France votes to ban ‘forever chemicals,’ exempting frying pans

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 577 points – France votes to ban ‘forever chemicals,’ exempting frying pans
politico.eu

The French National Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a bill aimed at restricting the manufacture and sale of products containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” The MPs, backed by the government, voted to exclude kitchen utensils from the scope of the text.

Thanks to an intense lobbying push, manufacturers of frying pans and saucepans — including the SEB group, which owns Tefal — are exempt from this ban under the proposed law penned by French Green MPs.

Majority groups initially tried to delay the ban on kitchen utensils until 2030 — a timetable refused by the French Green MPs who instead suggested an exemption until 2026.

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Sounds great, let's ban it in every form except the one we literally eat...

Actually it's in a lot of food wrappers.

And those aren't as durable as cooking utensils. If you don't scratch your pan with a metal fork and don't use it for two decades, it's apparently somewhat safe. Not according to the companies, I'm not shilling, Last Week Tonight had a point about it on their episode about PFA's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU

I'd personally love to not consume any fucking PFAS, but I also understand that this French thing is still a massive step forwards for regulations on the matter.

Tldr it's still a win

That stuff sticks to (aka reacts with) literally nothing. That's the point of it. The whole innovation of nonstick cookware was the fact they got it to stick to something. It’s not even dangerous if you ingest it, it doesn’t react with anything so it just comes back out.

What IS dangerous is the by products and intermediate products, as well as the stuff that comes off if you overheat it. (And also, like you said, when they get old)

This whole movement against non-stick is alright, but so many people do it for the wrong reasons. If you have nonstick, just use it and don’t buy nonstick next time. Throwing away perfectly fine cookware like that is like boycotting charmin by flushing down all your remaining rolls in one go and going to the store to buy new toilet paper from another brand.

so it just comes back out.

Eh... does it?

https://www.businessinsider.com/chart-how-long-hazardous-forever-chemicals-pfas-stay-in-blood-2023-3

It can take five hours for your body to filter half the amount of caffeine or alcohol you've consumed from your blood. LSD is a bit faster at three hours.

BPA has a similar half-life to caffeine and alcohol, but arsenic can take up to 10 hours.

Toxic metals like lead or radioactive polonium, take months to halfway leave your blood.

But PFAS surpass all of these other substances. Some of the PFAS that have been studied — PFOA, PFOS, and PFHS — can take over seven years to reduce by half in your bloodstream. It's no wonder they're called "forever chemicals."

I still use my non-sticks, but like you said, I'm gonna buy non-PFAS cookware the next time I need to. I'm in no panic about my pans. What people probably should pay more attention to is PFAS in clothing. This might be a tad sensationalist as The Guardian often is, but eh, with a grain of salt: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/jul/02/fashion-chemicals-pfas-bpa-toxic

Yes, the final product comes back out. The final product is PTFE, not PFAS. PTFE is harmless unless degraded or overheated (which is why you shouldn’t do that with non-stick cookware).

To produce PTFE, PFAS are used (or are intermediaries in the process), which is why the production is dangerous, but the product isn’t.

#Some of the PFAS that have been studied — PFOA, PFOS, and PFHS — can take over seven years to reduce by half in your bloodstream. It's no wonder they're called "forever chemicals."

There’s no PTFE in that list.

So?

We're not talking excretion, we're talking blood half-life.

Too complex a distinction for a corporate shill?

Hey, it’s me, your friendly neighbourhood corporate shill, telling you to not buy any more nonstick cookware because I love Tefal so much. More for me!

But seriously, I’m not disputing that the chemicals you listed are bad, just that the coating itself doesn’t affect you.

PFAS bad, but only there during production. PTFE fine, and that’s what’s on your pan. PTFE does not get into your blood. Any PTFE you consume comes back out, because it is not PFAS.

TL;DR: use pan until pan bad, then buy pan with no PTFE.

Do you understand the difference between excretion and half-life?

Do you understand that anything that has a half-life of SEVERAL YEARS in the blood and is fairly novel and hasn't been studied for long term effects of exposure on humans, should be something which you avoid having in your blood?

It's like when tobacco companies put asbestos in cigarettes to "filter" them.

https://www.asbestos.com/products/cigarette-filters/

But yeah, tldr I can agree with

You haven’t shown the half-life of PTFE lol

PFAS is a group of substances, not a substance.

PTFE is Teflon. Weird how someone would shill for DuPont, right?

https://theintercept.com/2015/08/11/dupont-chemistry-deception/

People like you fucking disgust me. Either you're willfully ignorant or maliciously so. Both are equally pathetic.

