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Cooking and bird safety

teflon.com

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Re: Cooking and bird safety

#51

Post by markl42 »

sneak wrote: post #33
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. My cast-iron skillet I've used for 20 years doesn't stick. Ever. If there's a little stuck-on stuff on the bottom after use (should have put a little wine in there, gotten that flavor back into the dish, oh well) then a Scotch-brite bad and 30 seconds fixes it.

My cast iron is 4 years old and every time I use scotch-brite on it, I have to spend hours stinking up my house with flaxseed oil to reseason the pan because scotch-brite makes little dots of shiny iron show up.

Don’t use flaxseed!

https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/b4pxaq/yay_kenji_...

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#52

Post by dclowd9901 »

montroser wrote: post #20

You can do quite a lot with All-Clad stainless cookware. Heat the empty pan for 120s then add oil and reduce heat as desired. From there any sticking will be truly minimal, and for any of that use a metal spatula and you'll be all set.

I like all clad for durability, and if you use copious oil or scale the pan as you cook, you usually meet minimal sticking substance, but it does require some cooking background to get there.

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#53

Post by mrcode007 »

etblg wrote: post #13
roboben wrote: post #4

Since a few years, I do own only iron pans. Teflon for home use as pans was a ridiculous idea: you need to take care of it and it will wear out after some time and needs to be replaced. Iron pans need very little care and get better with age. What is the point?

It's super non-stick. I know you're going to rebut with saying that iron pans are too, and I'm sure they are, but most people don't want to put in any level of the effort needed to make iron pans as non-stick as teflon. A lot of people care only a mild amount about cooking, and don't want to invest the time to know how to properly use a cast iron or a carbon steel (which I have and only seldom use). They'd rather get…

“An early use was in the Manhattan Project as a material to coat valves and seals in the pipes holding highly reactive uranium hexafluoride”

Considering the applications, I’ll pass :)

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#54

Post by starky »

BooneJS wrote: post #2

Anyone try to physically polish cast iron? My Lodge pans are well seasoned but still have a rough surface area that can cause bits to catch.

Polishing likely isn't required, but there are cast iron pans out there with a milled surface that seem to be a good compromise. That said, food sticking is mostly due to proteins bonding to the surface, so I'm not sure how important surface roughness is. I also have a carbon steel pan which is quite smooth, and I've not been able to get a seasoning on it that is as good as my cast iron pan so the cast iron remains more non-stick.

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#55

Post by williamdclt »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #44
williamdclt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing can beat Teflon on non-stickiness, for sure. But really, it’s actually fairly rare that it is a useful property when cooking: mostly for eggs. I mostly use stainless steel and have no problem of food sticking. It asks for a bit of technique, but it’s just technique needed to make good food anyway (preheating pan, using fat, deglazing, managing heat) I wouldn’t recommend cast iron either, it’s just too much fa…

I usually use stainless and cast iron but with green chef meals I’m often tasked with searing chicken or fish in a pan and cleaning those types of pan after a cook like that gets mighty old. So I bought a Tramontina non stick exclusively for those cooks. I suspect it may last a bit longer since it’s a secondary pan I only use for those cases so it feels less wasteful as a purchase.

Can you sear with a non stick? Searing requires preheating the pan hot, which isn’t recommended with Teflon I think

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#56

Post by argiopetech »

zer00eyz wrote: post #36
quadrifoliate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to know as well. A 12" Lodge skillet costs $30 [1]. A mirror-polished 12" Lodge skillet costs an eye-watering $250 [2]. Even if this is a special case, what is it about the polishing process that adds $100 or more to the base cost? I'd be interested to hear from anyone in the know. ---------------------------------------- [1] https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/round-cast-iron-classi... [2] https://www…

Dont do this. Get a carbon steel pan instead. Same material as wok's, and they will take a seasoning. I like the BelleVie, because it hits the mark on cost/quality, but you have to be accepting of a slightly uneven seasoning, or strip them once a year and start over (spring cleaning project).

Carbon steel is a great choice for light cookware and general use (i.e., what you'd use a Teflon pan for), but cast iron beats it handily for e.g., searing or use over a fire. Cast takes longer to heat (and to develop even heat), but it has a high thermal mass (resists variation in heating) and is happy to dump that heat quickly into e.g., a steak.

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#57

Post by erikpukinskis »

sneak wrote: post #40
graypegg wrote: post #25

Stainless steel with some basic seasoning every once in a while (oil, high heat, it’s easy to do) has done me well for a long time. I do keep a non stick around just for eggs though, hard to beat.

I really love eggs, but they’re really high in cholesterol. It’s better to skip them, sadly. I wouldn’t normally offer unsolicited advice like this, but this is a thread about optimizing for health/safety. If you’re going to avoid teflon, you should probably avoid eggs too.

Just eat pasture raised eggs. It’s only the grain fed eggs that have bad cholesterol.

They’re expensive, but given the nutrient density it’s worth it for me.

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#58

Post by williamdclt »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #52
montroser wrote: post #20

You can do quite a lot with All-Clad stainless cookware. Heat the empty pan for 120s then add oil and reduce heat as desired. From there any sticking will be truly minimal, and for any of that use a metal spatula and you'll be all set.

I like all clad for durability, and if you use copious oil or scale the pan as you cook, you usually meet minimal sticking substance, but it does require some cooking background to get there.

It also requires some $$. For most people who aren’t keen cooks, there’s much cheaper stainless steel alternatives that get the job done, a simple ikea pan is fine

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#59

Post by starky »

wkat4242 wrote: post #30

I wonder how, it's not supposed to react with anything? Clearly that's not actually true. And if so, what else we know about it isn't?

Teflon heated above around 300C releases toxic gases as it breaks down. That is what this article is referring to.

Re: Cooking and bird safety

#60

Post by sneak »

CptFribble wrote: post #50
sneak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really love eggs, but they’re really high in cholesterol. It’s better to skip them, sadly. I wouldn’t normally offer unsolicited advice like this, but this is a thread about optimizing for health/safety. If you’re going to avoid teflon, you should probably avoid eggs too.

You don't need to skip eggs! They are high in cholesterol, but the dietary cholesterol from eggs doesn't impact your serum (blood) cholesterol levels the way other fats do. Eggs are one of the best bang-for-your-buck foods you can work into your diet. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-ch...

The site you linked says that studies have shown a link between eating eggs and heart disease, which was the basis of my suggestion that they be avoided.

> Although some studies have found a link between eating eggs and heart disease, there could be other reasons for these findings.

and:

> Health experts now suggest eating as little dietary cholesterol as you can, aiming to keep intake under 300 milligrams (mg) a day. One large egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol — all of which is found in the yolk.

People really like eggs, me included. That unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that they’re bad for you and we shouldn’t eat them (and I no longer do). Two eggs is more than the recommended daily total amount of cholesterol, and a good omelette is 3. I don’t imagine most people are going to be vegan for 60 hours following to compensate.

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