Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Teflon Toxin

firstlook.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 263 posts

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#151

Post by azinman2 »

VMG wrote: post #53
azinman2 wrote: post #3

Horrible. This is what's so scary about the free market and our current chemical regulations of innocent until proved guilty. People cover up, even the biggest most "professional" here (DuPont), and the public gets decades of abuse. Why is it that medication requires FDA approval with lots of animal/human tests before you can sell it, but chemicals do not? Here the tests internally done showed prove of issue year aft…

> This is what's so scary about the free market and our current chemical regulations of innocent until proved guilty. I get your point, but the situation is not much better in non-free markets as well. Regulators have a price for which they can be captured.

The solution IMHO to have a climate of non-corruption (US) generally combined with enough pay already for regulators to not be easily swayed, and hopefully hire people who have different motivators than money in life, and actually jail for real people who violate this (too many abuses, particularly on Wall Street, go by without the true punishment it deserves).

Despite existing corruption, I do believe the FDA is less corrupt than it is corrupt, and for the most part they do have the public good as their primary interest.

My free market comment was more about this theory of self-regulation and trust. Clearly that gets violated time and time again, and here is yet another case to the point of knowingly harming their own employees for decades!

The bigger issue is this non-regulatory environment for so many chemicals. Innocent until proven guilty, especially for thousands of drugs already popular when regulations were enacted (in the 60s?), is just irresponsible. The list of drugs in the blood of the entire pollution just keeps growing... How long before we realize the permanent harm potential?

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#152

Post by azinman2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #91
VLM wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Teflon pans are cheap ... after a year or so get a new one." Really? "Real" nonstick pans (not walmart) sell for something like $40 to $100+ a piece, but cast iron (Lodge Inc, etc) sells for something like $20. So CI works better, last forever, is cheaper, and its less toxic. Its true that you can buy a pan shaped object from walmart for $5 that doesn't really work, but in all fairness the CI equivalent is the "free…

I've had two of the Lodge cast iron pans crack completely, and being able to dishwash the nonstick pans saves me a lot of time.

Crack? Like fall apart? What are you doing man?! It's freaking iron!!!! I'm using my great-great grandmothers pan all the time and it's amazing despite being from the 1800's

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#153

Post by azinman2 »

gambiting wrote: post #110
VLM wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Teflon pans are cheap ... after a year or so get a new one." Really? "Real" nonstick pans (not walmart) sell for something like $40 to $100+ a piece, but cast iron (Lodge Inc, etc) sells for something like $20. So CI works better, last forever, is cheaper, and its less toxic. Its true that you can buy a pan shaped object from walmart for $5 that doesn't really work, but in all fairness the CI equivalent is the "free…

You can buy an original Tefal pan for like $15-20, if it lasts a year that's ok with me. I wouldn't trust the no-brand $5 stuff either, but I would think that Tefal pans should be ok?

That stuff is just more toxicity. The non stick vaporizes at high temperatures (the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen... And that's the Teflon website!!!), and all those knicks and scratched are material coming off and into your food.

There's no need for toxic cookware. Get high quality cast iron and you can give it to your future generations like my grandmother did for me. And if that flakes into your food, it's just iron which your body needs!

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#154

Post by azinman2 »

rcthompson wrote: post #8
stretchwithme wrote: post #4

All that teflon is going somewhere when it falls off the pan. Its going in the food and into your body. I'd rather not run that experiment. So many years ago I started using a glass frying pan.

Teflon itself is pretty much inert. That's the whole point - nothing reacts with it, nothing sticks to it. The worry is about the chemicals used to manufacture it.

Heat your Teflon pans with nothing in it and it'll kill a canary. Hardly inert.

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#155

Post by ectoplasm »

azinman2 wrote: post #152
ceejayoz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had two of the Lodge cast iron pans crack completely, and being able to dishwash the nonstick pans saves me a lot of time.

Crack? Like fall apart? What are you doing man?! It's freaking iron!!!! I'm using my great-great grandmothers pan all the time and it's amazing despite being from the 1800's

There are many reasons why a cast iron skillet inexplicably cracks.

Poor quality control in manufacturing, natural crystalline formation defects, excessive impacts in handling, extreme thermal stresses, etc.

Cast iron, being a non-ductile material, in the daily thermal cycling of cooking, any minute microscopic fissure will start to propagate through a process known as metal fatigue, and eventually fail catastrophically.

