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Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

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Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#121
post #2

The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulations. The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants. You should throw away nonstick cookware from before 2013, but new nonstick cookware sold in the US does not have PFOA. I believe the EU follow…

> The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants.

I was curious about bioaccumulation in plants vs meat and chanced upon a study that looks at PFXX presence in vegans vs omnivores:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S143846392...

Meat, fish, and water showed the highest correlations, though eggs and fruit seemed to have lowest.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eggs overeasy without breaking the yolk is really hard though. This is strange to hear from a professional chef. I cook eggs overeasy on my cast iron all the time. What works for me is preheating the pan on moderate heat for a minute or two, putting in a bit of butter, and using a metal spatula. Haven't had a broken egg in forever. I've certainly found you need less oil to prevent sticking on a well-seasoned cast i…

i guess it matters how much oil and butter you're adding.

With a well-seasoned pan it mostly comes down to temperature control

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#123
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read that rainwater around the world is unsafe to drink because of PFAS contamination. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...

Rainwater pretty much distills itself as it evaporates. I didn’t read the article but it seems like they’d new some new physics to get it into rain.

[deleted]

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cook eggs on cast iron without them sticking, but it requires maintenance on the seasoning. The trick is to use some butter when cooking with eggs, and they slide right off. A quick wipe with a paper towel and the pan is clean (leaving butter residue helps keep it oiled for next time). Cast iron is a pain to clean if you burn food and the burnt pieces stick, but the investment into learning how to cook with it is w…

We've been using carbon steel pan. Its like cast iron but much lighter (not light though). They look kinda narly, but you get used to it. You "season" from time to time (oil high heat) but we haven't in at least 6 months and use that thing at least 6 times a week. Easy to clean too. This article kinda give the details. (you have to dodge a modal and click "read more"...sorry) https://www.cooksillustrated.com/equipmen…

You don't really have to do much of anything to maintain a cast iron seasoning either, unless you are cooking in it in ways that strip what's there.

I probably don't do anything at all 29 out of 30 uses or more. The other 1 gets a thin swipe of oil while drying under heat and that's it.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#125

This is actually very poor statistics. Take a look at the actual study: https://www.jhep-reports.eu/article/S2589-5559(22)00122-7/fu... And look at table 3. They are testing 6 different types of PFAS, and only 1 is statistically significant. They need to be using the Bonferroni Correction because they are checking multiple hypothesis. To do that, you divide the required p-value (0.05) by the number of tests (6). If y…

Whether they need a correction depends on how they calculated the p-value. If they only ask one question, "Is the total of these 6 chemicals correlated with liver cancer?" then they only did one test and don't need to correct. The fact that 6 chemicals go into the total doesn't mean they asked more questions, it just means there results only speak to the total amount of that whole class of chemicals in the blood rath…

Each of the 6 have unique p-values, they did 6 tests. The GP is correct.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#126
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is unsafe. I suspect you would be at a much much much higher risk from not having ready access to medicine and doctors than PFAS.

Or at higher risk from having access to medicine and doctors. The overuse of medicine as the solution to everything is causing a lot of harm. A pill for every ill. In the US, it's not uncommon for people to be taking 7 different pills at once! I don't think people lived like this 100 years ago.

100 years ago people sat in rotting whale carcasses to cure their ailments[0]. People have actually always taken weird crap for whatever ailed them because we’re pretty fragile creatures with many afflictions. I’ll gladly trade dying of simple cuts and strep throat for modern medicine, even if I have to take 7 different pills at once.

[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prescription-rheum...

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#127
post #2

The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulations. The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants. You should throw away nonstick cookware from before 2013, but new nonstick cookware sold in the US does not have PFOA. I believe the EU follow…

I appreciate you updating your comment with an informed update that contradicted your initial argument. When a consumer chemical is discovered to be harmful, there's a tendency from companies to ask their research chemists to come up with a new chemical that shares the same beneficial properties but without the baggage of the provably dangerous chemical. There's a VERY good chance that the new chemical simply hasn't been studied enough and that long term study will show comparable biological properties (harm).

I personally don't trust 'BPA-free' plastics for this reason. And try as much as I can to use steel/glass containers for liquids. At this point, I'm assuming anything 'teflon-like' will have negative impact on humans, until it has been proven safe in long term studies. You don't want to be an early adopter for industrial chemicals.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#128
post #2

The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulations. The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants. You should throw away nonstick cookware from before 2013, but new nonstick cookware sold in the US does not have PFOA. I believe the EU follow…

I cook eggs on cast iron without them sticking, but it requires maintenance on the seasoning. The trick is to use some butter when cooking with eggs, and they slide right off. A quick wipe with a paper towel and the pan is clean (leaving butter residue helps keep it oiled for next time). Cast iron is a pain to clean if you burn food and the burnt pieces stick, but the investment into learning how to cook with it is w…

The thing you need to be careful with using a cast iron pan is to not go too high heat. Since they can withstand a higher heat from other pans there is a risk when doing so as it creates a carcinogenic compound.

There's some concern that because cast-iron pans can sustain high heat, they may produce chemicals known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are linked to an increased risk of cancer. These chemicals form when meat, including beef, pork, fish and chicken, are cooked using high-temperature cooking techniques, like pan-frying and grilling over an open flame, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Not sure how much the increased risk is but just something to consider.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#129
post #2

The study didn’t actually find anything related to cookware. Modern Teflon in the US doesn’t expose people to PFOA/PFOS like old version did due to new regulations. The chemicals could also be entering peoples body’s through drinking water or bioaccumulation in meat or plants. You should throw away nonstick cookware from before 2013, but new nonstick cookware sold in the US does not have PFOA. I believe the EU follow…

I cook eggs on cast iron without them sticking, but it requires maintenance on the seasoning. The trick is to use some butter when cooking with eggs, and they slide right off. A quick wipe with a paper towel and the pan is clean (leaving butter residue helps keep it oiled for next time). Cast iron is a pain to clean if you burn food and the burnt pieces stick, but the investment into learning how to cook with it is w…

Do you use a gas powered stove? My friends won't stop sending me links to articles detailing the cancer causing bad stuff in the natural gas stoves :o

If not, are there good electric stoves that work with hard cast iron pans?

I have seen the mess heavy cookware creates on those glass top cooktops - old style coils seems to be best for those.

Re: Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer

#130
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read that rainwater around the world is unsafe to drink because of PFAS contamination. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...

Rainwater pretty much distills itself as it evaporates. I didn’t read the article but it seems like they’d new some new physics to get it into rain.

I just googled it. PFAS are simply emitted into the atmosphere and then brought back, rain precipitation being one method of "atmospheric deposition" (something to google). i.e. water doesn't need to evaporate with something in aerosol suspension for that thing to be found in precipitation.
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