I recently moved into a new house and was greeted by a mess of an oven – caked on grease everywhere! Not one into using anything with chemicals to clean, especially with my three little precious ones around, I needed an alternative.
The easiest thing to do would have been to press the self-clean button, but that is not a viable option since it can actually be more toxic than standard chemical based oven cleaners on the market. Self-cleaning ovens are lined with Teflon, and when the temperature of the oven is running at around 900 degrees, toxic gasses are emitted into the air. How toxic? Toxic enough to kill birds, just like cooking in a Teflon coated pan (AvianWeb). The danger doesn’t stop with birds though; the coating is also toxic to humans – the smaller the body, the more the person can be affected. According to Environmental Health of California, “A scientific advisory panel to the US Environmental Protection Agency recently unanimously recommended that PFOA (a key component of Teflon) should be considered a likely human carcinogen. This classification means that there is evidence of cancer causing effects from both human and animal studies.”
“Teflon’s breakdown chemical, PFOA, is a serious concern for a number of reasons. In addition to evidence that it is a likely cause of cancer, it falls into the category of chemicals which are persistent and accumulative. This means that rather than breaking down into harmless substances over time, they remain as they and accumulate in the environment”(Teflon Labeled Cancer Risk).
Other Chemicals Emitted
Teflon isn’t the only chemical to be wary of with a self-cleaning oven. “Substantial amounts of Acrolein and Formaldehyde can be emitted from self-cleaning ovens on the first cleaning cycle. The gases are released from the insulation around the oven when it gets hot”(Kincaid). “Both Acrolein and Formaldehyde could be present at harmful levels in a kitchen where an oven is on the self-clean cycle. Both chemicals have similar mechanisms of action, and they will produce similar irritant effects. The combined effects will be additive”(Kincaid). For effects of these chemicals, see here: Acrolein and Formaldehyde
Our bodies cannot readily breakdown the chemicals used in making Teflon, nor can it fully eliminate Formaldehyde and Acrolein in a timely manner. The result is a host of symptoms, including asthma, headaches, dry and itchy eyes, birth defects and lung irritation. In addition, some of these chemicals are know carcinogens.
What to Use Instead
I resort back to my most basic and effective cleaners: baking soda and vinegar. These two items, along with a little elbow grease, is all you need to clean even the grimiest of ovens – I should know!
What to do:
1. Coat the bottom of your oven with baking soda.
2. Pour or spray white, distilled vinegar on top of the baking soda – don’t flood it, use just enough to moisten the baking soda and get it bubbling. You can dilute the vinegar with water if you wish.
3. Close the door and let that sit for about 4 hours.
My oven, after letting the baking soda/vinegar solution sit for a coulpe of hours.
4. Open the oven and use rags to scrape off the baking soda. When most of the baking soda/vinegar solution is off, use a sponge and scrub the remainder of the grease off.
This was taken after cleaning up the baking soda/vinegar solution, but before really scrubbing anything!
5. As far as the rest of the oven, scrub any grease spots withe the baking soda and vinegar. You can always use a razor to scrape any hard to remove spots from the glass part of the door, but I have never needed to do this.
6. Never use it again. Marvel at your clean oven and make something healthy and delicious to celebrate!
Works Cited
Kincaid, Laura. Acrolein & Formaldehyde:Toxic chemicals from Self-Cleaning Ovens. Examiner. September 21, 2009. Web. June 2, 2013.
Teflon Labeled Cancer Risk. Environmental Health of California. Web. June 3, 2013.
#stainless steel #cast iron
Forums on other sites indicate that ovens are not teflon coated, that teflon breaks down at high heat, hence you can’t use a teflon-coated pan at high heat, and that ovens are enamel-coated (which is what the pans stating they are non-stick and teflon-free claim to be.)
I just did a quick google search and came up with many links discussing Teflon used in self cleaning oven liners. Perhaps there are some ovens with just an enamel-coating without PTFE, but I am finding information that even those shouldn’t be heated to the temperatures needed to self clean an oven.
I see articles on oven LINERS (https://www.ewg.org/kid-safe-chemicals-act-blog/2009/11/teflon-oven-liner-not-in-my-kitchen/) that you buy and place inside your oven. I’m referring to the oven itself and what I’ve read indicates that the oven surface itself is not teflon-coated: https://www.chowhound.com/post/oven-stick-teflon-surfaces-whatsoever-recommend-867260 and http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2242351/does-a-teflon-free-oven-exist-these-days.
