is anybody else concerned with their nonstick teflon pans releasing toxic gases? maybe you'll think i'm paranoid, and maybe you'll be right, but i'm still one of those worriers who is, in fact, worried about this very thing. i've heard talk of the problem on the radio, the TV, and just now, online while checking the new york times. just fyi, the concern that i've been hearing about is that if anything with a nonstick surface made of teflon is heated up to 700 degrees then it releases said toxic gases. you may be thinking that is very unlikely to happen, but since all the hoopla has been going on, some tests have been done. so don't dismiss my paranoia yet please. thank you. so it turns out that an empty pan left on a burner set to high can reach 700 degrees in as little as 3 minutes. reading this bit of info was where i had a medium-sized mental "yikes!"
and now that i know the problem is real, and that we are currently using teflon coated things, i have a little task that's been added to the relatively-long-term agenda in my mind. i know we have no money to replace pans, and i know that if we get nonstick non-teflon pans this summer it means that we'll have to drive them all back to MI come August, etc. so i don't have a plan or anything. i just know that eventually it'll be worth it for me to purchase new pans. sigh. in the meantime, i'll just be very careful with the ones we've got. no more absent-minded, leaving empty pans on high-cookin' burners, toxic gases cooking for me.
according to the author of the article i just read (which is on the nytimes.com "10 Most Emailed Articles" list on the main page) he recommends Le Creuset most of all as replacement pans, or secondly Cephalon pans. so i visited good old amazon and filled my wish list with some fancy pants Le Creuset cast iron pans and will hope for the best come September 11 of this year. not because it's a national day of remembrance for obvious reasons, but because that is my unfortunate birthday date. so maybe this year i'll remember and enjoy new cookware at the same time.
3 comments:
Yeah, sorry again about your day of birth getting ruined. My mom sent me an article recently about not using plastic covers in the microwave and now I am completely paranoid about it. Napkins for me, thank you!
I swear I already left this comment.
Is the song Green Day?
Great. One more thing to worry about. And I have no idea if our (new) pans are teflon or not. One more reason not to cook!
it's not green day, and it's not blink 182 like i thought when i remembered the line itself. and if you'll forgive me for simply spilling the beans, it's by a band named harvey danger. i remember it played a TON on the radio during my senior year of high school. what ever happened to them?
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