Hi

What is everyone's thoughts on the safety of teflex / paraflex sheets?  They are made with Teflon and according to the manufacturer they have 6 times more teflon in each sheet than the amount used on other products (non-stick frypans etc).

Do you guys use them? Or do you stick with wax paper etc?

Cheers,

Steve.

Hi Steve, It depends on the temperatures that Teflon is used at. I use the non stick teflon sheets but I dehydrate at low low temperatures. I would never go above 40 degrees Celcius with them. Apparently they need to be pretty hot in order to start off gassing.

xoxoxo

Eeek.  40 degrees = 105 fahrenheit.  I use them at 115 regularly.  Should I be waving my arms around and saying "Danger Will Robinson.  Danger."?!?!?!?

 

It's from Lost in Space.

Can I wave my arms and shriek too? It sounds like fun

I'm using the teflex sheets with my dehydrator as well, but I'm not dehydrating over 40-45 either.

Actually I'm more worried about the microwave sitting next to the dehydrator in the kitchen which gets used by my partner from time to time. Whenever it's on it cuts out reception to our wireless network all across our house. Very scary to think the radiation or whatever it is that the microwave emits (microwaves perhaps ?) can spread across the whole house. Our network router is three rooms away!

Sheesh, is the whole world dehydrating at 105, except me?   

I just leave mine on 115 these days.

Violet - it is necessary to use something, only because it is a mesh sheet - not fine like flyscreen, um, bigger holes.

So, if you have something that needs to be spread on a flat surface, or something that has moisture in it (marinated onion rings etc.), you need something on top of the mesh.  Baking (waxed) paper would work well enough.

And why is everybody speaking in metric, when the temperatures on the dehydrator are in imperial?

Tricksters!

With an Excalibur - definitely a plate is ok.  And if you need extra height, the trays are removable to create space.  Yes, the mesh sheets are hard (but flexible) plastic, and washable.

I've been avoiding non-stick cooking surfaces for years - I was avoiding them anyway, but a guy I used to work with, who thought I was crazy opting for organic food and avoiding insect sprays for *roaches etc, told me he did research on non-stick surfaces at uni in Hong Kong, he wouldn't have the stuff in his house, it made life a bit difficult since he wouldn't let his wife use an electric rice cooker and they were a real status item at the time (this is going back a few years).  If he was worried about it non-stick surfaces had to be BAD!  This was before the non-stick silicon products appeared, so his research was just the Teflon type non-stick.  Since then lots of info about how bad they are has appeared, http://www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon brings a LOT of them together in one place.  It always made me a bit leary of using the Teflex sheets, and now Excalibur don't even have them on their website, they are dumping them on eBay.

Excalibur now have the ParaFlexx Premium which seems to be a thicker Teflex sheet, and ParaFlexx disposables, which seem to be silicon baking paper (note this is what a lot of baking paper is these days, like GLAD bake)  I wouldn't used the old fashioned waxed paper in a million years - it's paraffin coated paper, but I have been using the silicon baking paper for ages, back in the days of baking and in my Excalibur.  They do have Paraflexx™ Ultra Silicone Non Stick Drying sheet, which would probably be my choice, but that's quite an investment, I've been sticking to the silicon baking paper.  Note most of the baking papers don't mention that they are silicon, they used to about 20years ago, but then all the silicon implant issues came out and silicon disappeared from being mentioned on the baking paper, just like paraffin is not mentioned on the waxed paper.

I'm sure there are some problems associated with silicon as bakeware, BUT it seems to be MUCH more stable than anything else, I've got an almost 20yr old silicon oven glove that looks almost exactly the same as when I first got it, compared to non-stick surfaces and aluminum surfaces, it is pretty much inert, it's discoloured less than stainless steel. (not that I've actually got any aluminum cooking equipment or non-stick pans anyway, but I've seen other people's, they seem to start pitting and falling apart almost straight away)

I tend to use the Teflex sheet on the bottom tray of my Excalibur to catch falling bits if it's not fully loaded, regardless of the talk that Excalibur temps are even through the whole unit, I find the bottom shelf to be at a lower temp (and the top shelf, I just move things around a bit, and it's a lot easier to move .