I have a set of 3 Bra Premiere non-stick frying pans that I’ve used for a while. The coating on them says “Teflon Innovations without PFOA”. Recently I’ve noticed that on the most used pan, the 26cm one, the Teflon coating has started to peel off.
I know that Teflon coatings can release harmful fumes and chemicals if overheated, but what about if the coating is physically peeling? Is it still safe to cook with them? Or should I stop using especially the 26cm one? I don’t want to keep exposing my family to anything dangerous unknowingly. Any advice if these types of pans are still safe to cook with if the nonstick surface is peeling would be appreciated!
Do you want to eat teflon? 'Cause that’s how you end up eating teflon.
In theory, the teflon should continue to be inert as it passes through your digestive tract, but don’t do that. It’s time to throw out the pan.
Related advice: non-stick is overrated to begin with. Replace all your nonstick pans with tri-ply stainless clad aluminum, cast iron (enameled or not), carbon steel, etc…
If you insist on having a teflon pan, recognize it for the semi-disposable item it is: get the cheapest one you can find, use it only for things that really need it (e.g. eggs), and accept that you’re going to be throwing it out and replacing it every couple of years.
I don’t even think you need one for eggs necessarily. I switched from PTFE nonstick to all metal (stainless/carbon steel and cast iron) a few years back. Eggs were no problem once I figured out heat control. I cook scrambled eggs and omelettes every week with no sticking.
I did eventually get a ceramic nonstick for making soft tofu in a sticky sauce. Definitely don’t try that in a stainless steel pan. It worked okay in the carbon steel wok, but was obnoxious to clean.
non-stick is overrated to begin with
I’d say it’s correctly rated. It does the no-stick well while not being as durable. In my experience that’s what people expect from it.
I’ve never known anyone in real life who owns Teflon cookware who thinks it’s a concern in any way. If they saw any issue with their 15 year old teflon skillet, it’s that it visually looks bad from all the scratches
The one concern is that cheaper ones get ruined real fast, that’s why all cooking groups hate them (but people also keep buying them because cheap and convenient).
No stick but not durable seems to be the consensus I’ve seen and that’s, yeah that’s what it is.
First of all, if you’re going to buy a fancy expensive non-stick pan, spend the money and buy non-metal utensils to use with it.
Second, if you want to keep using metal utensils, buy anodized aluminum. It’s not perfectly non-stick, but it’s close and it can take a beating.
We got a set of stainless pots and pans last year and as long as you heat the pan before you put food in it, I’ve had less sticking than in my old non stick pans.
First of all, if you’re going to buy a fancy expensive non-stick pan,
spend the money and buy non-metal utensils to use with it.don’t.FTFY. Expensive non-stick has no practical benefit over cheap non-stick. They all wear out in the same amount of time regardless of price, so you might as well buy the cheap stuff so you don’t feel as bad when it’s time to throw it out.
Otherwise, I’d prefer tri-ply stainless clad aluminum to anodized.
“Safe” is a relative term. Is it going to set your house on fire? No. Is it going to release harmful gasses while you cook and leech toxic metals into your food and slowly poison you? Yeah, probably. But, like, how old are you? Maybe you’re like 98 years old and don’t have that much longer to live anyway.
Fuck’s smatterchew? Throw that shit out and get a new pan. Damn.
I think generally it’s considered safe apart from the gases, but that’s an issue if you heat it to a much too high of a temperature. And it seems like they make you feel sick but it passes in few hours.
I have never heard anyone manage to get that though. Maybe if you forget the pan on the stove, but then you wouldn’t be standing there breathing the fumes? I dunno
- Chunks of teflon are getting in your food
- The aluminium underneath, which was protected by the teflon, is getting into your food (especially true with acidic foods, since they will react with aluminium and erode it).
I don’t know that the PTFE is going to be any worse than all the other micro plastic we’re eating*, but the aluminum definitely is a problem.
Id suggest replacing it (or using the others until you can replace it,)
Tomorrow might be a good time if you can afford it, with all the sales.
*ain’t life grand?
There was that town in the US where 3M dumped PTFE into the rivers and it made it into the drinking water, I watched a documentary where people in that town have a cancer rate 169 times the national average. IIRC
PTFE is one of the greatest chemicals to ingest… if you want to grow some extra body parts.
