Counterpoint: this seems to be the crusade of a single researcher - I don't find the data personally convincing and am still using my black spatula for cooking.
https://www.threads.net/@gidmkhealthnerd/post/DBxbQERykRx?hl...
Setting aside the fact that the purported harms (if specified at all!) are nearly always based on confounded observational studies and/or animal models at doses that may not bear any relationship to the doses you're being exposed to in real life, the claims for any particular item are usually presented out of context. For example, is exposure at X<10 parts per billion compound Y meaningful, as a human who lives in the real world? Typically, nobody knows, but you can nearly always find an "expert" who will confidently claim that any exposure is "dangerous."
Skepticism and awareness of risk magnitude is essential when reading stuff like this. Academics who specialize in obscure areas love to get their name in the press, and the easiest way to do that is to go to a reporter and make vague and irresponsible claims about risks to human health, even if those risks are very, very small. [1]
For what it's worth, I have a Teflon pan, I've used black plastic spatulas in the past, and I'm not worried about it. Compared to the reasons I already know that I'm likely to die, these things are irrelevant.
[1] Case in point: I knew a tenured professor at a prestigious university who was absolutely convinced that if we all continued to eat beef, we'd be looking at an epidemic of vCJK (aka Mad Cow Disease). Saw a lecture from this person on the subject over a decade ago now, where the risks were presented as looming and absolute. We're still eating beef. Guess what hasn't happened since then?
(1) https://www.buffalobirdnerd.com/storage/app/media/Teflon.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
”When PTFE is heated above 450 °C the pyrolysis products are different and inhalation may cause acute lung injury. Symptoms are flu-like (chills, headaches and fevers) with chest tightness and mild cough. Onset occurs about 4 to 8 hours after exposure to the pyrolysis products of PTFE.”
There is basically no safe limit for these chemicals — EPA limit for drinking water is 4 ppt. U.S. residents already have average blood PFAS levels to the tune of 4000 ppt.
Indeed. When was the last time you left your nonstick pan sitting on a cooktop with nothing in it, for hours?
If you're the kind of person to leave empty pans burning for that long, I'd be more worried about cognitive decline and/or the risk you'll die in a fire of your own making.
The temperature is the least relevant part of what I wrote.
Furthermore, the quote above merely states that the pan has to reach a specific temp, not be out for hours.
If you live in the US, chances are your blood already contains these chemicals at 4,000 ppt or greater (four thousand parts per trillion is the nationwide average).
No, they aren't. At least, not in the way you're interpreting the word "toxic".
> If you live in the US, chances are your blood already contains these chemicals at 4,000 ppt or greater
The fact that you're telling me that I'm currently thriving with 1000x the "toxic" dose you just quoted should tell you that at least one of the statements is exaggerated.
Again, there are people out there who will tell you that any exposure to certain chemicals is "toxic". These people are not worth listening to.
If a company knowingly uses a toxic chemical, it shouldn't be everybody else's fault they did that.
You are fucking 10x more aware of bullshit you're doing just to keep baby safe. Probably more like 100x, really. Nothing focusses your mind like having CREATED A HUMAN THAT MUST BE KEPT SAFE AT ALL COST.
Can't we discuss the company's responsibility?
> if you're old and you die in an accident, you died of old age, not "that specific accident"
Your metaphor absolves any drunk driver from murder charges as long as their victim is old enough.
Or we could recognize that lapses of judgement are something every human is capable of and demand such outrageous things that our cookware remains safe at any temperature a reasonable stovetop can produce. Really it shouldn't just be safe but also not break the cookware.
Teflon flu is a thing, but it is relatively rare, especially considering how widespread Teflon pans are. That's a few hundred cases per year in the US, by comparison, there are about 1000x more house fire, with cooking equipment being a leading cause.
Worst case scenario here is people throw out their relatively harmless spatulas and buy new ones. Big whoop.
I won't deny that many such academics exist. And yet...
The numerous successful academics at reputable universities that I know (including me) are uniformly mortified when our names are associated with mistaken interpretations in the press. Some of us (including me) simply stop doing press interviews because it happens so often.
If you want to find an incentive to get undeserved attention, I recommend you look at economic incentives within the press itself. Too much time pressure, not enough training, desperate need to gather attention to sell ads. All the opposite of the academic world.
I think social media - such as HN comments that shoot down almost every OP without fail - is by far the best example? Most comments on social media on such things seek attention for being smarter-than-though and have no basis in anything, including the comment at the top of this thread by 'gidmkhealthnerd'.
> All the opposite of the academic world.
