Those Forever Chemicals are in more than just the soil and your nonstick pans.
PFAS, the category of Forever Chemicals, is in nearly everything, including most Americans. Where are they and how to at least reduce your exposure? Nonstick pans might be a source, especially if those pans are in bad condition. Your food might also be a source as well as your drinking water.
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Some of the work I do is writing freelance. One particular job was to write about nonstick pans. What I learned was both amazing and a bit concerning because it involves PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals.
Back in July 2023, I spoke with Jason Bassler about Forever Chemicals. One main topic was how the state of Maine was having some pretty serious issues with those chemicals in the soil and everything coming from the soil was contaminated with forever chemicals. That also meant anything eating those plants, chicken and cows and goats, to name three animals, was contaminated with forever chemicals.
That’s the starting point. I’ll add the article link to the show notes page, culinarylibertarian.com/276.
PFAS, which stands for per fluoro alkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances has been around since the 1940s. PFAS is a bit of an umbrella term that has more 4 letter compounds. Teflon, the brand name nonstick substance, is known as PFTE. There are also PFOA and PFOS and a few more.
Already it’s dizzying.
PFAS, as the category of chemicals, is very stable. That sounds good. The chief problem is, that due to the strong chemical bond, they don’t break down. The Cancer dot org website has this, “PFAS have the potential to be a health concern because they don’t break down easily and can stay in the environment and in the human body for a long time (which is why they are sometimes referred to as ‘forever chemicals’). Studies have found PFAS worldwide at very low levels in just about everyone’s blood. Higher blood levels have been found in communities where local water supplies have been contaminated by PFAS. People exposed to PFAS in the workplace can have levels many times higher.”
We’ve moved from a state, Maine, to worldwide. But, there are more states with PFAS problems.
The Environmental Working Group website has a post from 2015. The article is pretty long and rich with lots of information about a class-action lawsuit against DuPont over contaminated water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio. The culprit is PFOA, Perfluorooctanoic Acid. The CDC website writes that “Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been a manufactured perfluorochemical and a byproduct in producing fluoropolymers. Per fluoro chemicals (PFCs) are a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. PFOA was used particularly for manufacturing polytetrafluoroethylene, but since 2002, manufacturers have used a new process not requiring this chemical. PFOA persists in the environment and does not break down. PFOA has been identified in bodies of water and in a variety of land and water animals.”
That’s a lot of alphabet soup. The first thing to know is PFOA has been phased out of production. PFOA was a DuPont product. The similar-sounding PFOS, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, which did basically the same thing, was a 3M product. Both companies have phased out the use of those specific chemicals.
I mentioned Teflon earlier. Teflon is a trade name for PFTE, poly tetra fluoroethylene. The Rational Kitchen website writes, with emphasis, “We should repeat here–just to get the point across–that PTFE and Teflon are the same thing. Teflon® is Dupont’s original trade name for PTFE, and many people still today refer to PTFE pans as Teflon pans, regardless of the brand of PTFE on the pan. There are hundreds of different trade names for PTFE, but ‘Teflon pan’ has come to mean a nonstick PTFE pan in general.”
You might be wondering what does each one have to do with the other. PFOA was, somewhat ironically, the glue that held the PFTE on the pan. The PFOA was dumped in water supplies in West Virginia.
The ban on PFOA is for use in nonstick pans. As stated in that Rational Kitchen post, “As of 2015, no PTFE cookware sold in the US contains PFOA, regardless of where it’s made. This is true for many other parts of the world as well, so even nonstick cookware made in China and other countries with lax environmental policies rarely contains PFOA; there is simply not a market for it.
However, PFOA is still found in other consumer goods made overseas, including carpeting, upholstery, apparel, floor wax, textiles, fire fighting foam, sealants, food packaging containers, and more.”
So, PFOA is gone. And what was the replacement? A chemical called GenX. Ironic, huh? It seems that the GenX chemical is not much better than the PFOA it replaced. GenX chemicals are used specifically in cookware.
I’ll link the Rational Kitchen article also to the show notes page. It has a lot of in-depth content.
All nonstick pans no longer have or use PFOA. That’s the good news. If you shop for pans, you might see the label proudly boasting that the pan is PFOA-free. Of course it is. Now. That’s like saying water is gluten-free. Because labeling is tricky business, what they are telling you isn’t there is no comfort to what they are concealing about what IS there. It’s almost like those drug ads that list all the things that might happen if you take that pill. You might be made more sick by taking the medicine.
The conclusion I came to after writing that article was that nonstick pans are to be avoided. If you have them and they are scratched, they should be thrown away. If they show obvious wear, throw them away.
I threw one pan out and one is next. I have a few more that are in line to go.
Aside from being a problem when the nonstick surface is scratched, the nonstick surface is not high heat safe. How high is high? 500 degrees which is very easy to reach on a stove top. An empty pan on medium-low heat can reach 500 degrees pretty easily
Getting rid of your nonstick pans is one way to reduce exposure to PFAS. Those water-repelling sprays for upholstery are probably PFAS. Dental floss might have PFAS. That’s alarming. It is important to know that forever chemicals are inert below high heat. PFAS are also used in machinery and medical products.
I mentioned I’ll link to the rational kitchen page and I urge you to read it. The content there is worth knowing.
The issue in Maine used biosolids, which they called sludge, to fertilize the soil. They didn’t know it was PFAS-rich rich so it contaminated the soil and the food that grew there and the animals and people who ate that food.
PFAS in soil is not limited to Maine. The Very Well Health website posted an article in 2023 about PFAS in kale. Researchers found PFAS in 7 of 8 samples, both organic and conventionally grown.
It seems bleak. If PFAS are in nearly every US citizen and half of the drinking water sources in the US, how to stop it or reverse it? That same article suggests the need for strong federal regulation to eliminate all 12,000 PFAS chemicals in use. That’s ambitious. Maybe foolish. I’m skeptical that it can be done and I’m also skeptical that what comes as the replacement, the cure so to speak, is better than the disease.
You probably feel overwhelmed. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? From a mitigation standpoint yes. Is it easy? Probably not. Grow your own food. Buy whole foods and make your own stuff. Avoid processed foods in slick slippery packaging. We may not be able to avoid PFAS entirely. We also don’t have to run to more of it for the convenience.
To the pan issue. Cast iron and ceramic and stainless steel are good replacements. Cast iron will last your lifetime when seasoned well and treated properly. Stainless steel pans, with good thick bottoms, usually a copper core for heat distribution, are excellent. I also have some of those. Mine are probably 35 years old and look nearly brand new. For stainless steel, the key is a good SOS pad and lots of elbow grease.
