Non-stick
Many of us think that non-stick cookware didn’t come on the scene until the famous Teflon pans took the world by storm in the 1940’s.
However, to our surprise, ancient Roman pottery has been found with a non-stick residue, which was thought to make meaty stews on about 2,000 years ago, according to Daily Mail.
It was even suggested in an old Roman cookbook titled, De Re Coquinaria
that they used non-stick methods to cut down on washing.
Other experts, according to Mama Natural, think that Mycenaean Greeks used non-stick pans for their bread around 3,000 years ago.
Be forewarned, the non-stick cookware we use today was not crafted by means of clay and oil, but of the chemical polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE as it is called.
An employee from DuPont company stumbled upon the creation, which made its debut in WWII where “it was applied as a corrosion-resistant coating to protect metal equipment used in the handling of radioactive material for the Manhattan Project”, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
There is just something unsettling about using the same chemical we fry our kid’s eggs in the morning, that is used in the making of an atomic bomb.
Non-stick cookware is, also, made with the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which has been linked in studies to “heart attack, stroke, breast cancer, testicular cancer, pancreatic cancer, immune system damage, and pituitary gland damage”, according to Mama Natural.
The Environmental Working Group brings light to six significant studies that “point to risk for heart attack and stroke from exposures to the Teflon chemical.”
The Environmental Protection Agency has not taken heed to the data from studies showing that Teflon can contribute to mammary, testicular, pancreatic, and liver cancers.
Due to the toxic effects chemicals in non-stick cookware have on living organisms, the Food and Drug Administration may be attempting to weed out Teflon in place of cookware proven to be safer.