The pure academic world and the evil Media! If you're an academic, maybe we can something better than joining the mob against the bogeyman.
If the OP can't handle criticism it's hard to argue that the attention is deserved
Absolutely! You're one of the good ones! I just wish you were in the majority. :-(
Edit: that's unfair. I don't know if you're in the majority or minority. I want to believe that most academics are still just silently plugging away and doing good work. It just really feels like things have shifted to the huckster side of the spectrum, and/or that is what is rewarded.
That said, I grant your broader point about selection bias.
But you should also consider that only one or a few people championing for change is how safty has historically improved. We have had too many cases of industries knowingly poisinging people for profits while funding studies that say everything is fine and marginalizing the few reasearches who have morals and don't just go after the biggest profits to discard concerns like this just because there is only one person championing them.
- The replication crisis means most science is bad and we should be extremely skeptical of scientific consensus.
- This one single scientific paper changes everything and you are negligent if you don’t immediately change your life based on it.
but it confirms my current bias so it must be true!
Is not a reliable, frequent, pattern that is in any way a valid criticism of the community as a whole. Incredible
Not everyone on 4chan is a flaming bigot but yet the community as a while gets (rightfully) judged for allowing it in their midst. Why are lesser forms of poor behavior not also reflective of the community?
Plus the risk of the alternative you pick being much worse than the original option.
There's also a risk that any cracks will fill with bacteria.
Should make it from RVS.
* "The Best Food-Safe Finish May Be None at All", https://www.finewoodworking.com/2024/10/10/the-best-food-saf...
TLDR; unfinished wood that is rinsed and dried on all sides will naturally trap and kill bacteria as it dries. Any finish interferes with this process.
The number one thing that made me mistrust scientists/science was doing it myself. I realized that they are not the arbiters of truth that Plato/Aristotle tried to make them out to be. The allegory of the cave/allegory of the divided line were fake/complete lies - and most of western philosophy implicitly acts as "footnotes" on these wrongful ideas.
As the secret of science-as-slightly-better-than-chance gets out to more and more, existing anti-intellectualism is supercharged. It's not just attacks of "cultural/postmodern neo-marxism" against your comparative literature department - it's claims of systemic academic fraud of your whole STEM field laboratories because it became known to the public that everyone cut corners so that they could be one step ahead in the academic careerist rat race.
I am firmly an Epistemology Anarchist - that is I agree with almost everything Paul feyerband ever wrote. I don't believe that knowledge/truth is influenced by the method for which it is found. Real, reproducible truth is found all the time outside of traditional academic or scientific norms/methods. The medium is firmly not the message and Marshall McLuhan is a quack.
Basically, when Plato says "the farmer should not rule" I respond with "neither should the philosopher or the so called philosopher king"
Trillions invested, decades wasted by global institutions and here my Ego outdoes them all in factual accuracy with an offhand 30 second post. What's there to not like?
And also true re: acidic foods -- I've got a couple stainless, but mainly use my enameled cast iron or clay (tagine) for tomato based dishes.
Definitely!
As much as I generally love it, e.g. pancakes with olive oil sound like a dubious idea, taste-wise.
Regarding frying things in olive oil, I was also under the impression that it's not particularly heat-stable and unhealthy substances can start forming at relatively low temperatures?
As for high heat with olive oil, I'm not sure about it being unhealthy or not. I just found this overview [1], and it seems like there isn't great evidence. I again hadn't considered it, since it's something my ancestors have done for thousands of years. Sample size of one family, but my grandmother lived to her 90s and my great-aunt is still walking around Paris in her mid-90s!
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/cooking-with-olive-oil-faq-safet...
and I thought of the sunny episode when I read your comment.
"just in case is as good a reason as any to believe in something", whether it's monkey paws, throwing salt over your shoulder, knocking on wood, etc.
Yes, it takes slightly longer to clean some stuff up, but at least I'm not eating as much plastic/PTFE.
Similarly, there are plenty of different metal spatulas for different purposes, like decorating cakes or cooking on one big stove-top (as opposed to individual burners, that's something you see in the restaurant kitchens more often than in private use). And, again, you don't have to use any specific one for any specific task. My mom never had a spatula and did everything with a single chef knife she had, and it still worked for her.
>> should be pretty obvious even before this study that plastic, heat, and ingesting the result do not go together.
I don't think this is true.
Also wood spatulas exist as a very good replacement for plastic spatulas for teflon pans anyway.
I suppose I could go cast iron, but I'm sure I can find a study saying those are terrible too.
Got a bunch of carbon-steel cookware and she loves it.