To some degree, cast iron can be annealed or hardened, depending on your cooking habits. Something I do which I would not recommend to anyone else: I buy cheap cast iron cookware, heat it up red hot and pour cold water in it. If it didn't crack, them I heat it up again in an oven and let it cool down as slowly as possible to anneal any internal stress.

In any case, if the skillet is of great value to you, there are places that actually can repair it for you.

As a last tip, stop practicing skillet abuse and trying to be an iron chef. :-)

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#156

Post by ddispaltro »

randallsquared wrote: post #75
thezilch wrote: post #9

I've never understood the gravity of Teflon pans. I can never seem to keep them non-stick, whether it be because of using too high of heat or somehow scratch the damn thing. So, I got cast irons. It's trivial to keep them seasoned and thus non-stick, and they can take the beating of very high heat -- searing meats -- and any metal utensils or rough substances.

Teflon pans are cheap, and you don't have to care for them at all. Just throw it in the dishwasher and after a year or so get a new one. Having said that, I'm really liking the two nonstick ceramic pans I bought a few months ago, and I'm not sure if I'll need to toss them next year, yet.

Literally the only they tell you not to do with non-stick pans is stick it in the dishwasher.

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#157

Post by 13years »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #80
13years wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets when supported by strong property rights can have strong protections to prevent harm or pollution. Non free markets, although regulated, don't necessarily perform better and can even perform worse in this regard. The FDA is a great example of an agency which often can be seen to work harder to protect the industry than the individual. For example, look up the story of Vioxx. A drug which killed 50k peopl…

> Free markets when supported by strong property rights can have strong protections to prevent harm or pollution. Can someone explain how this is supposed to work? I don't mean to sound rude/biased but this sounds like one of those cases where the theory is sound but when it meets with reality we get unpredictable(and sometimes disastrous) results.

A couple of reference for further reading on the subject.

"...if a product polluted the air, victims could sue the product maker, who in turn would pass the costs of restitution onto the consumer. Higher prices would discourage use and decrease pollution..." http://www.ruwart.com/environ2.lpn.wpd.html

The only reference I know of in modern time where property rights were actually used was in Canada. Look up Terence Corcoran and clean water. He produced a documentary how Canada's waters have become polluted after property rights were abolished in 1955.

This is a good reference on the history of environmental policy. In an interesting section here, the book states how property rights in the US were purposely weakened to allow for pollution. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZqRjI6JcgrMC&lpg=PA127&pg=...

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#158

Post by tzs »

rayiner wrote: post #104
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free markets when supported by strong property rights can have strong protections to prevent harm or pollution. Can someone explain how this is supposed to work? I don't mean to sound rude/biased but this sounds like one of those cases where the theory is sound but when it meets with reality we get unpredictable(and sometimes disastrous) results.

People who have no money are supposed to sue DuPont and pony up the money to pay lawyers and experts to prove that DuPont's emissions were harmful and caused their injuries. Then if they lose, because that's hard to prove, they're supposed to pay DuPont's legal fees and costs.

And if you do win, all the Court can do is make DuPont write you a check.

That check will almost always be for far less than the answer you would have given before the injury to the question: "How much money would I have to give you to allow me to cause this specific injury to you?".

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#159

Post by ars »

eevilspock wrote: post #128
randallsquared wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teflon pans are cheap, and you don't have to care for them at all. Just throw it in the dishwasher and after a year or so get a new one. Having said that, I'm really liking the two nonstick ceramic pans I bought a few months ago, and I'm not sure if I'll need to toss them next year, yet.

Great. More synthetic and toxic crap in our landfills. All for our myopic convenience. Dupont and 3M love you.

Teflon is not toxic. Some precursors are but once made it's completely inert.

And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.

Re: The Teflon Toxin

#160

Post by Kluny »

Retric wrote: post #122
mtviewdave wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the various recent threads about open office plans, some people have pointed out that extended use of headphones, at the volume required to shut out conversation, causes permanent hearing loss over the long term. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a tech company that takes that concern seriously.

You can use noise canceling headphones/ear buds to avoid the chatter and lower the volume. At ~300$ there not cheap, but not only do they help save your hearing they are also less distracting for those around you.

The pressure on the skull also causes headaches in a lot of people, which is why most of the people in my office don't use them, even though the company pays for them.
Post reply on HN