The curse of the teflons

A long time ago it was quite hard to get saucepans which were not coated with the black stuff which flakes off.

Then things got better and it was only hard to get frying pans without the black stuff. The black stuff being additionally bad in this case because it changed the nature of fying, fried eggs in particular coming out all wrong.

Then the black stuff retreated from frying pans but made a stand on bakeware. As far as I can see, so far anyway, one cannot get bakeware without the black stuff.

Now, I presently use two loaf tins, both carrying the Linea name from the House of Fraser. The black stuff has been flaking off them for months, going I knew not where, but yesterday, for the first time, one of the two loaves I had baked got stuck inside its non-stick tin. After various bashings and pokings, bashings and pokings which might easily have resulted in the fragmentation of the still fragile, hot loaf, the thing came out. But with a liberal dose of the black stuff stuck to it. Most unsightly.

Then I start to worry about the healthiness or otherwise of eating the black stuff and a quick pass over Google reveals that I am by no means the first person to worry so. Much talk of volatile ingredients of the black stuff doing nasty things to the respiratory tract. What about the perfluorooctanoic acid used in its fabrication? The flouro bit sounds a bit dodgy. Much worried talk altogether. But there is also talk of the black stuff, once fabricated, being more or less inert and unlikely to do anything untoward to a human. But no reputable talk from reputable sites at all. No seals of good housekeeping from the Health people or even the Health and Safety people, in fact silence. Is this silence a good thing or is it the result of government having been bought off by the Teflon Manufacturers Lobby (see TML)?

Having slept on this important matter, I think I settle for the black flakes being unsightly but harmless. I shall not chuck the offending bread but I shall chuck the offending loaf tins. Next project: to buy some new ones, with search for black stuff free bakeware being written large into the project initiation document.