Or do you perform a quick season on the cooktop right before frying / searing? In that case, you could also use stainless steel cookware, which is even less maintenance than carbon steel.
Stainless steel is very foolproof actually, but at the end of the day, we mostly prefer silicone/wood utensils in the house, except a couple of items.
Pros: SS can go right in the dishwasher, it's safe & you can use metal spatula, no worry about loss of efficacy over the years.
Cons: It takes a minute more to prep, harder to clean (sides/edges aren't non-stick)
Personally, between this option and carbon-steel pre-seasoned, I see no reason to own Teflon pans.
And replacing sugar with sweeteners is even worse.
Sure, your T-Fal pan will "release a fried egg" instantly for the first 20~30 fried eggs, but then they will start sticking as the coating naturally erodes into your food and your body (including the adhesives that make a 'non-stick' surface adhere to metal). A splash of olive oil is all you need, and olive oil it is one of the healthiest foods out there.
> Needless to say it's a bit more involved, but I felt more accomplished when I figured out how to cook with it.
The rituals and sense of accomplishment. Teflon is very convenient, when it fails you buy a new one, RVS takes a bit more expertise and cast iron is even more of an adventure, it gets better over time, last many generations. It is different in that it heats very slowly but also stays hot when you put it on the table. Nice for slow dining and/or foods that don't stay warm for long. If the handle is also iron you can put it in the oven. You get to cook different dishes that go from the stove in the oven.
As for what you’re missing: nothing for cooking smaller foods, but it is unmatched for baking and frying. I’ve found it to be a lot more capable in keeping oil temps consistent and giving good crusts to pan pizzas and cornbreads. So if deep dish pizzas, breads, seared/fried meats and veggies, and huevos ahogados sound good I’d definitely recommend having at least one 10-12” pan around.
I think at the end, it boils down to cooking style and preference. We use both (non-stick and stainless steel), and some foods are easier to prepare in one w.r.t to other, however, nothing is impossible in either.
All non stick coatings require care though. Never scrape with metal, do not wash in the dishwasher, and do not overheat.
The rule 0 of item maintenance is, "if you care for your item, your item cares for you when you need it".
I'm very interested about how you can achieve this.
some minor outputs of food oil oxidation/polymerization are believed to be probable carcinogens. these compounds will be present in all food cooked on any surface. this varies more significantly based on your food choice and preparation method than your cookware selection. if you're eating, you're consuming oxidized and polymerized food oils.
the pan itself could potentially contribute iron to your food, or molecular variants like rust or magnetite (oxidized iron). this iron isn't harmful. you're more likely to be deficient than have too much iron. in fact, cooking with iron is occasionally advocated as a way to supplement iron nutrition, to treat iron-deficient anemia.
there are potential impurities in the iron alloy of the pan. most impurities are removed by the foundry process as 'slag'. when iron is heated to molten temperature, everything reactive will burn off or evaporate. other metals will float or precipitate. slag is removed before casting, but some may remain mixed - these will be oxides of foundry inputs used to regulate the melt such as calcium, magnesium, aluminum, and barium. these are controlled to low fractions, but even so are nontoxic or nutritious when ingested. if you're using metal cookware, there is some slag in your cookware.
i just now tried to find a study indicating some harmful property of cast iron but i couldn't find one.
just stop using plastic to cook. it's not hard, and it's not expensive. it's even easier than being miserable on the internet
No they don't. How can you even say that with a straight face? Scuffing the surface != damage.
There's a big difference between cooking on a piece of metal, and cooking on a multiple layers of chemicals invented by the aerospace industry; or overheating a metal spatula or overheating utensils made from recycled electronics' plastic.
This idea that it is impossible to cook without all this over-engineered, hyper-marketed, disposable, mass-produced QVC crap is utter nonsense.
Nobody needs teflon, or nylon, or plastic too cook with. You can cook perfectly fine with centuries old technology. The same way the people who invented the recipes cooked centuries ago.
Also, plastics have quality grades from "that's good stuff" to "this thing smells funny in a bad way". We have some IKEA food tweezers which use black plastic molded on steel prongs. It's stamped with "+150 degrees C" and the black is hazy, like it's colored with a dye or pigment, and plastic is hard like bakelite.
OTOH, I have used other "black" spatulas which are uniform in color, but neither as sturdy, nor smell neutral.
We have silicone counterparts to these items too. They're more rubbery, but they have hard plastic spines inside so, they don't flex.
At least now I'm angry in a constructive way.
Happy Halloween
Is his post supposed to be taken seriously?
If this person is a fact checker, he's probably run into plenty of people who would say "I don't find the data personally convincing" to explain why they don't trust vaccines.