> Nobody wants these chemicals anywhere near them.
Don't we? I've got a bunch of non-stick pans that I love cooking on (I checked the brand I use most, and their pans are coated in PTFE, a PFAS). I've also got a roll of PTFE tape for plumbing around the house (basically ubiquitous for that purpose), and some PTFE tubing for hobby use (PTFE tubing is in the majority of 3D printers).
Your tape and tubing scenarios make sense. I'm not sure anyone can seriously require a non-stick pan though. Cooks managed without them for thousands of years by just paying more attention to their eggs, and comparably unsticky materials existed before the invention of non-stick coatings. The long-term negative impacts of teflon just doesn't seem to be worth the incredibly slight convenience they offer.
I wasn't talking about "require", I was talking about "want". The subjective experience of cooking on (and cleaning) a non-stick pan is an absolute delight in comparison. I don't want those chemicals in me, but I sure do appreciate them in my kitchen.
Maybe I'm just missing an implied "/s". Surely I don't need to spend too much time addressing how silly a comparison is between "I just need my next fix of heroin" and "I like scrambled eggs".
I don't even understand what convenience they offer. I cook a lot and find stainless steel just as easy to clean. Let it sit with some water in it after you take out the food, and by the time dinner is done it wipes clean with a sponge.
At the same time I don't have to worry about nicking or overheating the teflon, and stainless steel pans tend to have better heft and thicker bottoms.
Not to mention waterproof clothing, non-fogging safety goggles, temperature-resistant wire insulation, dielectrics, separators in Li-ion batteries and countless biomedical applications.
Fluoropolymers and fluorosurfactants have unique properties that make them very difficult to substitute. I'm not sufficiently informed to comment on the possible health impacts of fluorinated hydrocarbons, but I can say that a world without them will be poorer in countless small ways. That might well be a price worth paying, but we shouldn't pretend that it's an easy decision.
I feel this issue is over exaggerated. The study at EWG says that toxic chemicals are released in Teflon pans at 464 deg (C or F? article doesn't say), versus 680 deg for non-Teflon.
I don't think 99% of people ever get their cookware that hot.
Thanks for that info. I was aware that birds were sensitive to many chemicals but not to that degree. However, it likely explains an incident that happened some years ago. We saw a canary aimlessly hopping about on the nature strip outside the factory where I was working and we figured it was someone's pet bird that had gotten loose.
Anyway, a colleague caught it in his hands which was surprising given he wasn't that nimble. The bird didn't appear the least bit sick and he likely caught it because it was used to having people around. The aim was to return it to its owner if we could find the person (it was an industrial area but there were many homes in the street). Incidentally, we weren't bird owners so managing a lost bird was a new experience.
We borrowed a largish birdcage that hadn't been used for years, cleaned it up and bought special canary feed and a cuttlefish etc. from the local pet shop, and we hung the birdcage and canary in a partly-shaded area without direct sunlight just outside the factory door with a sign on it to the effect 'do you own this bird?'. Every night we brought the cage in and covered it with a sheet just as I'd seen my grandmother do with her canary when I was a kid.
This went on for about two weeks or so and the bird seemed well and healthy—and we'd gotten quite used to the bird happily chirping away outside the front door. One day I noticed fruit flies around a garbage can inside the factory area and sprayed inside it with normal household pyrethrin-type insecticide which is usually pretty innocuous (at least to humans). Moreover, I was well aware that the canary was in the factory albeit 40/50 feet away so I was careful and deliberately confined the spray to inside the garbage bin.
Next day when I came in I found the canary dead at the bottom of its cage and I was considerably upset over its death as I'd not only gotten used to having this cute little creature around but it was immediately apparent to me that my spraying could have been the cause although I just couldn't see how such little amount of spray would have traveled that large distance.
It would be interesting to know exactly how sensitive canaries are to pyrethroids and how others manage to keep their pet birds safe in these circumstances.
I think the bigger risks are in anything resembling disposable. Also, maybe getting people to understand how to care for their cookware better so it lasts 10+ years instead of 3-5 or so. I actually prefer stainless steel myself, my SO prefers non-stick. Before I was with my SO, I had a single 8" non-stick I would use just for eggs.
I'm as or more concerned about the plastics in food packaging myself. Hard to avoid with so much processed food in most grocery stores though. Wouldn't mind taking a few steps back. Considering we grow well more than enough food to actually feed the world at this point.
Ya, was even thinking the other day that I should just toss a few glass containers in my backpack when I'm going out to restaurants. I usually carry a backpack anyways, I'm not sure there's much value in me carting away leftovers in disposable containers. The amount of plastic everywhere is staggering when you start to take it into account every time you toss a piece of it out.
Don't we? I've got a bunch of non-stick pans that I love cooking on (I checked the brand I use most, and their pans are coated in PTFE, a PFAS). I've also got a roll of PTFE tape for plumbing around the house (basically ubiquitous for that purpose), and some PTFE tubing for hobby use (PTFE tubing is in the majority of 3D printers).