Super Eco

Photo credit: GreenPan

Updated with new information here.

Quick, grab the potholders. GreenPan has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. An eco-controversy is heating up among crunchy blogosophers over just how green the “lower carbon foodprint” Teflon alternative is. Is it time to sound the greenwashing alarm … or not?  

The debate simmers down to GreenPan’s use of two downright un-green components—nanotechnology and silicone. Despite its much-ballyhooed ban on potentially carcinogenic, possibly birth-defect-inducing PFOA and PTFE chemicals, rife in toxic Teflon and its many equally dangerous imitations, GreenPan relies on leaching silicone and unregulated nanotech to create Thermolon, its trademark non-stick coating. Yet the company still claims that its cookware is completely safe and non-toxic to humans and the environment. With exactly zero research data available on Thermolon’s “ceramic-based hybrid polymer nano-composite non-stick technology,” the jury’s still out, way out. (And why can’t I find a single GreenPan product on its exclusive online HQ, QVC.com?)

Teflon or Thermolon? It's like choosing between paper or plastic. Lose-lose all the way around.

But those two major green “what if’s” aside, GreenPan’s other environmental claims seem like genuinely green gravy:

1. Thermolon-lined pots and pans reportedly release 50% fewer greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) during their sustainable, eco-friendly manufacture. Check.

2. GreenPan cookware incorporates energy-efficient magnetic induction technology, aiming heat exactly where it needs to go—directly onto the buttery sauteed mushrooms, and any other savory victuals you should sizzle up. Yum, check.

3. Lastly and quite bizarrely, unlike poisonous Teflon, Thermalon is 100% pet bird safe. Um, Polly wanna' ... check? (Wouldn’t you like to know what nasty, six hazardous-gas emitting Teflon can do to humans, specifically children?)

So what if Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart are stamping their names on EVOO-greased GreenPans? I’m sticking to my mother’s mother’s heavy cast iron brute, like everything else that’s touched it since 1940.

UPDATE: Edited with corrections (Thermolon doesn't use nanotech, nor does it use silicone).