Are Non-Stick Cooking Pans a Danger to Our Health?
The 2019 film ‘Dark Waters’ has led me to think they might be.
Never before has watching a film made me reconsider how I cook my food, but after watching the film Dark Waters a few days ago, every time I go to make my favorite breakfast of fried eggs, I pick up the non-stick pan, grimace, and pause for thought. I’m still eating my eggs, but they’re not as enjoyable when I can’t shake the lingering anxiety that every mouthful I consume could be laced with toxic chemicals.
Dark Waters depicts the real-life story of attorney Rob Bilott’s fight to find justice for the community of Parkersburg in West Virginia after it’s discovered that the DuPont chemical company (manufacturers of ‘Teflon’, the material used in the majority of non-stick cooking pans) have been illegally dumping toxic waste in the town’s water supply and consequently endangering the health of its people.
During the film, we discover that it is the unregulated chemical compound ‘PFOA’ (perfluorooctanoic acid) used to make Teflon, that has tainted the town’s water supply — both the residents of the local community and the people who worked in the DuPont factory are shown to have suffered some dire consequences as a result of exposure to PFOA; birth deformities, a variety of cancers, infertility…any nasty…
