The healthy non-toxic kitchen
Along with the daily meal, many people are unwittingly serving up small amounts of chemicals and heavy metals leached from cooking appliances, utensils, food containers, wrappings and water pipes. As you clean up and cook, you’re also potentially inhaling toxic vapours from stoves and cleaning products. On the upside, as masters of your own domain, you have the power to transition your kitchens into less toxic zones.
Non-toxic cookware
“An important place to start is by ditching non-stick cookware,” says Jo Immig, coordinator of the National Toxics Network in Australia. This includes non-stick woks, frypans, saucepans and baking ware. During cooking, non-stick particles can be scraped and dislodged by utensils into the food we eat, she warns.
“The term ‘non-stick’ actually covers a broad range of proprietary brand coatings with different formulations, including Teflon®,” Immig explains. Virtually all of these contain numerous chemical ingredients bad for your health. Research reported by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows heating Teflon at standard cooking temperatures generates highly toxic gases and particles that can kill household birds. An award-winning 2018 documentary, , links perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and associated chemicals from Teflon to birth defects, kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, also implicates the chemical in early menopause.
