Teflon diet earns trio the 2025 Ig Nobel chemistry prize
At the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel ceremony – held at Boston University, US, and streamed online worldwide – 10 awards were given to various disciplines from engineering to medicine. In a year where science once again proved it can be both brilliant and bizarre, the Ig Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded to Rotem Naftolovich, Daniel Naftolovich and Frank Greenway for their proposal for a ‘Teflon diet’.
The trio suggested adding polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), better known as Teflon, a non-stick polymer coating added to frying pans, directly into food. Why? To use Teflon as a calorie-free filler to bulk up meals. PTFE is inert, tasteless, heat-resistant and unaffected by stomach acid, meaning it would ‘slip’ through the digestive system without being absorbed.