My mom just bought a new teflon coated frying pan. She says when the teflon coating on the old pan is worn out, it gets toxic.
I first thought, “yeah, right”, but then remembered something about aluminum showing up in brains of Alzheimers patients.
What’s the Straight Dope?
I believe it has something to do with the teflon flaking off into your food over time, or particularly when you use metal cooking utensils to stir your food in a teflon skillet, which obviously scratches and scores the teflon coating.
I don’t think the teflon “ages” as you may be suggesting, I think it’s a matter of physical transference into your food from scraping.
I could be wrong.
Maybe a little on the Teflon, but I’m not personally worried. Teflon is a perfluorinated polymer. As it happens, while organic fluorine is incredibly inert, it is actually not entirely inactive biologically. This is why it has become a common functionality in many new drugs. Nevertheless, most of the fluorine molecules you ingest I would suspect are relatively harmless. On the otherhand, the stuff you inhale if you majorly overheat the pan I think is quite bad. I’ll need corroberation on that.
This is old news. I don’t know if they even still find extra aluminum in alzheimers brains, but I am quite sure that the vast majority has rejected it as a cause.
I believe this is also true.
Assuming you overheat the pan, probably:
http://www.ewg.org/files/2006_0120_SAB.pdf
The EPA is considering more stringent controls on it. The upshot is, it does give off toxic gases, but we don’t know if it poses a significant risk to human health yet.
Isn’t there something about it being extremely toxic to pet birds?
Ah yes, from Wiki:
Toxicity of overheated non-stick surfaces
*Many reports from bird owners claim that their pet birds died after the owners used non-stick cookware around the birds. The cause of this phenomenon is polytetrafluorethelyne (PTFE), a chemical used in the manufacture of industrial non-stick coatings. When they are overheated, the resulting combination of particles and gasses emitted from the surface is extremely toxic when inhaled for only a short time. PTFE becomes dangerous when the surface is heated over 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit).[3]. The most common source of these non-stick coatings is DuPont’s Teflon, but there are other brands that produce non-stick coatings. PTFE-coated surfaces should be used extremely carefully in households that contain birds (good ventilation and never permitted to cook dry), as there are no warnings on these products about the dangers. There are a number of safer cooking options, including stainless steel, cast iron, and enamel.
Other sources of PTFE include some wafflemakers, irons, and self-cleaning ovens, among other things. People using PTFE-coated surfaces in a household that has birds should make sure that the stove is never left unattended while something is cooking on it, and the kitchen in particular should be well ventilated. A pet bird should not be kept near the kitchen due to the proximity of these fumes when cookware is overheated.*
I have seen many birds (typically postmortem) for exposure to polytetraflouroethylene (sp?). Overheated nonstick pans are amazingly toxic to birds. Saw it occur after exposure to a brand new electric space heater, also. The wires were teflon coated for presale purposes, and intended to vaporize off.
Overheated Teflon decomposes to produce PFIB, among other gases. PFIB appears to be quite toxic, so not overheating your Teflon pans would be a good idea. Teflon itself is very inert, so ingestion shouldn’t be a problem.