Also if you overheat Teflon it releases toxic fumes. You probably won't get it hot enough by cooking, but if you accidentally left an empty pan on a lit stove it could get hot enough.

Yeah, I hand wash non-stick and hand wash cast iron, and the food usually leaves the cast iron cleaner (not to mention the induction only making a humming noise with the non-stick). I've been using cast iron a lot more lately.

My understanding is that research doesn't generally support concerns that non-stick is harmful to people eating food cooked in coated pans, but it is absolutely incredibly toxic to the people who work manufacturing them, and their manufacturing does contribute to constantly rising levels of contanimation in water supplies. Both of which are magnified by the fact that nonstick pans are disposable.

We as humanity really struggle to engage with systemic issues, and weirdly sometimes we will correctly identify that something is a problem, but are only capable of responding to it with cultural change due to concerns of individual harms we (to my understanding) don't actually think are happening, when the systemic collective harms are.

From my layperson understanding chemical fertilizers are the same, with chemical fertilizers having no issues associated with eating food grown with them but the nitrogen pollution in drinking water is associated with higher risk of cancer.

(That being said if you like cast iron I 100% reccomend trying carbon steel- its best for slightly different things but my nitrided and pre-seasoned carbon steel pan from oxo is fuckin wonderful. I wanna try a strata carbon clad pan when I finally replace my 12" nonstick since I feel like the clad construction will make it lighter and more resistant to warping if I use it on induction since that can sometimes be an issue with carbon steel pans)