41–50 of 103 posts
Isn't Teflon (PTFE) inert biologically? (the precursor PFOAS are nasty forever chemicals that people should go to jail over dumping them in water, but once they're inert they're inert)
Either way, it will be 'bad' forever with some people, like MSG and other things
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the advice is to avoid using it as a daily driver. If you only have nonstick and carbon steel pans, you might not want to cook something acidic in the carbon steel as it will kill the seasoning. If you have nonstick and stainless steel, you can use the SS for that. On the otherhand, cooking eggs in nonstick might be easier/require less fat than working with stainless steel. Nonstick also generally has a lower…
> cooking eggs in nonstick might be easier/require less fat I don't understand why anyone would want to cook eggs with less fat to begin with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carbon steel is amazing - durable self repairing non-stick surface that after the inital seasoning is trivial to maintain: wash the pan with a brush when its still hot without any detergent - cleans in seconds. Cast iron is good too but takes longer to heat the pan. You only have to look in any professional kitchen - they don't use non-stick pans.
The cast iron is a pain to maintain though
Wash: a few drops of detergent and hot water immediately after cooking. Let sit while I eat. Scrub out with a brush, invert to dry.
Wipe with oil (I prefer flax, there are many other options).
Store on lower oven rack when not in use, inverted. Seasons whilst baking generally.
Once a month or two, or when the finish is looking grotty, I'll give it a good oil rub all over, and park it in the oven at 230C / 450F for 60--90 minutes, and allow to cool for 30--60 minutes after (depending on whether I need to use the oven). Like new.
Teflon is the best it'll ever be the day you get it from the shop. Cast iron only improves with age. My oldest pan is ~70 years old (a family hand-me-down), the newest has a few decades on it. All will undoubtedly outlast me.
If you're looking to switch, difficulty around cooking technique for stainless steel, carbon steel & cast iron is overblown. Same with seasoning/cleaning the latter two. Trust me, if I can figure it out, you can too.
Carbon steel is amazing - durable self repairing non-stick surface that after the inital seasoning is trivial to maintain: wash the pan with a brush when its still hot without any detergent - cleans in seconds. Cast iron is good too but takes longer to heat the pan. You only have to look in any professional kitchen - they don't use non-stick pans.
That's definitely not true.
Thank you for these tests! I've recently tossed all my coated pans (my favourite were the Anolon, but those too shed) and moved to stainless steel, save for a cast iron and carbon steel pan. In the journey here the best I could find was a Hestan nanobond pan, which unfortunately laminated and has shown some pits after few months of use. They refunded me but titaniums isn't yet where stainless steel is. Now I'm using…
> Leidenfrost effect Okay for a steak, not great for eggs!
- Ceramic works well enough that I'm shocked Teflon nonstick still exists. No reason to risk it.
- Use real food. Real butter, real olive for most things, real peanut oil for high temp.
- If you don't overeat or or eat junk or indulgences too often, you can eat anything you want, just not every day.
- Variety and exploration inherently limits bad habits.
- Nobody has time to scratch cook every meal. Cook batches and freeze them. If you use occasions when you have time to do this, you'll build up a variety in your freezer that you won't hate anything before you run out of it. OTOH 16 chicken burritos is at least five too many. Trust me.
- All of this is much easier if you're cooking for yourself or for like-minded people.
I've started seeing these, suspect it's relatively non-stick, should be metabolically benign, but also hear that surfaces are subject to scratching and chipping. (Our storage situation is ... less than ideal.) Prices seem somewhat spendy, but doable.
(And I see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49071016> immediately on submitting this ;-)
I’m the founder of RTINGS.com. A few notes about this investigation: - For each piece of cookware, we purchased and tested three separate units - Before taking the “new” measurement, each unit was washed three times with dish soap and rinsed with isopropyl alcohol - Oil blanks and uncoated cookware were included as controls - We did not chemically identify the particles that were released - This investigation measure…
Thank you for doing this. The conclusion from the text is: > For consumers who wish to minimize potential exposure to PTFE coating particles, the simplest approach may be to treat nonstick cookware as a specialized tool rather than a default choice. Instead, reach for uncoated cookware, such as stainless steel, cast iron, carbon steel, or glass, whenever practical. If we follow that advice: For which type of food/dis…
I don't have any nonstick. It's not that hard to cook anything or to clean stainless or cast iron. For cast iron/carbon steel 99% of the time I run it under water and rub it with my hand and it comes clean in 30 seconds. Rarely I use some soap. Stainless comes clean easiest right after you use it. Especially if you pour a little water on it while it's still hot. I do occasionally use an SOS on stainless. There's noth…
yeah, a good stainless is more than non stick enough for anything. But something that doesn't get enough attention with these kinds of statements is the role of the cooktop.
stainless is easy when you have a cooktop that can maintain the proper temp. that just a hair over "medium" (i havent temped it but i suspect its about 350-375, right around the smoke point of peanut oil)
if your pan is too hot/too cold stuff will stick waaay more (or burn before it would release naturally)
id never been able to get stainless to perform properly on cheap gas burners. heat was too uneven and the hotspots on edges or center would make it not work. no way to get it dialed just right. switching to induction made all the difference. now i can do anything with no fear of sticking.
pan to burner size ratio matters a lot also.