Most people don't care. PFAS is only voluntarily being phased out in food packaging, rather than being banned. People cook with teflon-coated pans for the tiny convenience over a nitrided, ceramic, or seasoned cast iron pan. Outdoors enthusiasts want PFAS rain jackets and PFAS ski waxes, rather than the alternatives.
I definitely agree they need to look at history, consider what they're being exposed to, and understand how simple and easy some of the substitutions/mitigations could be. There's 0 reason why manufacturers are getting 5+ years to phase out a forever chemical in something like ski wax or dental floss.
Once you go stainless you don’t go back. None of the hassle of cast iron, and eggs don’t stick with just some basic skill. Very easy to clean, no need to be gentle like with cast iron ceramic or non stick pans.
I don't think it's that people don't care, I think it's that people are ignorant. I also don't think that's an accident, I think we're in the midst of a multi-decade project to create a populace that's as dumb as possible, because the more aware and educated people are, the less likely they are to allow the kinds of behaviour that are destroying the health of people, animals and the environment.
The ideal societal conditions for, say, a petrochemical company that is creating toxins that are genuinely "forever" for all intents and purposes, is a society where people are exhausted from their terrible job (or two jobs, or job + gig economy side hustle) and spend their leisure time glued to their phones, scrolling AI slop on instagram and gambling away their meagre savings on sports betting and prediction markets.
These are not people who are going to get educated about chemistry.
Scientific expertise is derided as elitism. The president lies constantly by issuing "truths" on his social media platform. Public education gets defunded and IQ scores are declining. Either this is just random societal decay, or this is serving the interests of the rich and powerful. I know where I stand on it. And yes, I'm cranky.
No it’s because lots of us grew up in the 70s with asbestos, lead, chlordane, ddt, etc… and we are still alive and thriving. We played with radioactive chemistry sets and even made our own plastic animals inside enclosed areas and loved to breath in the vapors : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thingmaker
> People cook with teflon-coated pans for the tiny convenience over a nitrided, ceramic, or seasoned cast iron pan.
...which has absolutely nothing to do with the PFOA that you might reasonably be concerned about. Teflon is chemically inert. It's literally used for human body implants. Teflon-coated pans are not your enemy. Fire-fighting foam, on the other hand -- you probably shouldn't bathe in it.
Any test that "detects" teflon in the generic category of "PFAS" is a hopelessly flawed test [1]. Unfortunately, a great many of these papers don't make the distinction, whether intentionally or due to incompetence, or simply because it's far easier to do that, and it gets better headlines.
[1] Important aside: historically, several of the major manufacturers of teflon had problems with PFOA contamination around the factories due to manufacturing processes. This is unrelated to your personal use of a Teflon pan, and also, the process has been changed. If you want to argue that the new process is also polluting, fine, make that argument -- but don't assert that the use of the final product is itself unsafe.
Overheat them, which means the stuff gets into the air. Many many pet birds have died of this only because they're more susceptible
Use the wrong material in them meaning the start to scratch the Teflon layer.
I'm not saying you cannot use them right, but too many people don't and the product isn't safe when improperly used. This is true for many products but in this case plenty of people aren't aware they're holding it wrong.
> Overheat them, which means the stuff gets into the air. Many many pet birds have died of this only because they're more susceptible
And again, this has nothing to do with PFAS or PFOA. The principle cause is a complete breakdown of teflon into fluorinated small-molecule gases, such as hydrogen fluoride and tetrafluoroethylene. You're literally burning the coating off. It has as much relationship to PFOA as wood smoke has to wood.
> ...which has absolutely nothing to do with the PFOA that you might reasonably be concerned about. Teflon is chemically inert. It's literally used for human body implants. Teflon-coated pans are not your enemy. Fire-fighting foam, on the other hand -- you probably shouldn't bathe in it.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. Yes, Teflon is inert but only when it's not exposed to high temperatures (>350F). When heated, such as in a non-stick pan, Teflon gives off fumes which contain byproducts including breakdowns back into PFAS compounds. So /YES/ the use of the final product (as cookware) /is/ unsafe. NOBODY SHOULD BE USING TEFLON NONSTICK COOKWARE.
