Great. More synthetic and toxic crap in our landfills. All for our myopic convenience.
Dupont and 3M love you.
Dupont and 3M love you.
And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.
Remember that Teflon and related products aren't only for stovetop use. There are many non-stick baking sheets and muffin pans as well, and it's not that unusual to cook muffins, scones, cakes, or pizza (esp pizza [3]) at temperatures above 400. Moreover, using the broiler can quickly get you to a high temperature.
Interestingly, there are a lot of documented cases of bird death in conjunction with Teflon usage [4]. Birds are very sensitive -- hence "canary in coal mine" -- but it is interesting to see that bird death can happen during normal use of Teflon and related products, certainly at temperatures below 400F.
[1,2] http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/06/the-food-lab-for-the-best..., http://www.boedeker.com/ptfe_p.htm [3] http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-homemade-thin-crust-pizza-re... [4] http://www.ewg.org/research/canaries-kitchen/teflon-kills-bi...
The operating temperature of teflon (approx 600f) is higher than the operating temperature of the oil (approx 400f) you cook with.
When burned with a wick, no. But if just heated till is smokes? Just as toxic as any oil.
> even if oil is toxic, it seems to be something that is a required part of cooking - we assume the risk. Teflon, not so much.
Oil does not have to be toxic. Just don't exceed the smoke point. And like oil, in normal cooking Teflon is not toxic either. It's completely inert.
> Teflon does get that hot in the course of regular cooking. And it releases toxic fumes under those conditions.
No it does not. No one cooks at over 660f. (OK, maybe some specialized stuff, but not with regular cooking where you would use a pan.)
> Especially when there are choices for pans/cookware that do NOT release fluorocarbons at high temperatures.
Like Teflon? Which does not release them either?