Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 886 posts

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#231

Post by dotancohen »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #220
hnbad wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reason in part is paranoia about "fat" in food which was conveniently used to distract from sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

Ironically I have to use more fat/oil in a non-stick pan than a cast iron one.

I just started cooking in an iron pan, and I love it. It's actually not significantly more difficult to clean once you learn to leave the seasoning on and get over the cultural conditioning of what clean is essentially.

The cooking process it also far better, with the whole pan being uniformly hot and staying that way.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#232

Post by larsrc »

mrob wrote: post #156
anon291 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly cannot understand the appeal of non stick. Cast iron is so much simpler and the food comes out better. And the pans are indestructible and cleaning is so much easier (just wipe usually). I have three cast iron pans with which I cook for large numbers of people regularly and I'm flabbergasted when I visit other people's homes and find endless stacks of speciality pans. What are people possibly using these f…

>What are people possibly using these for? Eggs and egg dishes (e.g. pancakes) mostly. No other pan works as well. Washing after cooking is also very quick and easy. Perhaps you've never used a non-stick pan that was maintained correctly, i.e. never overheated, stirred only with silicone utensils, and washed by hand using only non-scratching sponges. Most non-stick pans I've seen owned by other people have been in po…

I've been using wooden spatulas on my non-stick pans for years without any issues. Maybe only cheap non-sticks have trouble with them?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#233

Post by dotancohen »

moe_sc wrote: post #213
Etheryte wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood and plastic are not the only two options in your life, this is a silly framing.

What else is? Certainly neither glass nor metal, since they dull knives way to fast.

The lignin in wood is also extremely effective at dulling knives.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#234

Post by dotancohen »

mrob wrote: post #156
anon291 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly cannot understand the appeal of non stick. Cast iron is so much simpler and the food comes out better. And the pans are indestructible and cleaning is so much easier (just wipe usually). I have three cast iron pans with which I cook for large numbers of people regularly and I'm flabbergasted when I visit other people's homes and find endless stacks of speciality pans. What are people possibly using these f…

>What are people possibly using these for? Eggs and egg dishes (e.g. pancakes) mostly. No other pan works as well. Washing after cooking is also very quick and easy. Perhaps you've never used a non-stick pan that was maintained correctly, i.e. never overheated, stirred only with silicone utensils, and washed by hand using only non-scratching sponges. Most non-stick pans I've seen owned by other people have been in po…

  > never overheated, stirred only with silicone utensils, and washed by hand using only non-scratching sponges
Actually, with all that consideration, iron pans seem _easier_ to maintain and clean.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#235

Post by pcthrowaway »

onnnon wrote: post #27

A lot of coffee makers run hot water over black plastics too.

Your coffee maker is exposed to at most 100 degrees C. Spatulas are exposed to temperatures over 200 C.

Instinctively, I'm much more worried about the latter, though I admittedly don't know anything about the science behind what temperatures flame retardants or other undesirable contaminants might leach out of the plastic.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#236

Post by cogman10 »

nine_k wrote: post #80
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 cook…

> 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.

Frankly, nobody should be so credulous as to trust what a consumer goods company claims. You just have to look up how often well trusted consumer goods companies get caught "accidentally" using slave labor.

The need is for a regulatory body like the EPA or FDA to step up and check that the claims are more than just that.

The issue here is that these plastics are super cheap and testing is expensive enough. I have absolutely no faith that a consumer goods company will follow through or continue to follow through without a monetary penalty. This is something that's just to easy to cut once headlines die down.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#237

Post by Amezarak »

shiroiushi wrote: post #187
euroderf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire discussion points me towards a conclusion that metal-on-metal is the conservative way to go. So what is the problem with this as a solution ? Do we have to worry about microbits of metal disrupting physiology ?

>So what is the problem with this as a solution ? Non-stick cookware was invented for a reason.

I've found pre-heating the pan solves basically 100% of "stick" issues, even with eggs. I wish somebody had told me 20 years ago.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#238

Post by adrian_b »

fsckboy wrote: post #43
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.

> Just cook with stainless steel, it's not that hard i've cooked a lot for a long time, and I have never gotten stainless steel to not stick absolutely everything (except water for pasta :) I use cast iron and anodized aluminum and they are slippery AF

You may have a stove that heats the stainless steel vessel non-uniformly, so you might need a heat spreader.

Stainless steel has relatively poor heat conductivity, so a direct flame would heat it very non-uniformly in comparison with an aluminum or even a cast iron vessel. Hot spots lead to sticking.

For this reason the better stainless steel cooking pots have a bottom that encloses a copper sheet, to spread the heat. In such pots or pans you will not normally have problems with sticking. With simpler pots or pans you must use an external heat spreader.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#239

Post by jimhefferon »

hggigg wrote: post #203
euroderf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire discussion points me towards a conclusion that metal-on-metal is the conservative way to go. So what is the problem with this as a solution ? Do we have to worry about microbits of metal disrupting physiology ?

I am mostly worried about the stress of things sticking to that like glue. Stress has physiological consequences. I see people worrying about this shit while walking on cliff edges, honking down cans of energy drinks and puffing away on vapes. There are probably larger health and risk considerations to make in your life.

For those of us who don't walk on cliff edges, though, it is a concern.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#240

Post by dotancohen »

onli wrote: post #158
mattdesl wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the kind of re-seasoning I mean: first I dry it (paper towel), then wipe with oil (more paper towel). It’s more work than cleaning a nonstick by hand and produces more waste.

Oh, okay! I see it as less work, since the whole part of using soap and rubbing the fat away properly doesn't happen. Plus it's just a drop of oil and two paper towels. You can use a cotton towel to dry it and move down to one paper towel. But I just wanted to make sure you don't re-season it with the whole procedure, like oil, potato peels and salt fried for a long time. Because that would be definitely a lot of wor…

> You can use a cotton towel to dry it and move down to one paper towel.

You don't even need the entire paper towel. During the Hamas attacks last year I was unable to leave to the store for quite some time and began seriously reducing consumption in the house. Half or even a quarter paper towel is enough.

And even that doesn't need to be thrown away - the paper towel is still clean for purpose of reoiling the pan the next day if you absolutely need.

Post reply on HN