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!
I have no idea.
This says the PTFE passes through undigested but who knows:
https://essentialware.com/teflon-and-pfoa-all-your-questions-answered/
Call me a cynic, but I’d not really take health advice from them, let alone on something they want to sell people.
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.
Kind of depends on if that pan has ever been over heated. 250 degrees C (482 f).
The monomer that results is in fact quite toxic.
I’m unconvinced by the one study- we all know how industry pays for favorable studies, and it would need to be long term. I’m also far made concerned with aluminum poisoning than I am thr ptfe.
If you overheat, you could get fumes that make make you feel unwell. But you’ll have to properly go over the limit and breathe in a bunch for that
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
It’s not just one study, there’s been a bunch. But you’re confusing the use in cookware (the case here) and stuff like in industrial setting or as a byproduct of the manufacturing. Teflon manufacturing used to involve a chemical that was pretty harmful but it wasn’t the cookware that was the issue, it was the manufacturing and those working in and around the plants. Cookware was fine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety
If the chunk of PTFE you ingested is getting heated to over 250 C inside your gut, you’ve got a much bigger and more immediate problem than toxicity!