Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid • Hacker News Board

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#101

Post by nine_k » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:15 AM UTC

alexey-salmin wrote: post #78

esperent wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Too much of anything is bad. A quart of table salt would kill you. A bucket of water force-fed into you could kill you.

Hemoglobin in blood contains a lot of iron; it's used to bind oxygen. Too much iron intake apparently can result in its overproduction, and too much is no good. Donating blood rids you of excess iron, while also benefiting other people.

I suppose you should first check if your levels of iron are indeed excessive.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#102

Post by baconmania » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:15 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #89

baconmania wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most consumer PTFE coatings are declared to be safe up to 450°F. It is trivially easy to heat a pan beyond that temperature on modern gas, electric, and induction ranges in less than ten minutes. The margin of safety is demonstrably nonexistent and it’s wild to me that we just accept this risk constantly, everywhere, anytime we eat food (whether at home or from a restaurant).

So you replace the Teflon with oil, and now your risk is even higher. What did you accomplish?

It’s not super clear what you’re getting at here. The choice isn’t teflon or oil. Everyone uses fat to sear food in a pan, whether or not it’s a nonstick pan. Cooking with a high-smoke-point oil which is low in saturated fat, such as avocado oil, with stainless steel, is strictly better than cooking with teflon pans by every measurable health metric.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#103

Post by herbst » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:18 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #97

gsky wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept saying this for a decade but no one listens, even my mom. Consider all outside food is toxic too.

Just curious: do you raise your own poultry? Milk your own cow? Grow your own wheat? If so, my huge respect! (Otherwise...)

Not op and not raising my own cattle. However IMO finding a farmer you trust and ordering directly once a month or so is easier and cheaper than buying meat in supermarkets.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#104

Post by pama » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:28 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #92

imp0cat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The question is not the temperature if you forget the pan on the fire, the question is which is worse: High Temperature Teflon, or High Temperature Oil? The answer is that Teflon is safer.

Genuine question: why?

I thought people in many long-living cultures often cook with high temperature oil, and not just the street food wok cooking. There is bad chemistry that can happen with other food components at high temperatures but what is the problem with oil itself?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#105

Post by ikiris » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:31 AM UTC

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…

What? Unless you have haemochromatosis this is really tinfoilery over the iron levels acquired through natural ingestion, especially the thought of leach levels from a pan. You get more iron from meat or a bowl of cereal than you could ever get from a pan without it being flat out dissolved in the process over the course of a handful of cooks.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#106

Post by shiroiushi » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:31 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #65

How about, don't fry with any color plastic spatulas.

The main problem here is that many people use non-stick cookware, and metal spatulas will scratch them up badly. Plastic or rubber spatulas don't do that.

Of course, you can say that they shouldn't use non-stick cookware, but they are, so...

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#107

Post by defrost » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:33 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #97

gsky wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept saying this for a decade but no one listens, even my mom. Consider all outside food is toxic too.

Just curious: do you raise your own poultry? Milk your own cow? Grow your own wheat? If so, my huge respect! (Otherwise...)

( not the person that made the "outside food" comment )

"you have to grow your own" is hardly the way to think about it .. we source the vast bulk of our food locally from our state and various farm groups.

To address your questions; Yes, we (the household I live in) have our own poultry, yes we grow our own grain, yes we have our own sheep. Ditto potatoes, figs, oranges, lemons, manderins, blueberries, garlic, herbs, olives, olive oil, etc.

No to "milk cow" - this isn't prime dairy country; that's some 500 km south and that's where we get milk from .. still extended family though. Beef cattle and the best fish is some 1,000+ km north - still the same state and still from extended family.

Essentially what we eat comes from our land or that of people we know either directly or with a single intermediary.

It's pretty healthy that way, we have one of the highest life expectancy's on the planet and COVID was a non issue here, both of the two roads in|out of the state were "closed" (goods trucks loaded | unloaded with no driver social contact, just sleep over, move on) the ships and airports quarantined with a mandated seperation of people or a mandated one-two week isolation if coming in.

Here's the local grain co-op: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBH_Group .. we can pass harvest on and get back ground grain in sacks for home use.

State land area is 3x that of Texas, state population 2.5 million (ish), mostly city dwellers.

"Outside food" - overly processed as found on (say) US supermarket shelves ... dunno much about that.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#108

Post by looofooo0 » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:33 AM UTC

baconmania wrote: post #102

ars wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you replace the Teflon with oil, and now your risk is even higher. What did you accomplish?

It’s not super clear what you’re getting at here. The choice isn’t teflon or oil. Everyone uses fat to sear food in a pan, whether or not it’s a nonstick pan. Cooking with a high-smoke-point oil which is low in saturated fat, such as avocado oil, with stainless steel, is strictly better than cooking with teflon pans by every measurable health metric.

Source?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#109

Post by kazinator » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:35 AM UTC

shiroiushi wrote: post #106

kazinator wrote: post #65

How about, don't fry with any color plastic spatulas.

The main problem here is that many people use non-stick cookware, and metal spatulas will scratch them up badly. Plastic or rubber spatulas don't do that. Of course, you can say that they shouldn't use non-stick cookware, but they are, so...

I have a Japanese electric fry pan, non-stick. I use a bamboo spatula for it. It was not originally intended for the purpose, but I took a rasp and file to it to give it a sharp edge. I usually don't need the spatula. I flip things with chopsticks. I mean that's why you use a non-stick pan! If you have to peel the food off it with a spatula, what good is the non-stick surface? I mostly use the bamboo spatula for lifting things that are delicate, like sunny side up eggs.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#110

Post by shiroiushi » Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 6:36 AM UTC

scohesc wrote: post #15

There's a bottom of the barrel, dollar store brand under the Betty Crocker name brand in Canada - all black plastic cooking utensils, cheapest you can get in all varieties. Every time I go over to mom's place it's so shocking to see these utensils being used for high heat applications they were never meant to be used for. Flipping burgers in a pan, moving fries on a baking sheet - the ends of them are all warped and…

>Every time I go over to mom's place it's so shocking to see these utensils being used for high heat applications they were never meant to be used for.

>educating her about how much plastic and teflon she has (and by extension I have) been eating over the years but it's in one ear and out the other.

I have much the same problem, though luckily I haven't lived with her for ages. According to her, eating plastic and teflon isn't a problem because she's so old that it's not going to make a difference.