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We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

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Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#51

Post by dredmorbius »

breakyerself wrote: post #29

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…

Cast iron & eggs: if all that's going in are eggs (and fat), I have less clean-up with cast-iron than Teflon.

Heat pan on medium-low, add oil, add slightly-stirred eggs, turn heat off or minimum, mix with a silicone spatula. Perfect eggs in about a minute. The heat retention of the iron transfers at just the right rate to the eggs, the oil (olive, butter, avocado) prevents sticking.

My usual "scramble" has a bunch of ingredients (onions, garlic, sausage, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, seasoning, eggs), and there's more adhesion, but a 10--15 minute soak (whilst eating) hot water + detergent, and a quick scrub, and it's all good.

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#52

Post by ortusdux »

SoftTalker wrote: post #30
ortusdux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare (but not outlandish) warning - A friend's entire family had ongoing symptoms of fatigue and upset stomach. They ran blood panels and found that everyone had off the charts iron levels. They had switched to cast iron only in the kitchen a few years back, and switching to stainless pans solved the problem.

I wonder if they were scouring the cast iron every time they cleaned it? Normally a layer of carbon "seasoning" develops and I would think that would limit the direct contact of food and iron. I clean my cast iron pans with hot water and a brush or scraper only. No detergent (or maybe a small amount to break up oil if I cooked something really greasy). No scouring.

It really doesn't take much exposure to make a difference:

https://www.joghr.org/article/11950-testing-the-efficacy-of-...

https://luckyironlife.com/products/lucky-iron-fish

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#53

Post by petronic »

darkstar999 wrote: post #27
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cast iron is a pain to maintain though

It really isn't. I stopped trying to keep it looking perfectly seasoned and it performs just as well.

That was my breakthrough with both carbon steel and cast iron. Even if the seasoning is imperfect, it'll perform just fine if you preheat it thoroughly and oil it before use.

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#54

Post by Cider9986 »

breakyerself wrote: post #29

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…

The only thing that I need a nonstick for is a French omellete or French-style scrambled eggs. Because with stainless steel, carbon steel, or cast iron you need heat in order to prevent sticking.

Apparently it's possible but hard to do in stainless steel:

https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_non...

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#55

Post by milch »

clickety_clack wrote: post #39
breakyerself wrote: post #29

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…

I use all stainless steel now too. When I first got a stainless steel frying pan (a good thick one with some kind of impressive layering system that I’ve long forgotten about) I just assumed that things would stick to it, but I’ve never had any problems that didn’t come off with at most a basic sponge and moderate effort. Mostly food just rinses right off. I’ve had that pan for something like 15 years now. As far as…

> As far as I can tell, non-stick is just a ploy to get people to keep buying new pans as it wears off.

This is one of the biggest reasons my wife and I switched away from non-stick too. We moved from replacing non-stick pans after a year of use to our carbon steel pans working better after 5 years of use than when we got them... or buying 80 year old cast irons from a thrift store for 5 bucks. We have more types of cookware now, but none of them have an expiration date

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#56

Post by Cider9986 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #47

Looking at alternatives (and I already have both cast-iron and aluminium fry pans which I prefer using), what are people's experiences with ceramic cookware? 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…

I have a greenpan it works well enough although it degrades in nonstick over the years. The only thing I need it for is unbrowned eggs. And those are some of the hardest things for non-stick.

If you cook properly at the right temperatures, you will be better off with stainless or cast iron because they will give better browning. So nonstick is effectively used as a crutch by most cooks to allow them to cook at a temperature which will make their food worse, or forgoe fat which I didn't even consider as an option because it's so foreign to me (the comment you linked reminded me).

Fish is stickyest food ime but it tells you when you've cooked it enough by releasing from the pan so I always use cast iron or stainless for fish.

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#57

Post by ButlerianJihad »

When I was a teenager, I saw a commercial for Visions Cookware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_(cookware)

I got really excited and I purchased a complete set for my mother on her birthday.

And she took one look and was unable to share my enthusiasm. She said it was all completely different from the vessels she normally used, and so it was a rubbish gift, and she stashed them all in a drawer, and never used them at all.

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#58

Post by butvacuum »

not-kinsale-joe wrote: post #14
bloke_zero wrote: post #10

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.

I have seen non-stick pans for eggs.

yea, eggs in a busy kitchen or when you haven't been out of bed for more than 5m is risky.

Re: We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

#60

Post by cdemer »

Cider9986 wrote: post #36
cdemer wrote: post #2

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…

Appreciated your VPN testing. Organizations like yours improve my life every time I'm going to buy something.

Thanks! That's exactly why we do this work. Feedback on what we could improve is always welcome.
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