> Teflon gives off fumes which contain byproducts including breakdowns back into PFAS compounds.
Completely incorrect. Overheating (aka "burning") completely destroys the molecule, and releases small molecule gases, like hydrogen fluoride. These have no relation to PFAS, they can't turn back into PFAS, and they look nothing like PFAS.
It's like saying that the smoke from burning wood is, in fact, wood.
Teflon does not burn at 350F, it melts between 620F and 662F. At 350F and above, however, it starts off-gassing carbonyl fluoride, carbonyl difluoride, hydrogen fluoride, and various fluorinated alkanes and alkenes. PFAS is a broad term for Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which includes several of the compounds that off-gas from overheating Teflon. Off-gassing accelerates into partial decomposition as you cross 500F until it begins melting between 620F and 662F, after 662F you can begin burning Teflon.
As a general rule, if something gives off toxic fumes that kill birds, probably don't use it to cook your food, regardless of what specific compounds its emitting, "canaries in coal mines" and all that.
> At 350F and above, however, it starts off-gassing carbonyl fluoride, carbonyl difluoride, hydrogen fluoride, and various fluorinated alkanes and alkenes
Wrong units. Starts happening at around ~250 C (~480F), not 350F. Completely depolymerizes at around 500C.
> PFAS is a broad term for Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which includes several of the compounds that off-gas from overheating Teflon.
Yes, I'm telling you that "PFAS" is a meaningless term that is so broad as to include everything from harmless chemicals (i.e. Teflon) to things that are genuinely toxic (tri-fluoro acetic acid). So using this term as "evidence" of toxicity is just circular logic.
> As a general rule, if something gives off toxic fumes that kill birds, probably don't use it to cook your food, regardless of what specific compounds its emitting, "canaries in coal mines" and all that.
a) It doesn't, unless you specifically overheat it. Don't do that.
b) if that's your standard, you'll definitely want to look at that paper I just linked, because overheating butter in a cast iron pan also kills birds.
I look forward to your campaign against butter. It's certainly more harmful to public health than Teflon!
> Wrong units. Starts happening at around ~250 C (~480F), not 350F. Completely depolymerizes at around 500C.
Many places claim 500F is the temperature limit for normal usage of Teflon in a pan, however that's based on the temperature at which it starts degrading, off-gassing begins at lower temperatures. Also, every oil except refined avocado oil will surpass its smoke point at 500F and begin degrading as well, so really you should just be careful with temperature when cooking, regardless of material, but should definitely NOT be using Teflon coated pans.
> Yes, I'm telling you that "PFAS" is a meaningless term that is so broad as to include everything from harmless chemicals (i.e. Teflon) to things that are genuinely toxic (tri-fluoro acetic acid). So using this term as "evidence" of toxicity is just circular logic.
There are no PFAS that are non-toxic. Are you a paid industry shill?
> a) It doesn't, unless you specifically overheat it. Don't do that.
Overheating Teflon pans happens under normal usage simply by exposing it to heat without having food in it, preheating pans is normal behavior when cooking, and is /required/ to reach the Leidenfrost point in other materials (e.g. stainless steel). A material that you have to baby to avoid accidentally releasing toxic fumes /should NOT/ be used for cooking.
> b) if that's your standard, you'll definitely want to look at that paper I just linked, because overheating butter in a cast iron pan also kills birds.
They heated the butter to 500F to produce toxic fumes, which makes sense as you're basically straight up burning it at that point. Butter begins smoking between 310F and 350F depending on milk-fat content, and you should not burn butter. Besides all the other reasons, it tastes and smells horrible. Intentionally burning butter and incidental toxic off-gassing from normal pan preheating are not the same thing.
This has nothing to do with PFAS. When you heat teflon to 500C+, the molecules break down into small molecule fluorinated gases. These molecules are not PFAS, in any way.
the concern is not about immediate effects of using products, but the fact that they are now everywhere in the environment, including water supplies and our own blood streams.
I definitely agree they need to look at history, consider what they're being exposed to, and understand how simple and easy some of the substitutions/mitigations could be. There's 0 reason why manufacturers are getting 5+ years to phase out a forever chemical in something like ski wax or dental floss.