In 1938, Americans accidentally discovered a slippery substance; later, a French fisherman used it on fishing tackle; finally, the fisherman’s wife used it on a frying pan.
The non-stick pan that benefited millions of people was born, and it was called “Happy Pan”.
1960s advert calls nonstick pans ‘happy pans’ | Wikimedia Commons
However, if you want your nonstick pan to be a “happy pan” all the time, you have to pay attention to these things.
Don’t use a metal spatula!
Please be gentle with non-stick pans, do not use iron, stainless steel spatulas, and do not rub with steel wool !
The slippery substance mentioned at the beginning is called polytetrafluoroethylene , and it is called Teflon as a DuPont product, which is stable and waterproof.
In order to stick the “non-stick” teflon to the pan, roughen the surface of the pan so that it can catch the sprayed paint.
Finally, the pan is heated to about 400°C and the “non-stick” coating is fixed on the pan.
Spraying liquid PTFE丨YouTube/Science Channel
Some non-stick pans are not solid, and the coating is not sticky and easy to fall off .
If you often cook with a hard, sharp metal spatula, the coating will be scraped off a little; washing with a steel wool will also rub off some of the coating.
Gradually, you found that the non-stick pan that you bought back soon began to stick to the pan!
Therefore, when cooking in a non-stick pan, it is better to use a wooden spatula or a silicone spatula that is not so hard .
The coating was eaten by someone?
A question then arises:
The coating of the non-stick pan was slowly scraped off by the spatula, where did it go ?
Could it be that it was mixed in the vegetables and eaten into the stomach?
Will it be chronic poisoning? ? ?
Most likely you ate it, but it’s not a big problem!
The main components of the coating are not dangerous
First, let’s talk about the main body of the non-stick coating, teflon.
As mentioned earlier, it is very stable in nature and rarely reacts with other substances. So, even if you eat it, it’s still Teflon in your body, and it’s Teflon when you pull it out.
Tests on rats show that food is still non-toxic when the content of PTFE in food reaches 25% [8].
By the way, this material can also be used to make artificial blood vessels in medical treatment, and it is also safe to implant into the human body .
Teflon is not cute at high temperatures though.
When heated to 260°C, PTFE begins to produce smoke;
When heated to 350°C, people in the smoke will experience flu-like symptoms such as headaches, chills, and fever;
Above 400°C, PTFE breaks down, releasing toxic fluorine-containing compounds.
What would cause a nonstick pan to be so hot? Dry burn !
In 2012, there was a case report in Japan.
A man fell asleep while using a non-stick pan and forgot to turn off the heat, leaving the non-stick pan to dry for 5 hours, producing a lot of white smoke.
After waking up, he immediately put the non-stick pan under the tap to rinse.
The hot pot comes in contact with the cold water, causing a lot of steam. Hours after inhaling the steam, the man felt fatigued and had difficulty breathing, then developed a fever and a dry cough.
Fortunately, he was much better after he went to the hospital to take oxygen, and he was completely fine after 3 days.
The rescued party pot丨Reference [7]
So as long as you don’t dry the non-stick pan, teflon is not very harmful.
(In fact, dry burning pots are very dangerous, be careful of fire) (don’t try)
Possible carcinogens are “coating excipients”
And everyone’s rumored “non-stick pan causes cancer”, the protagonist is not PTFE, but the blind auxiliary material in the coating – perfluorooctanoic acid.
This perfluorooctanoic acid is really bitter.
It used to be a necessary material for the production of PTFE, but over time, people gradually discovered its disadvantages.
In animal experiments, PFOA can induce some types of tumors , can also cause the death of pups , and is toxic to the liver, immune system, and endocrine system (in much larger doses than in non-stick pans);
In epidemiological studies, PFOA concentrations in the blood have been found to be associated with an increased risk of cancers such as kidney cancer and testicular cancer, as well as infertility .
There is a movie “Dark Waters” about the human and environmental hazards of high exposure to PFOA.
Poster for the movie Blackwater. However, the hazards mentioned are the hazards of dumping industrial waste and occupational exposure, and non-stick pans are not an exposure level丨imdb
Although “correlated” does not mean “causal”, it also represents a certain risk after all. Coupled with technological progress, the non-stick pans produced in the past ten years will basically not use perfluorooctanoic acid .
In 2004, after the health risk of non-stick pan coating was exposed, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine conducted a special spot check on PFOA. At that time, no PFOA residue was detected in 28 products of 18 brands on the market at that time [9] .
Even if some small brands of non-stick pans contain PFOA, most of the PFOA is volatilized during the heating step of making non-stick pans.
If you are still worried
In a word, the non-stick pans bought in recent years are not poisonous and can be used casually ; if the coating is off, it can be used (but it will become sticky to the pan) , and if the wallet is thick enough, it is good to replace it with a new one.
However, the ingredients of the non-stick coating have long, chemical-smelling names. If these make you very uneasy, you can consider using a non-stick ceramic non-stick coating .
Unlike the “chemical non-stick” of Teflon, this non-stick pan uses the “physical non-stick” route .
Let’s put it this way, “ceramic coating” is not real ceramics, but grinding and processing the main raw materials of ceramics, such as silicon oxide and aluminum oxide, to make a slurry, and then coat and reinforce the inner wall of the pot. From a microscopic point of view, the surface of the paint is a bit like a lotus leaf.
The main point of use is not to use iron spatula and steel ball . After all, it is a coating and will wear out. Some ceramic coatings are more brittle than traditional coatings, and they are not worth it if they are damaged.
references
[1] https://ift.tt/GoihAUt
[2]Steenland K, Fletcher T, Savitz D A. Epidemiologic evidence on the health effects of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)[J]. Environmental health perspectives, 2010, 118(8): 1100-1108.
[3] Bartell SM, Vieira VM. Critical review on PFOA, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer. J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2021, 71(6):663-679.
[4] Tarapore P, Ouyang B. Perfluoroalkyl Chemicals and Male Reproductive Health: Do PFOA and PFOS Increase Risk for Male Infertility? Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021, 18(7):3794.
[5] Sinclair E, Kim SK, Akinleye HB, Kannan K. Quantitation of gas-phase perfluoroalkyl surfactants and fluorotelomer alcohols released from nonstick cookware and microwave popcorn bags. Environ Sci Technol. 2007, 41(4):1180-1185.
[6] Sajid, M., Ilyas, M. PTFE-coated non-stick cookware and toxicity concerns: a perspective. Environ Sci Pollut Res 2017, 24, 23436–23440.
[7] Shimizu T, Hamada O, Sasaki A, et al. Polymer fume fever[J]. Case Reports, 2012.
[8] Naftalovich R, Naftalovich D, Greenway FL. Polytetrafluoroethylene Ingestion as a Way to Increase Food Volume and Hence Satiety Without Increasing Calorie Content. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology. 2016;10(4):971-976.
[9] https://ift.tt/572mVDS
Author: Sad Thallium Baby
Editor: Li Xiaokui
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