The Reason You Need To Throw Out Your Non-Stick Pan If It Has Scratches On It
Most of us who are in the trenches cooking dinner every night for our families (or just ourselves) aren’t professional chefs. We choose things like non-stick cookware because it’s easy to use, it’s fairly cheap, and cleaning it is a snap – but since it’s not the best option, learning how to care for it properly is important.
The non-stick coating is made of synthetic fluoropolymer called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), or its brand name, Teflon. According to a 2022 report, around 79% of non-stick cooking pans and 20% of non-stick baking pans were coated with PTFE.
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One study found that these surfaces release 9100 plastic particles during cooking if the surface as a crack in it. If the coating is broke, around 2,300,000 microplastics and nanoplastics could be released instead.
These “forever chemicals” build up in the soil, water, and in our bodies and virtually never break down, and are thought to contribute to health issues like altered metabolism, increased risks for obesity, and trouble fighting infection.
Cheng Fang, senior research fellow on the study, explains how they arrived at their results.
“PFAS as a class of chemicals that are characterized by extremely long environmental persistence. The smaller PFAS don’t break down from exposure to sunlight, microorganisms, or anything else routinely, which means they can last for hundreds of years or longer in the environment once created.”
You should always use plastic spatulas and tongs when cooking with the surfaces so you can avoid those scratches for as long as possible. And when you do get the scratches, the pans need to be thrown out.
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When your pans get super hot, the coating can release toxic chemicals into the air even without scratches present, too.
Graham Peasless, a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame who was not involved in the study, says you might want to re-evaluate whether or not you want to buy the cookware in the first place, as abandoning it altogether will deduce your risk and exposure.
Stainless steel and cast iron both work just as well, though they could cause a bit more work on a daily basis.
There’s a lot we don’t know about microplastics and whether or not they cause harm to the body (and how much), Fang and other researchers are taking a cautious approach.
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“In our daily lives, we have lots of plastic items surrounding us. Most of them can gradually release microplastics and nanoplastics in their lifetimes, as tested and confirmed in this study.”
Better safe than sorry, right?
It seems like the best policy here, if you ask me.