I think you might be thinking about this
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical formerly used in the manufacture of PTFE products such as non-stick coated cookware, can be carcinogenic for people who are exposed to it (see Ecotoxicity).[66] Concerning levels of PFOA have been found in the blood of people who work in or live near factories where the chemical is used, and in people regularly exposed to PFOA-containing products such as some ski waxes and stain-resistant fabric coatings, but non-stick cookware was not found to be a major source of exposure, as the PFOA is burned off during the manufacturing process and not present in the finished product.[64] Non-stick coated cookware has not been manufactured using PFOA since 2013,[67] and PFOA is no longer being made in the United States.[66]
Shouldn’t be used anymore
PTFE is one of the greatest chemicals to ingest… if you want to grow some extra body parts.
Actually ingesting teflon “chips” (hah) shouldn’t do anything. It should just pass through without interacting with your body. Not a pleasant thought, eating them, but shouldn’t have any harmful effects either.
No, it’s not safe to keep using nonstick pans that are peeling, but people still use them anyway.
I think it’s safe in that the coating won’t poison you. They should just pass through without harming you. But it’s not a very pleasant idea, so I would get a new pan just for that.
ATK just did a short video on this. It’s probably not as detailed as you might want but here you go. I believe Teflon is used because it is so innocuous, but the chemicals used underneath to make it stick are very bad for you. https://youtu.be/2RJkIPT-jLs?si=w0X3lpQK9tnaMmbA
What did you do to the poor thing? Looks like you’ve been stabbing it with a fork 24/7 for years. Toss it, and be (a lot) more careful with the next one - or skip nonstick entirely. They already have a finite lifetime when not abused, and if you manage to ruin the coat in one spot that’s a hotspot for “scaling off” more.
Stainless steel can take a beating, though, go nuts.
Cast iron is non-stick and so much easier to clean
Cast iron is nice, I recommended stainless because I assume someone who treats pans like this would ruin cast iron too.
Unless of course you want to use a dishwasher. Even manually it really isn’t ‘so much easier to clean’ and you have to spend time seasoning it.
Once you season cast iron you can clean it however you want. Even with soap. The oils you bake on there at such high heat causes polymerization.
You don’t have to continue to season cast iron after cleaning it, unless you’re cleaning it with a fucking angle grinder.
Dishwashers can have some pretty high pressures involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if it can literally chip the seasoning off.
I might be wrong, but I think if your “seasoning” is thick enough to chip off it means you did it wrong and failed to scrub away the excess food residue.
Afaik you can’t put the non stick in the dishwasher either?
I don’t see why not? They won’t rust in there like cast iron would
Not about rust, but the chemicals in the detergent can harm the coating iirc.
From what I understand, that is unsafe. Having said that i’ve been using one in a worse condition too. Best to limit the use of non stick pans anyways unless its for eggs or smth delicate pl us careful with the wash
I have no idea.
This says the PTFE passes through undigested but who knows:
https://essentialware.com/teflon-and-pfoa-all-your-questions-answered/
Undigested doesn’t mean it doesn’t leach anything nasty or cause problems (particularly over long periods of time.)
Some almost certainly doesn’t fully pass.
When they’ve studied this I don’t think they’ve seen results showing that it leaches something. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t find out that it does, but as per our current understanding it seems scientifically speaking to be nasty but not dangerous.
Call me a cynic, but I’d not really take health advice from them, let alone on something they want to sell people.
Throw that shit away ang get an All Clad everyday pan or Staub or something. There will be tons of sales and getting proper cooking equipment is worth the investment
There’s a couple misconceptions in this thread.
Yes, Teflon can release some gasses if overheated, but it’s not likely going to cause you any real harm. As long as you’re turning on the range hood while you cook, it’s basically a non-issue. Teflon really only releases fumes at very high temperatures (usually over 500F), and foods that are being cooked at that high heat aren’t really going to be needing a non-stick coating to begin with, so you’d ideally want to use a different type of pan for foods cooked at very high heat in the first place.
If you really huff the fumes intentionally, you might give yourself a headache/fever (look up “Teflon flu” for more), but it’s not likely gonna kill you. However, some pets may be more susceptible to Teflon fumes, particularly birds, who can very easily die from Teflon fumes, so be cautious if you have any animals in your home.
