumes when used too hot. A common broiler can do that: you should not use non-stick pans under a broiler. However most bakeware is non-stick. An actual broiler pan uses a ceramic coating to withstand the higher temperatures: you should not just use any bakeware of the right shape.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    If my pans start breaking then ofc I will replace them.

    PFOA was legal until I think 2012. That’s not only a failure of the government to establish safe standards, but all too many people kept that cookware years past when it was no longer used, perhaps even until today.

    I thought cookware wasn't really a concern here, more the plants making it and it getting into drinking water, being used in food packaging, that sort of stuff. "Overall, PTFE cookware is considered an insignificant exposure pathway to PFOA."

    Non-stick cookware can off-gas toxic fumes when used too hot. A common broiler can do that: you should not use non-stick pans under a broiler. However most bakeware is non-stick. An actual broiler pan uses a ceramic coating to withstand the higher temperatures: you should not just use any bakeware of the right shape.

    You need to heat it up to 260'C which is quite hot. I haven't had the heat limit be an issue personally.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    Cookware isn’t a major vector for pfoa anymore

    By 2007, studies showed that the concentration of PFOA in a sample of the U.S. population's bloodstream (collected in 2003-2004) was 25 percent less than that in samples collected in 1999-2000

    Normal cooking appliances can be hot enough both on stovetop (such as with a dry pan left on a burner) and in the broiler to damage non-stick coatings

    Teflon and other coatings can begin to break down when the temperature reaches 500˚F

    Yeah I guess that converts to 260°C but the point is that ovens do get this hot

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    Was the concentration in cookware a higher source of expose some time before? I know the situation with PFOA was worse before, but afaik it was even back then due to other concerns than the cookware.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I believe it was still mostly on the manufacturing process. Except that using pfoa in manufacturing not only caused non-degradable pollution at the source but meant there could be contamination of the cookware

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Manufacturing for sure was a huge contributor but that's manufacturing of products with pfoa or derivatives in general, since those were widely used. Which is still bad, but more directly relevant here, cookware hasn't itself been much of an issue to people's health afaik.

    It's one of those things where it's pretty understandable to be overly cautious and better safe than sorry, but I feel like nonstick cookware took the brunt of the worry when it wasn't the real concern, rather the plants producing chemicals and their use in manufacturing and other products.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    For me, the big deal is the “forever” nature. These chemicals will continue accumulating in the environment, in the food chain, in people’s bodies, essentially forever. They don’t biodegrade and they’re getting ubiquitous enough that you couldn’t clean up the contamination if you had to.

    I also worry that it’s not a chemical, but a large class of chemicals. There are many variations and they have not been individually evaluated.

    And there have been studies showing harm in animals, including harm when the accumulation in a creature gets large enough to physically interfere with things.

    Those all add up to enough risk that we really need to cut back

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