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Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#71

Post by exmadscientist »

The correlation-causation in this article is really rather screwed up.

The way it really works for plastic is this: almost all bad plastic is black, but not all black plastic is bad. That's it.

There is nothing wrong whatsoever with virgin black plastics. (Well, at least, nothing more than is wrong with plastics in general.) So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources.

The trouble comes in when plastics get recycled. There may be sourcing issues for black resins, but the root of the matter is this: black plastics are typically pigmented with carbon black. Carbon black as a pigment is cheap, safe, and very effective. That's good! But that also means that when you throw together a pile of recycled sludge mix and it comes out beige, greige, or worse, you can't sell that (who would buy greige resin?? wait, don't answer that)... so you color it, cheaply... which means carbon black. So almost all random crappy recycled plastic resin ends up black. That's the real problem with black plastic.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#72

Post by moron4hire »

BigGreenJorts wrote: post #62
hobotime wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the eggs develop a crust on the bottom before doing anything with them.

At that point I could just cook in stainless steel. The hope is to not have crusty eggs imo

I don't get why it seems like people are all of a sudden talking about "crusty" eggs. I've seen it so much online in videos in just the last year. It definitely feels like some kind of fad. Eggs that have browned to the degree to which I'm seeing on YouTube would have gotten me fired at Waffle House.

That said, at Waffle House, we used carbon steel pans for eggs. There was a point where every pan would start to stick, no matter how it was heated. Those pans, we would clean with oil and salt, which is very abrasive. I'm not sure exactly what the effect was: either cleaning off accumulated dirt or filing out scratches and dings that would develop. I'm not sure because the salt should have created more scratches, but there was definitely a "worst" pan that had a deep scratch in it that always had some sticking problems.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#73

Post by kylebenzle »

andrewstuart wrote: post #39

I threw out all my pots and pans that have non stick surfaces and replaced them with stainless steel. Same with most kitchen cooking implements. Stainless steel pots and pans are much cheaper, last longer, you can scrub and scrape them and the big upside is you don’t have to consume DuPont non stick chemical coating nor feed it to your children. Despite all the celebrity chefs in the world attempting to sell you thei…

[flagged]

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#74

Post by exmadscientist »

kylebenzle wrote: post #70
extraduder_ire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read of this article is that the main problem comes from black plastic that claims to be made of recycled material being contaminated.

[flagged]

The article is nonsense. Only engineering plastics carry UL94 ratings (and if it's got flame retardants in it, it's got a UL94 rating... otherwise no one would go to the expense!) and there are just not a lot of engineering plastics in the waste stream compared to consumer single-use plastics.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#75

Post by andrewstuart »

kylebenzle wrote: post #73
andrewstuart wrote: post #39

I threw out all my pots and pans that have non stick surfaces and replaced them with stainless steel. Same with most kitchen cooking implements. Stainless steel pots and pans are much cheaper, last longer, you can scrub and scrape them and the big upside is you don’t have to consume DuPont non stick chemical coating nor feed it to your children. Despite all the celebrity chefs in the world attempting to sell you thei…

[flagged]

Aren’t we talking about chemical contamination from kitchen cooking items?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#76

Post by imp0cat »

ars wrote: post #59
tmnvix wrote: post #29

...and take the opportunity to ditch the teflon pans while you're at it. They're toxic. https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluor...

This myth needs to die. Teflon is only an issue at temperatures you're just not going to encounter in a kitchen. And if you did encounter such temperature, and you had oil on the pan - well you've poisoned yourself more than the Teflon would!

Unfortunately it's quite easy to overheat a teflon pan on an induction stove.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#78

Post by alexey-salmin »

esperent wrote: post #57
tylerflick wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same. I still use cast iron and ceramic though.

I have, very regretfully, stopped using cast iron. Being a man, in a country where I can't easily donate blood, iron load is something that I want to be careful of. It is possible to cook with cast iron in a way that won't leech too much iron into food, just as it is possible to cook with nonstick in a way that won't leech Dupont chemicals. But I'd much rather just use foolproof stainless or ceramic cookware that doe…

Sorry, I can't understand the idea, why iron is bad and what does it have to do with blood donations?

I mean I know iron and blood are related but this particular statement just won't compute

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#79

Post by leptons »

bilsbie wrote: post #9
ninininino wrote: post #6

Just cook with stainless steel, it's not that hard. Add and warm fat before adding your other ingredients to prevent sticking or if you don't want additional fat, then add liquid to reduce at the end (the same way you do a wine reduction you can just use a bit of water) if your food sticks and you need to scrape it off the bottom.

I want to but my eggs stick like crazy. I’ve even tried all the tips too like oil when droplets float, etc.

I cook eggs in a stainless steel frying pan several times a week, and I just use plenty of butter. The egg doesn't stick. Also, don't let the butter burn, and don't let the pan get too hot.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#80

Post by nine_k »

exmadscientist wrote: post #71

The correlation-causation in this article is really rather screwed up. The way it really works for plastic is this: almost all bad plastic is black, but not all black plastic is bad. That's it. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with virgin black plastics. (Well, at least, nothing more than is wrong with plastics in general.) So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources. The trouble comes in when…

This is correct. Sadly, this is also unhelpful. As long as you can't guarantee that the cooking utensil is from newly-made and clean black plastic from a reputable source, there is still risk. Think about a random convenience store item. OTOH e.g. a green or red utensil is free from that particular risk (unless a new investigation finds something for these types).

That is, a reputable source, e.g. an established cookware company, may proclaim that their existing black plastics are fine, safe for cookware, and have been tested. But a smart move for them would be to stop using black plastics for cookware, because a customer will just remember one highly reductionist association: "cookware + black plastic = poison". It's not always true, but it may sometimes be true, and that's enough.

Even if the particular research will be found lacking by new investigations and reproduction attempts, a lot of people will still remember this association for years, due to its shock value, simplicity, and trust to The Atlantic (which is generally a really good resource).

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