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Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

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Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#391

Post by _yb2s »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #374
lukevp wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a carbon steel or cast iron pan and learn how to season properly. They are very nonstick if you cook correctly in them, and their surface is incredibly durable (I use metal spatulas and I primarily cook on carbon steel and a cast iron griddle.) you can also incorporate stainless steel pots, although stainless pans are not nonstick and very hard to use for beginners.

question since you obviously know the topic! a cast iron or "stainless" steel pan will get some gruff from cooking since its nonstick. It regularly goes to the dishwasher, some stuff won't get cleaned. Mostly oil burn stains it seems ("stainless" hardly!) . Is that completely safe/expected ? We obviously diddn't get that with the nonstick pans. We got rid of that stuff for a reason, now i'm not sure what is worse: no…

Cast iron is intentionally seasoned with oxidized cooking oil to make it non stick, and that should not be cleaned off.

Stainless is pretty easy to get totally clean with steel wool and/or scotchbrite pad sponges.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#392

Post by maeln »

xmodem wrote: post #317
MrSkelter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

A lot of wood is dishwasher safe. But you should ask / check before hand. If it is made a several pieces glued together, it will probably not be.

For cookware with PTFE non-stick coating, it is basically the only solution, with silicone, but I personally don't like silicone utensil.

In any case, I also started to avoid PTFE coated cookware, because no matter how well you treat them, the coating will eventually get damaged (and PTFE is supposedly not very good for you). Now I just use stainless steel for anything that is not too sticky, and carbon steel for everything that need a bit of a non-stick surface to be cooked properly. They are not too hard to maintain and they don't get damaged like PTFE non-stick pan.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#393

Post by fooblaster »

weberer wrote: post #366
ahoka wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in developed countries like the US a lot of people burn fossil fuels for indoor cooking, even when they could choose a better alternative.

In the US and other developed countries, they burn clean fuels like natural gas or propane. These emit minimal soot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_fuel#/media/File:Access_...

Unfortunately perhaps not as clean as you would hope: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9819315/#:~:text=5.....

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#394

Post by mtalantikite »

CalRobert wrote: post #333
xmodem wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

For what it's worth, I stopped using non-stick cookware in favour of carbon steel and haven't missed it.

My carbon steel pans are essentially non-stick and a fraction of the weight of my cast iron ones. They're cheaper than their stainless All-Clad counterparts. They're a pleasure to cook with.

Sure, you can get a cheap non-stick pan that may or may not give you cancer, but why? I'm in my 40s and since I can remember thought it made no sense to cook with plastic anything. My parents still cook with the same wooden spoons my dad brought back from Algeria before I was born. The pans will last multiple lifetimes. The same can't be said for their plastic and non-stick counterparts.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#395

Post by xmodem »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #364
xmodem wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is not dishwasher safe, metal will damage the cookware's non-stick coating, which may be worse than the plastic I'm trying to avoid. I guess that leaves silicone.

> Wood is not dishwasher safe... Maybe, but they're so easy to clean without a dishwasher. And even easier to clean later if you rinse them off immediately after cooking so stuff doesn't stick.

I have a disability which makes hand-washing cookware impractical, regardless of how "easy" it is for a "normal" person.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#396

Post by fooblaster »

infecto wrote: post #293
Aachen wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not matter: The article also speaks of a black necklace for children that was found to be 3% flame retardant chemicals by weight, saying > Those flame retardants migrate into toddlers’ saliva and into the dust in our homes Perhaps it's fine if you don't lick your coffee machine, or perhaps not. I guess being less worried makes sense but I'm not sure that we need not be worried about boiling our drinks in fire r…

Ugh you reminded me how much I hate flame retardants and the horrible laws we have in America that have us spray it everywhere. I was just recently looking at bicycle seats for small kids and the one I found interesting happened to recently have a recall (Thule) as they grossly over applied the flame retardant to a point where it was immediately toxic. I am guessing it was in the foam pieces but such a depressing ide…

Are there particularly bad flame retardants to avoid? why is it bad?

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#397

Post by alwayslikethis »

Aachen wrote: post #275
MrSkelter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The precautionary principle plus what we know about heating plastic makes your reticence seem churlish. There are easy, safe alternatives in wood, metal and silicone. There’s no need to risk it.

Maybe a stupid question, but how can I tell the difference between plastic and silicone? We use a black spatula that's flexible (shapes a bit to the curvature of what you're wiping, super convenient) and doesn't scratch the pan while not being porous like wood (where I always wonder how many bacteria live in these crevasses). It seems perfect and is being sold specifically for cooking so I assumed this plastic, if th…

Silicon is rubbery, but unlike rubber it is normally not sticky to either your hand or food.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#398

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #362
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #99

Does silicone rubber count as plastic? I think we need a more precisely defined villain here.

No - silicone isn't a plastic and is much better for food preparation.

Ok, but why? It's a synthetic molded polymer, so I think it fits all the definitions that I can find.

Are we saying that plastics are bad and then redefining "plastic" as the subset of the previous classification which are bad? That's the kind of language trickery that duped us into making utensils out of an industrial waste product in the first place. If we're going to protect future generations from whatever harm comes after plastic we're going to need to stop being so vage.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#399

Post by schmidtleonard »

candiddevmike wrote: post #307
Aachen wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a stupid question, but how can I tell the difference between plastic and silicone? We use a black spatula that's flexible (shapes a bit to the curvature of what you're wiping, super convenient) and doesn't scratch the pan while not being porous like wood (where I always wonder how many bacteria live in these crevasses). It seems perfect and is being sold specifically for cooking so I assumed this plastic, if th…

I read somewhere that if you bend/squeeze silicone, it shouldn't turn white. If it does, it's plastic. You may need to really bend/squeeze it.

Nope. In fact, the higher density silicone with better heat resistance will turn white on bending far more readily than the low grade stuff designed for hair dryer pockets and such.

Re: Cooking with black plastic is particularly crucial to avoid

#400

Post by lazylizard »

agos wrote: post #375
lazylizard wrote: post #339

im lost. whats a plastic? silicone is not plastic? why specifically black plastic? which black pigment? all black plastics use the same pigment?which plastic? is black silicone ok? how about rubber? other colors with same flame retardant is ok? or somehow only black (all plastics?) use 1 particular flame retardant? its strangely specific yet strangely vague?

I'll add one: is nylon plastic?

its clearly a plastic? polyamide?
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