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Comment by mandmandam | Hacker News Reader

I've been hearing about the dangers of Teflon for at least a quarter century.

Lawsuits were being settled in the 9-figure range as far back as 2001 - they kept making it, and actively covered up what they knew, tobacco firm style.

I haven't watched it yet, but 'The Devil We Know' apparently goes in depth on this, with very highly rated reviews. I don't need to be that angry right now though; I know enough about Du Pont for "strong opinions" as it is.

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Teflon itself is safe to use as long as you don’t heat it too much (stay well clear of 260°C/500°F) - it’s technically a PFAS but polymerised into to molecules that have a high molecular weight so have no biological activity and it is chemically inert. It’s the shorter chain PFAS chemicals used in the production process that has caused the huge problems - especially to workers and to people living near the plants (due to groundwater contamination and other environmental release of PFAS)

Teflon itself is safe to use as long as you don’t heat it too much

The problem is, people make mistakes. All it takes is a crying child, a burned pot, a mistake in cooking (not thinking about it), and you've hit the wrong temp.

And then the pan is dangerous, leeching, trouble.

The whole thought about the approval was "Well, people can be trusted to not let a pot get too hot! And to know 100% to throw it away if it does!".

Right. Trusted. In a country with warning labels like 'coffee is hot' and 'water is wet'.

Edit: my point is, the above means "teflon isn't safe for home use". Engineers know, also, to have safety tolerances. For something like this, I'd expect the 'danger zone' to be 2x the max possible heat a consumer could apply by accident.

As burners can get crazy hot, that probably means I'd call teflon unsafe, unless it broke down at 2000F.

This is how we can approve things safe or not. Not "trust people will constantly monitor how hot their pan got".

Just as an aside, I was at a hotel the other day, and someone was trying to put buttered toast in the hotel toaster!

> As burners can get crazy hot, that probably means I'd call teflon unsafe, unless it broke down at 2000F.

That seems a bit... unrealistic. Not even cast iron is usable at 2000F.

No, that’s the thing: it’s unsafe unless it stays safe to an “unrealistic” range, since people exceed “normal” usage without meaning to.

Nothing is safe in that range - that's why it's unrealistic. The cast iron would decompose, shatter, and light a commercial kitchen on fire, let alone a residential tinder box.

You all may be arguing against a strawman. A completely hypothetical one, at that.

The actual danger temp, 260c / 500f, is trivially achievable on most home cooking equipment.

And even if the danger temp were 2,000 degrees, there would still be the major dangers from manufacturing and the associated pollution, as has been noted.

Not usable, but doesn’t cause forever chems to leach into food or aerosolize.

How would one heat iron to that point?? People got usually gas stoves or electric stove. For 2000 degree one needs a china stove or sth

Kilns work because they lose far slower than then generate it. You could conceivably reach very high temps due to the heat source being in direct contact whereas the pan must lose heat through convection. I doubt it would ever reach 2000° but 600-700° seems easy enough.

TikTok challenge...shave off some Teflon, burn it, and consume.

The only danger from 2000F iron is that it's hot, and that is very temporary.

> The problem is, people make mistakes. All it takes is a crying child, a burned pot, a mistake in cooking (not thinking about it), and you've hit the wrong temp.

Then you turn off the cooking pot, and air the room. Burning teflon releases nasty stuff, but not much worse than burning oil. Unless you heat it up all the way until its thermal decomposition (your pan will be visibly glowing red at that temperature).

Also, it's time to switch from natural gas burners to electric stoves that can have automatic protection.

Or you could just not use Teflon pots at all, which is what I would recommend to everyone here.

True. Sometime for frying oil is heated to higher temp and it is easy to forget.

If they can ban gas stove like we saw in NY, they can ban these forever chemical utensils.

The most common mistake made when cooking is to apply far too much heat. A pan can easily be accidentally heated past 500° on a stovetop. The only save is that it takes time to harm you and the cause is impossible to directly attribute. DuPont's lawyers now have all they need.

When you're in the mood for some anger towards DuPont, check out "Dark Waters" (2019) too. The cinematography, acting, and pacing are great — my favourite DuPont rager so far.

A Civil Action, 1998, is not directly about DuPont, though DuPont did manufacture the same chemical that the film concerns itself with, trichloroethylene. Duvall was nominated for best supporting actor for his role in this, and the film was nominated for best cinematography.

I certainly wouldn't have bought that bottle of Scotchguard for my shoes in the late 2000s if it had had a warning label on it.

Or scotchguard my entire car.

Or outdoor textiles, or toilet paper, or paper food boxes, or furniture with stain repelents, or cosmetics, or school uniforms, or breast milk, or microwave popcorn bags, or carpet cleaners, or candy wrappers, or pizza boxes, or cattle, or agricultural fields and products, or houshold dust, or water, or firefighting foams, or dental floss, or air ... better to stay away from it all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid

Also every stain resistant material. Clothes, carpet, etc.

I'm not sure, but I suspect even bubbles. Like when we were kids.

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