As for the aluminum underneath, that’s also largely a non-issue. Aluminum is safe to cook with in most applications. It’s even relatively safe to consume, and it’s actually used in many common medicines (like aspirin and antacids) and also as a food additive in some cases. There’s a reason why acidic foods like tomatoes and pineapples are canned in aluminum; because it’s safe to do so. If a little aluminum from the can/pan leeches out into the food, it’s not a big deal as it’ll pass through you unnoticed. It’s only really a concern if you already have issues with high amounts of metal consumption in your diet. Some people believe that aluminum can cause or accelerate certain conditions like Alzheimer’s, however I believe those studies have been mostly inconclusive, last time I looked into it.
The bigger issue is that you risk getting chunks of the Teflon coating breaking off of the pan and getting into your food. While it’ll pass through you mostly harmlessly, it’s still not ideal. And it’s just gross.
I’d recommend tossing that pan and getting a new one and only using it for low/medium-high temps, as well as picking up a stainless steel pan (assuming you don’t have any metal allergies), and use that for things that need more heat to cook.
Also, be gentler with your pans, in general. It looks like you’ve been sticking a fork or some other metal utensil in there, which is a bad idea. If you’re using a metal spatula or something, stop that; just use plastic/rubber/wood on your non-stick items. If you’re hand-washing it, just use a sponge or a soft brush, but don’t use anything abrasive like steel wool or those sponges with the “hard” side for grease and grime, as those can also rapidly degrade the Teflon coating.
OP, please don’t trust this one’s comments. See following document, sections 6 and 7.
PTFE (teflon) is toxic. As soon as your pan is damaged you should throw it out.
That doesn’t say it’s unsafe to cook with. PFAS, in industrial use, are hella dangerous. But not all PFAS are the same, and Teflon is specifically treated to be food-safe under normal cooking temperatures.
Teflon, sure. But thechemicals and glue used to stick this famously non stic material to a pan, absolutely fucking not.
That isn’t how Teflon is applied to cookware.
So I’ve just read that paper and it’s very interesting. The vast bulk of it is about the danger of polymer processing aid used during the manufacturer of teflon and how they could leach during manufacture, use and product disposal.
The manufacture and disposal phases encompass environment pollution - important, but not relevant to safety during cooking.
The in-use section of the paper is largely about concentrations used in cosmetics (who knew?) and the potential affects.
What about cooking? There is one line that I could find in the paper - I may have missed something, of course. It says this:
“Fluoropolymer-coated food contact materials (e.g., metal cookware), if not properly pretreated, could lead to the leaching of nonpolymeric PFAS residuals into food during the use phase.”
So - if not properly pretreated (I don’t think the paper expands on what this means), it could lead to leaching. But the paper has nothing to say about whether this leaching occurs with everyday cookware and if so, if it happens at concentrations that could be harmful.
So I’m going to suggest that this paper does not present any evidence that non-stick pans are harmful to health during cooking.
Someone who tells you Teflon is fine should absolutely not be believed. Doesn’t matter if their wall of text might sound convincing
Huh, I always thought pineapples and tomatoes were canned in non-aluminium tins that also have a coating on the inside to prevent corrosion. Them tins don’t really feel as soft as a beer or soda can.
There is an episode of the Dave Chang show podcast that covers this. They have a professor on to cover the science of different pans. If I remember correctly, it should be safe as it will through your digestive system. The bigger issue is overheating Teflon. That being said, you still don’t really want non food in your food, and that pan is likely pretty worthless from a non-stick perspective
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Dump all of your non stick and get cast iron
I stopped using non stick pots/pans completely. PFOS or whatever other fucked up, deadly, untested chemicals can get out of my life forever. We may think they’re safe but do we really know? “They” told us the original teflon was safe and look at hope that turned out.
I now have an induction range and only use cast iron and stainless steel. Yes, I sometimes have to scrub or soak my pans but I believe me and mine will live longer and healthier.
Cast iron does make better tasting food, IMHO. Takes some getting used to and more work to clean but I think it’s worth it.
“They” is frequently used as an antisemitic dog whistle fyi
My guy, “they” is just a pronoun. Not everything can be a dog whistle.
Its specifically when applying emphasis, usually with ((())), but not always. Using the word they on its own is not an issue, but in cases like this its usually better to say who you mean, instead of letting people assume.
Or we can not give quite so much power to single word dog whistles, particularly in cases when there’s no actual anti-Semitic content within the post. It’s like the fuckin OK sign all over.
I think it’s better to take in the whole context, and then you don’t have to assume anything.
