I have a set of 3 Bra Premiere non-stick frying pans that I’ve used for a while. The coating on them says “Teflon Innovations without PFOA”. Recently I’ve noticed that on the most used pan, the 26cm one, the Teflon coating has started to peel off.
I know that Teflon coatings can release harmful fumes and chemicals if overheated, but what about if the coating is physically peeling? Is it still safe to cook with them? Or should I stop using especially the 26cm one? I don’t want to keep exposing my family to anything dangerous unknowingly. Any advice if these types of pans are still safe to cook with if the nonstick surface is peeling would be appreciated!
I got tired of seeing my teflon-coated pans wear out like that or lose their non-stickiness, it bothered me to realize that the ‘premium cookware’ I was buying was temporary trash I’d need to replace every couple of years.
I retired my teflon cookware and now have just steel and cast iron (and ceramic-coated cast iron) and I don’t miss teflon-coated cookware at all.
Sure, sometimes I end up with stuff stuck to my pans, but realistically that was true with my ‘non-stick’ pans as well. The nice thing about cast iron and steel is that with use, they seem to get better, whereas the teflon pans start out nice but deteriorate in the way they work. When I do end up with stuff stuck to the pan, I can scrub that clean in a few seconds with a steel scrubber or scraper, whereas stuck-on stuff with teflon (the stuff the dishwasher didn’t get, anyhow), seemed to demand the extra-soft scrubber (and lots of time, because the soft scrubber doesn’t work as well).
I have one 8 inch Teflon pan I bought in 2012 for French omelletes. It’s only ever seen a plastic fork and spatula, medium heat, still looks new