Wait up, I just checked and you’re technically right - PTFE is definitely a PFAS. Dunno if it’s dangerous or frequently breaks down into dangerous PFAS, but FWIW I’ve long suspected that nonstick pans can’t be good for you. I’ve never seen a nonstick pan that doesn’t have a single scratch in anyone’s kitchen before.

You could probably stand to improve the clarity of your arguments though haha

People like you fucking disgust me. Either you're willfully ignorant or maliciously so. Both are equally pathetic.

Not gonna get very far talking to people like that. Lucky for you I empathize with your intentions,

I hate to step in here, because I fear you're not interested in a discussion, but chemistry is very sensitive to small changes. You can't just notice that two chemicals are related or similar and assume they behave similarly in all situations. It literally takes a degree in chemistry to look at a molecule and start making guesses about its properties.

Then we throw in the fact that we're interested in how these chemicals behave inside your body and it becomes a whole other level of complex. Guessing is practically out the window, as far as I'm concerned, unless you've got some key functional group that stays consistent and exposed whose interactions you already understand. Your body has so many different chemical systems you just plain can't assume similar chemicals will have similar behavior.

Hate to step in here, but you both think PFAS is a substance. It's a group of substances that INCLUDES PTFE.

You'd have better luck of "uhm actuallying" a sixth third grade lesson.

Yeah that's a good point, that's my bad. Polymers isn't my specialty.

[...] and don't use it for two decades, [...]

You mean that a pan has to age? Or is it a burn.

My point was that when the pan gets old and the non-stick parts starts going, you shouldn't still keep it for 10 years afterwards.

It's a pretty common thing I've seen, people not bothering to buy new pans when old ones get worn out.

So if one is trying to avoid exposure, keep your pans in good shape

Ah. Thanks for clarifying.

It read like we should age the pans before use like a fine wine. But this makes way more sense.

Careful what you wish for. PTFE is used in liners of a lot of life saving catheters. The stuff that goes I side your heart and brain and saves your life...

Its about finding alternatives. Right now there is an immense economic & lobby pressure to not pursue finding alliterative materials.

PTFE is super cheap to produce & is sold with high margins. Financially would be basically impossible to fund research for alternative material, produce it without economies of scale, compete in a saturated market, etc.

Cases like this is exactly why we need representatives of the people to act & pass laws.

Its like with plastic (one use?) products, the mantra was "nothing can be as good as plastic" and it took the market no time to produce better products without plastic. But there is a lot of push back, eg there is absolutely no need for paper straws to get soggy (we have the tech) yet you mostly see only the shitty kind.

Or the example of paper industry, they had the interest to ditch plastic and they did to an extend. Those little transparent windows in envelopes are super cheap cellulose, but a decade ago they were plastic.

Meh. It's not that dangerous if you use a non-stick pan of good quality. And toss it in the bin as soon as the non-stick surface starts to show signs of scraping...

If you want to avoid this problem altogether you can just buy cast iron or enameled pans. But enamel is a lot stickier (and heavier) than teflon

The problem is that non-stick has been marketed heavily to the point that the majority of cheap pans are non-stick, even though there's many purposes they're not suitable for. For example they shouldn't be used for high heat cooking, but how many people don't know that? And they're extremely toxic if the surface is chipped. Using the wrong utensils on the can chip them. Plus, there's a number of pans out there that make it look like they're a different material, but actually it's just the same thing rebranded. So even if people are using them wrong, it's very understandable why someone who's a casual cook wouldn't realize that they're endangering themselves by using the pans wrong.

Yeah believe me I know all about that. My dad is a materials scientist and has been rambling about us eating Teflon for a few decades now. Using metal utensils with the non stick pans is one of the few ways to truly get yelled at in my parents' house

Adding carbon steel to this, because I love my pan, and my mother-in-law (who lives to cook) can use it without arthritis pain. She always used to complain about the cast iron hurting her joints when she lifted our other pans.

What I'm also curious about is the ceramic coated pans. I've seen them advertised (I think Green Pan, whatever). I would like a lighter alternative to Le Crouset that I could cook acidic foods in.

I’m somewhat curious as well, but that’s when I reach for stainless over cast iron. There’s a balance there: I think some people overreact when usually cooking acidic stuff is no problem. Of course I also don’t cook long simmering stuff like pasta sauce so I don’t need to pay much attention.

