Cast Iron Cooking for Dummies (Page 2 of 2)

Teflon in trouble!

More than 20 attorneys, representing a total of 73 people, recently met to discuss the first steps in a $5-billion federal lawsuit, spanning at least 15 U.S. states, over injuries caused by the chemicals released from Teflon-coated pans.

The attorneys hope to combine all of the individual complaints into one class-action lawsuit against Teflon maker DuPont. If they receive class-action certification, hearings could come as early as January.

This could eventually lead to refunds for millions of Teflon cookware purchasers throughout the United States.

Teflon is the trade name for the polymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) used in electrical insulating tape; combustion engines; chemical apparatus and tubing designed to resist attack from most chemicals, and in non-stick frying pans and other cookware.

Several disturbing facts about Teflon chemicals:
“¢ They tended to be very persistent in the environment
“¢ They are fat soluble and resistant to normal detoxification processes in the liver
“¢ They accumulate and concentrate in animal and human body fat,
“¢ They get passed on by the mother to the fetus through the placental membrane and then to the infant via breast milk,

“¢ A number of them are endocrine disrupting chemicals (i.e. they interfere with the production or performance of hormones, which are the messengers produced in special glands to regulate body chemistry) To top it all, when these substances are burned in any facility ranging from a back yard burner to a trash incinerator, they produce highly toxic byproducts including dioxins and furans ( PCDDs and PCDFs).

It is time to get rid of your toxic cooking utensils. It is counter-productive to invest time, money and love into making healthy, organic meals for your family while cooking them in toxic pans.

Please do not let convenience determine the status your health.

Restricting the use of antibiotics in animals raised for human consumption is Australia’s attempt to decrease drug resistant bacteria in humans.

Australia has prohibited the used of certain antibiotics, called fluoroquinolones, in all food animals. Use of these antibiotics is standard in many other industrialized nations. Researchers examined the effects of the antibiotic ban on Campylobacter jejuni, which is a bacteria with drug resistant strains.

Campylobacter isolates were collected from almost 600 patients in five Australian states. Only 2 percent were resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin. In countries that allow antibiotic use in animals, the prevalence of drug resistance can be as high as 29 percent.

This means that when we consume animals or animal products that have been treated with antibiotics, it produces bacteria that do not respond to antibiotics. When we are sick and really need the antibiotics, they are useless to us. Scary stuff! In addition, the antibiotics consumed regularly through our food supply weaken our immune system and kill our healthy bowel bacteria, which puts us at risk for candida over-growth and a host of other health problems.

Other countries, such as Sweden and Norway that prohibit the use of fluoroquinolones for food animals have also reported low incidences of fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter. The U.S. FDA first proposed a ban on fluoroquinolones in poultry in 2000, but resistance from drugmakers resulted in the ban not being enacted until September 2005.