non stick pans

Stacy ([email hidden]) wrote:
: I recently read a newletter alert from Dr. Mercola that states that teflon
: coating, or any non stick coating pans, especially if scratched, should all
: be thrown out because they cause cancer.

: We have so many things that cause cancer, perhaps one of the biggest being
: the very air we breath. So should we throw out our t-fal and non stick pans?
: I paid over $100 for one of my skillets !

I am very skeptical about the above. Teflon is, from what I have been able
to learn about it, one of the most inert and harmless of all the plastic
products AT ROOM TEMPERATURE! .... but read on for the bad news!

I will *never have any teflon coated cooking utensils in our house. They
can be immediately lethal if overheated!!

Any standard reference book will tell you that Teflon decomposes to give
off one of the most toxic poisons known if it is overheated - and at a
temperature well *below that generated by any electric range-top element
or gas stove!

Decomposition begins at about 400 deg.C

In a normally lighted room, a red glow starts to become visible at about
600 deg.C to 700C, so ..... all you have to do is put that empty teflon
coated pan on a stove-top burner, turn on the burner, .... and get
distracted by a phone call ... or a kid that starts a fight with another
kid .... or whatever, and you can find yourself breathing fumes that are
far more nasty than the 'mustard gas' used in WW I (and then banned by
international treaty because it was too horrible to allow even as a war
weapon).

I first heard of this when a report was circulated in our Physics
Department (Dalhousie University) about a fatality in one of the B.C.
Universities (U.B.C. or Simon Fraser - I forget which).

A lab worker had put a cigarette down on a teflon coated lab bench top for
a minute or two, then picked it up and inhaled a lungfull. A very short
time later that person was dead. The inquiry determined that the cause was
poisoning by the decomposition products of the teflon bench top coating.

That was several years ago and I may be a bit fuzzy on some of the
details, but I did check my copy of "Hazardous properties of Industrial
Materials" and my "Chemical Dictionary", as well as one or two MSDS sheets
for Teflon - and they all confirmed the above toxic properties of Teflon
heated to 400C and above.

I am at a loss as to why teflon coated cookware has not been banned by the
government regulators.

Ben F.