I do also use a crock pot, which is ceramic and has at least some overlap with long cooking acidic foods that may be tainted by stainless or cast iron

I only know what I’ve read online about ceramic:

  • generally very safe and non-reactive
  • almost as non-stick as non-stick
  • a few cheap Chinese knockoffs leached metals but this really shouldn’t be a problem
  • harder to damage with utensils than non-stick
  • however they don’t last longer, may even be shorter.

My decision was based on wanting something more permanent so I didn’t have to buy it again, and it’s nice to be able to rediscover metal utensils

It’s not that dangerous if you use a non-stick pan of good quality. And toss it in the bin as soon as …

Yeah, I was also in no panic but

  • it’s not that dangerous in the short term, but it stays long term and long term accumulation is still unknown
  • toxic waste during manufacture is dangerous - let’s just not do that
  • I was annoyed having to replace the non-stick every ten years or so. It may be cheap to buy but it’s expensive over time
  • no one follows through with tossing as 🔜 as there are signs of damage or flaking. Pretty much all of us have eaten more Teflon than we should and keep adding more and more

So now I have good stainless and cast iron for about the same price but it could potentially last the rest of my life: reducing toxic chemicals from manufacturing, reducing the amount of forever chemicals accumulating in my body, and saving me money. Even better, by paying attention to the quirks of effective use of these pans, I’ve become a better cook and find the cleanup usually no worse than non-stick

I presume it's mostly used in the handles. I don't think we cook on plastic.

It's on the non stick coating for a lot of pans and can easily flake off and be ingested if you damage it by using metal utensils. This is why you should never use metal on nonstick.

I have family that makes me rip my hair out over this shit.

They put their non-stick in the oven, They use metal tools on it, and they refuse to replace it when the coating fails and starts coming off.

They denigrate me as some kine of hoity-toity rich man with my "pointless" pain replacements, when they arent getting angry at me for "looking down" on them by saying that their pans unsafe.

Just buy a cast iron or a steel pan for fucks sake!

What’s wrong with using it in the oven?

The teflon coating starts to breakdown at higher temperatures. The pan or box they came in has to state not safe for oven use. Also preheating on the burner can cause it. Food in the pan mostly prevents it from reaching that temperature.

Most Teflon pans used to have plastic handles that dummy proofs them from the oven.

I’m more worried that your family forces you to rip your hair out

I used to work in food service - I remember one day they replaced all the pans with new ones that had a black Teflon coating... about 6 months later, ALL of the black, except a little bit around the edge, was completely gone. Just bare metal. All of it flaked off into our customers' food.

Were you scraping them with steel wool or something

In a commercial kitchen? I'd bet good money they were using metal utensils.

Teflon isn't heat-resistant enough to withstand proper frying temperatures for long and actual chefs are going to do an actual sear. If you want non-stick there's carbon steel or cast iron (as well as proper technique), if you want stick-and-deglaze (yes that's a thing) use stainless steel. All three are going to out-live your great-grandchildren.

If you want something acid-resistant use a ceramic or stainless pan: Stuff like tomato sauce is going to strip patina off cast iron or carbon steel. Sure, you can just re-do the patina but it's going to take some cycles before it's up to its old non-stick properties again. Those non-stick ceramic pans are basically fancy enamel, when they lose their non-stick properties clean them with oxygen bleach that's going to strip fatty residues out of the tiny dimples in the coating and they'll be as good as new. Only way to really damage them is to shatter the coating.

That makes a lot of sense.

A bit odd that a commercial kitchen would buy teflon though considering how fragile it is.

I guess incompetent management is incompetent.

You don’t think some probably came off in the dishwasher?

Even so it still goes into the environment forever, per the name.

To be fair: it is mostly inert. But using carbon steel instead has virtually 0 cost and a much longer lifespan(that yourself)

Yes, I never understood the problem with carbon steel cookware. Like, we achieved peak ease of overall use. I want tools like that to be always there, stay the same, and that I don't have to ever even think about replacing it. Also its appropriate to cook anything in it.

I've never done it or had the need but at most what you can do is polish the cooking surface of it somehow became scratched/rough & food gets caught in those spots. But seriously, scratching steel (in the amount that doesn't immediately go away with normal use) is kinda hard and an achievement.

I think part of the overall problem is that people start cooking in cold steel cookware?

Its the non-stick in the non-stick pan.

Nonstick pans, though most of the harm is from manufacture, not end-use

Yeah, huge amount of harm to the people around the manufacturing plants.

And some amount of eating extremely inert molecules to the people buying them.

Two separate things, the first worse than the second, but still.