• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Once in a finished coating, Teflon itself is essentially inert unless you heat it up several hundred degrees

    Thank goodness it isn’t used in cookware! 😬

    Having kept birds in the past, I don’t believe it’s truly safe to cook with. People using it as directed have had their birds drop dead from it because their lungs are so much more sensitive. If it’s enough to affect them it’s very possible it’s just subacute in humans in the short term but causes health problems long term.

    Also, it’s plastic. You can’t convince me it’s great to cook on top of that. Plus it doesn’t last the way stainless steel or cast iron does, you’re basically buying it to throw away in a couple of years.

    • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Don’t get me wrong, I kept birds as well and I’m aware of the dangers of overheating Teflon pans around them – the same issues arise with 3D printers with PTFE-lined heatbreaks, by the by – but with some caution, in common cooking use those pans aren’t going to see the sorts of temperatures required to start decomposing the coating. Once it starts to wear out, certainly I’d say dump the Teflon cookware and get some stainless and/or cast-iron replacements, but a knee-jerk overreaction to throw out a sound pan is only going to make the plastic waste problem worse in the short term. Plastic the stuff may be, but (again, unless heated quite a bit) it’s one of the least chemically-reactive substances we know of.