Right, but there are also articles saying that they are lined with PTFE (used in Teflon). Either way, if you read this patent for the enamel coating you are discussing, there is still concern about heating it to the temperatures needed to self-clean it: http://www.google.ch/patents/US8962162
How do you clean the top of the oven. My new rental is one giant mess! Inside the oven, on the top is the worst. The property management can’t be bothered with such a trivial thing. 🙂
Thanks!!
The top of the inside of it? Set a large oven-safe pot or bowl filled with water inside. Heat on 400 degrees for 20 minutes to loosen dirt and grease with the steam. Once your oven is cool, wipe off the condensation and the grease will come with it. After you’re done, make a paste of water and baking soda and smear it on any enamel. The paste will dry into a protective layer that will absorb grease as you cook.
I should have looked this up first! I just ran my self cleaning oven and I had the windows opened but it still smelled. I had my 18 month toddler in the house and now I’m freaking out! Is one time enough to cause cancer down the road?! Thank you
Take a deep breath! Good news is that you had the windows open. Just keep airing out the house and you can always give the baby an epsom salt bath to help him detox form anything he may have inhaled.
Thank you for the great information and the advises you’ve given! I just got a new stove and decided to get prepared with some good natural recipes fro cleaning it. The information about the self cleaning option was very useful and I’m definitely trying it. I’m surely recommending your post to my friends. Thanks!
Worked great! Thank you:)
Thank you for this article. I cleaned my new self-cleaning oven recently and experienced burning eyes, irritation in my chest and a sore throat. Now I understand why.
I finally took the time to do this with my gas oven, and it worked amazingly well. I love that I just turned the oven on and there is no smell at all!
Thanks for the info! Just a quick question – would baking soda be abrasive enough to cause some of the coating to come loose?
I didn’t find this to be so….
Great post! I have a little one and I’m afraid to use the self-cleaning function because I know how bad the fumes are for her. I tried this method a year ago but it took me a couple of hours after the baking soda-vinegar treatment to scrape everything off. Looking at your picture, I did not use nearly enough vinegar so I will give it another try this year with more vinegar. Thanks for the helpful pictures!
So relieved to have read this. Today is the last day I will be using the oven to clean itself. I knew it was toxic but just not how much! Ugh.
We just recently sourced our homes high levels of formaldehyde to our oven. It is emitted even at lower temperatures. I am so irritated and angry that I have been gassing my four children for possibly 11 years. The oven manufacturer was of little help also. I am so scared for the possible long term health issues my kids may have from this. We thought we suffered from allergies all this time! We have constant post nasal drips!
What kind of oven did you have? That is terrible!
Are there any new stoves that are not lined with teflon?
Just a quick comment to say thanks a lot for your post and also ask (including other commenters) if they have ever had to clean a cooker when moving in to a new house and has that made a difference to how they’ve cleaned it? I don’t know what it is but I just can’t bring myself to cleaning someone else’s grease and grime, especially in the oven! I don’t know if I’m weird but it really makes me cringe haha. I usually get my OH to do it, but I have been known to get the professionals in too I won’t lie! When we last lived in the area I got oven cleaning sutton coldfield to come and do it. Anyone else?
Wonderful read. I really must try this baking soda technique, I keep on reading more about it. Once I get new years day out of the way, and the grandkids 😉 I will be trying it. I have been using a company for oven cleaning once per year, I am thinking I could use this baking soda technique the rest of the year to stay ontop of things!
We used this method to clean our oven right before Thanksgiving and it worked perfectly! Thank you!
Thank you for this! I have a bird and I was looking for a safe way to clean our oven that wouldn’t literally kill her. I’ll be trying this in the next few days.
I agree with your info, I’m a fan of old time remedies and or solutions; its easier and in some cases more cost effective. The old ways in my opinion were better. Dont get me started about cooking with aluminum pots a pans and their possible future affects on the human brain. Go info dude. Thanks Eric
A pumice stone will get off baked on food without scratching the enamel.
Pumice will get the baked on food off your oven without scratching the enamel.
I also use an oven liner so that when the liner gets very dirty you just pull it out and clean that or throw it out when it is too far gone.
But what is the liner made out of?
Aluminum foil, generally
my oven self cleaning feature does not let the over go over 500 degrees.So I am assuming it is safe? Also I only use that feature 1 time a year.
No, not safe. As is, using teflon coated pans on the stovetop emits toxin, as seen by the birds who die when owners use them to cook (this is not a farce, but a fact that can be verified by bird owners). So, it takes a much lower temp than 500 degrees to be causing damage in the body.
