To Teflon or Not to Teflon?

That is the question for today.  Teflon seems to make our lives so much easier... for a little while.  Have you noticed that eventually that smooth coating just... disappears?  Ever think about where it goes???

Teflon gets into your food, and then it stays in your body.  It's a poisonous toxin, called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or C-8, and it will eventually make you sick or wreck your health.  The trouble is, you don't see it right away.  It can take years for it to affect your health.  Like getting cancer at age 45.  Or a depressed immune system that displays itself in chronic auto-immune diseases.  And that high cholesterol?  Linked to Teflon.  The kicker for me was when I read that caged birds died when they were merely near a Teflon pan at high heat.

Being a practical person, I decided to get rid of all my non-stick cookware, and replaced it with stainless steel.  The pots work very nicely, the sauce pans do great, but the frying pans get messy and hard to clean.  My best solution is to fill the pan with water, then put it back on the stove, heat it up and let it sit.  A metal pancake turner will scrape all the old food off quite nicely.  Using a yellow sponge with the green scrubby on the back cleans it up, and if necessary, I finish with a metal bristle brush.

Then I found a couple of PFOA-free frying pans- 6 in. and 12 in.  "Hurray!!"  I thought, "my problems are solved!"  For the past seven months we have used these alternative non-stick pans.  But now, to my great dismay, the 6 incher is starting to look nasty.  And-- guess what??  It, too, is getting hard to clean.  These pans were, in the words of my teenagers, an epic fail.

So once again, we were guinea pigs, and we have more than likely ingested some OTHER kind of chemical.  yay.  Back to stainless.