DuPont has poisoned the entire planet with PFAs.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
290 points (96.2% liked)
Today I Learned (TIL)
6549 readers
1 users here now
You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.
Share your knowledge and experience!
Rules
- Information must be true
- Follow site rules
- No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
- Posts must be about something you learned
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The situation is dire, since plastics slowly break into smaller and smaller pieces that get everywhere, including our atmosphere. I recommend the book "A Poison Like No Other" by Matt Simon for details, but it's a very uncomfortable read.
3M is the inventor and supplier I thought. DuPont just bought it and sold it. And then covered it up for literal decades.
DuPont is the one that dumped mass quantities of it into our waterways.
From what I understand the risk associated with Teflon pans is mostly with manufacturing with them, and the chemicals affecting manufacturing workers and getting in waterways, not cooking and eating from them.
The risk from heating them up is generally considered to be minor, and an uncommon accute risk, rather than something that happens regularly and that affects long term health. Adam ragusea did a very well reseached video on the subject where he spoke to experts about where the risks do and don't lie (actually it looks like he's done two, this is the more recent one)
But do know that buying them facilitates their manufacture, and the impact on workers and the environment is pretty horrible.
The chemicals involved are often called "forever chemicals" because they basically never break down, meaning they'll pretty much just accumulate for as long as we manufacture things with them, which includes A LOT of different products. Rain coats are often made with them, and aren't supposed to shed pfas or pfoas, but evidently do anyway at alarming rates, and our water sources are already fairly contaminated. This video does a really good job of covering that side of the conversation about "forever chemicals"
Recent studies have shown that the pans offgas without even being used or at low temperatures, but yes just buying them at all is the main problem.
Could you give a source of any kind or some tips on finding this info? Interested in reading more.
Thank you for the additional info, I will have to look into that at some point :)
Teflon Pans very often chip or scratch and eating the Teflon is admittedly not as bad as most people would assume but it also accelerates their breakdown under high heat.
Idk about you but my cookware reaches high heat pretty often so I'll stick to ceramics and castirons.
Yeah, direct health impact aside they're still disposable products that poison our water to manufacture, and poison the people who make them.
Like thats profoundly awful, one really doesn't need any more reason to avoid them, that's a very reasonable choice
You really just shouldn't be using nonstick for high heat cooking. Plain stainless or carbon steel is gonna be better.
I suppose thats fair if somewhat unrealistic.
How many people had concentration that high, and how did it get that high?
I would hope it wasn't just from using Teflon pans every day.
But with a sample size of 30k, they would be unlikely to get people who might regularly come into contact with it in a manufacturing setting.
I prefer cast iron anyway.
A big problem with teflon pans is that many people don't realize that there's a correct way to use them, and many incorrect ways.
Aside from the obvious stuff like using metal utensils, a huge mistake a lot of people make with teflon pans is that they heat the pan way hotter than it needs to be. Not only does this typically ruin whatever you're trying to cook, but if you heat up an empty teflon pan past a certain temperature, it will begin to release harmful vapors. So if you put the burner on high and let your pan get hot while you spend 10 minutes preparing other things, you're just blasting tons of vapors into your kitchen.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that low-grade teflon poisoning is way more common than we realize.
The gas products aren't PTFE though. So it's unlikely that PTFE entered their blood via this route.
Oh, good point, I hadn't considered that. That does raise some questions then about how else they would've gotten it into their system. Would've been great if the snippet this image is from pointed to the study in question.
Yeah sadly it’s a picture from a magazine. No other info available
Perhaps they all eat Plumber's Tape (aka Thread Seal Tape)?
Recent studies have shown that teflon pans off gas without even being heated, and at low temperatures.
Fucking hell. First it was the no metal utensils then it was you can't even heat it empty (very useful as a pan), now just using it is bad for you. Never buying nonstick shit again, not like that coating lasts more than a year anyway.
It’s always been bad for you. The process to create Teflon pans results in PFAS being released into streams and the atmosphere. Literally just creating the product has poisoned the earth, you don’t need to use it at all. But yes, I stopped buying Teflon stuff too. It’s the only way to reduce demand and manufacturing.
You forget that regulation exists. That is the only other option to reduce manufacturing of stuff like this. Relying on the "free" market is usually a bad idea, because in this world there isn't really anything like a free market. Every market is disproportionately influenced by the people who benefit from the status quo.
Not the only way... Maybe we should do something about the "invisible hand" constantly giving us the middle finger
How do I tell if my pans had Teflon in them? Haven't bought new pans in 10 years. Had one handle break on a pot, and I took a picture of it and Cuisinart sent me a replacement. Apparently they had lifetime warranties or something.
We moved to cast iron a lomg time ago. Season the pan, and it is non stick. Just don't cook tomatoes in it since the acid takes the coating off. Rinse out, dry it (or heat it again on the stove to dry) and lighty oil if needed.
Best has been cast iron cookie sheet, everything slides off
I frequently cook tomatoes in cast iron/carbon steel, it doesn't do any significant damage to the seasoning that can't be repaired with a quick stovetop re-seasoning.
Yeah, I meant if you don't want to do that reseason process...because cast iron gets a bad rap about being high maintenance compared to a nonstick coated pan.
Source? I can't find an article linking PTFE with a metabolic change.
It was in a magazine my mom got. I think it came from aarp.
So all we have is an unsourced entry in a list based article in a unnamed magazine?
I hope I'm not alone in having an issue with the statement then.
I'm sorry that I'm going to sound like a snob. If people claim to have health related information, I take it seriously. When I said I couldn't find an article describing the correlation, what I meant was that I couldn't find an article on pubmed. I went looking for abstracts for articles in peer reviewed medical journals, not pop culture entertainment in "octogenarians' quarterly".
I'm just going to use cast iron to be safe