We poisoned the whole planet so our eggs wouldn't stick to the pan 🙃
It seems I shouldn't have posted this without context
TL;DW
yes the video is (at least partially) about Teflon, hence the cynical title
no, Teflon (or generally big Fluoropolymers) are not the problem. Ingesting them does nothing to you, because as long, chemically inert polymers they just pass through you from one end to the other
The problem are perfluoroalkyl acids: C8 (PFOA) and later substitutes such as C6/GenX, PFOS, PFHA, PFHxS which are chemicals used to start the Teflon polymerization. They are short-chained carbon-fluorine molecules that coincidentally mimic the structure of fatty acids, thus can accumulate in our bodies without a way for our bodies to break them down.
These chemicals leach into the environment from factories and accumulate in everything, to the point that the whole water cycle has been contaminated (yes that shit comes down everywhere with the rain)
There is conclusive proof that PFOA exposure is linked to a number of organ damage and cancers, particularly testicular cancer and kidney cancer, with likely links to lung and pancreatic cancer not reflected in the study due to survivor bias (they died before the study was concluded)
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.
The trick is to use wooden spoons to prevent scratching. Egg sticks to the scratches and forces you to make more scratches as you attempt to scrape it off.
I generally use either wood or plastic when cooking with an anti stick pan (although, supposedly ceramic coating can take more of a beating than teflon).
I known, me too. But wood is basically uncookable biodegradable plastic that doesn't give you cancer. So you use it, wash it and re-use it. It gets soaked in food and oils and stuff probably grows in its pores. But at the end of the day you don't eat the spoon and I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from a wooden spoon infection. but I've heard of millions getting cancer from "somewhere"... Pfoas.
Oh yeah wood cooking stuff is ok, my spoons are wood as I normally use a spoon with a stainless steel saucepan, then it's a metal spatula on cast iron and I also use it over a fire pit so wood is something I would want to avoid there.
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.
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.