You are what you cook with.

There’s so much focus on what we eat and what we put in our bodies, yet not much attention towards the tools we cook our food with.

The history of Non-stick pans is a dark one. While I agree non-stick can be convenient and time-efficient, you’re paying a price - that price is your health. So what’s the deal with Non-Stick?

Starting back in 1946 a company in Virginia, DuPont (Nemours and Company), created a surfactant that helped make cleaning easier by ensuring food wouldn’t stick to it. This surfactant is made from PFOA’s (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFTE (polytetrafluoroethylene) that was primarily manufactured by 3M (3M probably sounds familiar - hint; our favorite tape) was marketed as the product we all know and have heard of; Teflon. Also known as C8 and a vicious Endocrine Disruptor.

Over time in the ’50s-’80s pregnant women who worked for DuPont started noticing many women discussing birth defects within their children starting from birth or defects that appeared shortly after. As more women started to see more issues, and some even had the same problems, they all wondered whether or not it was the chemical that they were exposed to daily. The company had told their workers it wasn’t the C8. This would turn out to be a lie. As they were told that this wasn’t an issue, many of them were instructed to dump C8 into the Ohio River. Over time, it amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds of C8 into the river and it seeped into the ground contaminating the water supply of multiple communities. People were being born with deformities, people being diagnosed with cancer when they were otherwise completely healthy, people getting diagnosed with metabolic disease and hormonal issues, farmers were being affected as their livestock (cows) were dropping like flies, dying.

Today, Teflon is no longer a problem confined in within the United States. It is now a global problem as it’s estimated that there are measurable amounts of PFOA’s everyone’s blood, including blood that’s present in an umbilical cord. PFOA’s are considered forever chemicals because even after a person has died, the chemical is still present meaning it doesn’t break down naturally so it continues to exist even after we’ve been (for lack of a better phrase) turned to dust. It’s in our graves, our water, in our air, and after you cook, it ends up on your food.

People living in nearby communities of the DuPont plant are still seeing the effects of this as many are diagnosed with cancer weekly, children are found with black teeth, and some walk around with their stories written on their faces. This man, Bucky Bailey is one of them.

His mother was one of those women who worked in the Dupont Factory who had direct contact with the chemical while she was pregnant. Bucky Bailey has been through the toughest of situations, but he hasn’t let them bring him down. He’s an incredible person with an incredible story and I believe every detail of his story is worth telling in full as well as more details regarding Dupont and their creation of Teflon.

A documentary that I believe you should watch and we all agree would be much more engaging than reading a post, is called “The Devil We Know”. This documentary goes into detail regarding Dupont, the legal fight between Dupont, Lawyers, and those that were affected as well as having Bucky Bailey tell his story along with his mother, the farmer that lost his cows, and those diagnosed with cancer. To learn more about the film, please visit the film website.

Following the documentary is a movie called Dark Waters. I highly recommend watching the documentary first then watching the movie after. It’s easier to follow the movie when you know the story behind it. Mark Ruffalo who starts in the film as DuPont’s lawyer and defends the chemical companies, soon has a change of heart when he sees how many people are being hurt by those that pay him to defend and protect them. Even after making the movie, Mark Ruffalo was so inspired by the entire story that he has actively educated others regarding the company and its practices.

Why is this still a relevant issue now in 2021 when this happened between the 1950s-1980s? The big issue today is that even though Teflon has been “eliminated” by 2014, a company by the name of Chemors has created a chemical known as GenX or C6. Chemors is created by DuPont (Nemours and Company). Different name, Same devil we know. In 2017, GenX is contaminated in the same river and same drinking water supply. The only difference between C8 and C6 is that C6 is made up of shorter chain molecules that make it legal to produce as the previous molecular structure of C8 has been banned.

The other issue is, it’s not just our pans that are riddled with bad for you forever chemicals. Anything you see that’s “waterproof” has C8. Yes, your rainboots and raincoat - coated in PFOA’s and PFTEs. Your favorite Patagonia jacket? That too.

Patagonia has written about this here.

Synthetic makeup brushes are made of a synthetic material called Taklon which is part of the Teflon family. Food packaging, to-go boxes. The list goes on.

Growing up, I was really lucky that my parents only had Cast Iron or Stainless Steel in the house. We didn’t have any nonstick so cast iron was naturally what I preferred to use for cooking after fleeing the nest.

I highly recommend stainless steel, cast iron, and carbon steel for cooking. They are BOTH PFOA and PFTE free. These are the ONLY pans we use. Many companies are selling “PFOA” free but more often than not, the companies that claim to be PFOA free are using PFTE or other chemicals that serve the same purpose. If something like this is important to you, then this is where you have to dedicate time to research to make sure the company you buy your kitchenware from isn’t using these chemicals. 

To learn about the chemicals in your community water supply go to www.ewg.org to enter your zip code and you'll be able to see the data showing what’s been measured, how much of it, and the health implications those chemicals cause.

For more info on where/products these chemicals are lurking; Go here and/or here.

For more info on the litigation against DuPont; Go here. 

Hope this has been informative and hope you do what you can soon to make the switch to healthier pan alternatives!

Stay healthy!

-N