Teflon emits fumes at much lower temps than 500F. I am very glad I don’t have a teflon lined oven, as it wouldn’t be safe at 350F, either! I would be on the lookout for a good, used, NOT teflon lined stove, personally!
Link to something about self cleaning ovens being lined with Teflon, please? Self-cleaning ovens have been around much longer than Teflon! Also, you can feel whether something has a teflon finish. My fairly modern stove is lined with the same baked on enamel (like a graniteware pot) that my 60 year-old vintage stove has.
I would guess that the very newest ovens might be teflon-lined, but that’s it. Here’s my reasoning: About 7 years ago, we bought a brand new stove, for what will definitely be the first and last time. It was a fairly high end stove, lots of bells and whistles and digital junk. I overboiled something and it broke. When the repairman was there, he also warned me to never use the self clean, but for a much different reason. He said the circuitry in new stoves wasn’t built to take the heat of self-cleaning without burning out. A teflon-lined oven would self clean at a much lower temperature, “solving” the problem without actually having to do a better job of building the stove.
IMO, the very best consumer quality stoves were made in the late ’40’s into the ’50’s. The technology was there for a good, easy to use stove, and the manufacturers had not yet started to incorporate electronics where they aren’t really needed or cheap out on construction quality. Additionally, gas stoves from back then don’t require electricity to cook food. I have had 2 of them, and they are a joy to cook on.
This is great advise! You might also want to try the Norwex enzyme based Oven and Grill cleaner. Its faster spray on leave for 5 min then scrub and wipe off. No need to wait 4 hours. One bottle will last a few years.
Right now all I have is apple cider vinegar. Can I use this instead with the same results? I want to get started on this now
it should work!
I have a gas range, so this wouldn’t work because of the flame slits on the bottom. I wonder if using the solution on a sponge would be the best option.
Tonya, you can make a paste with baking soda, vinegar, and a bit of Dawn dish washing liquid and use that to scrub with. Leave it on and then scrub off after a few hours.
I was told Dawn dish soap has formaldehyde in it. I’m not sure if that’s true and it was a couple years ago, maybe they took it out. But you might as well stick with the baking soda and vinegar paste to be safe.
Our Mothers and Grandmothers used nothing else also a teaspoon of Soda crystals.in a bowl of hot water gets rid of grease also in the washing machine keeps lime scale at bay I love the Old Victorian way of cleaning
What great tips. I will be using this information tonight as my oven is in horrible shape. I didn’t know what to do or how to clean it since the only time I tried the self cleaner was horrible. It was on for 30 minutes and the smell was so horrible my eyes were burning. Luckily the kids we asleep. I had to open ever single window and turn all the fans on. My oven needs a cleaning.
It’s scary the amount of chemcials in everyday life, I agree with the more natural cleaning option, it works great for everything!
TBH, so far as I’ve seen, the old fashioned and more natural products actually work BETTER than the conventional and modern chemical options. The wife does most of the spot cleaning, but when i clean i want it to look brand new. my wife asks me how i get things so clean and i usually reply, “I didn’t use your frufru nancy sprays!”
the only things i use for EVERYTHING:
vinegar
bleach
baking soda
borax
I work in a pharmacy and we have to disinfect everything frequently. many of the cleansers are just too expensive and may leave a residue to be using several times a day and just seems wasteful. it’s an industry standard to just grab a bottle of rubbing alcohol off the shelf and apply the spray bottle topper on the bottle it came in and that’s our everyday cleaner/sanitizer. I also use it frequently when i have a cold and I’m filling prescriptions because it rubs in faster than hand sanitizer. never really got into using it around the house though because it doesn’t have a lot of muscle for actual cleaning and picking up dirt. just disinfecting.
Rubbing alcohol is great on stainless steel appliances. Only natural, nontoxic thing I’ve found that actually gets smudges off.
Great info – I’m not a massive fan of those toxic chemicals you can buy – using baking soda seems to be a pretty popular choice these days! I admittedly did resort to professional oven cleaner kent or oven cleaner birmingham based companies to do mine when it got bad until I read posts like this, so thank you! But I actually have a tip that I found really helped: EVERY time you use the cooker, just give it a quick wipe over, inside and out. I found a sponge (just water, nothing else) as the oven was cooling down to remove the spillages and grease from that cook really helped stop the build up and I don’t reach that horrible black, baked on stage any more! Thanks for the advice.