While teflon pans are the most famous household use of teflon, they don't appear to be a significant route for these compounds getting into human bodies [1]. The main route is environmental contamination of crops and sources of drinking water, not contamination during cooking or household storage. The main sources of the environmental contamination seem to be industrial discharges, and the use of firefighting foams that contain PFOA/PFOS.

[1] See the paper linked in another comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10046612

Teflon pans are cheap, and you don't have to care for them at all. Just throw it in the dishwasher and after a year or so get a new one.

Having said that, I'm really liking the two nonstick ceramic pans I bought a few months ago, and I'm not sure if I'll need to toss them next year, yet.

The T-Fal one I have has been going strong for a few years now (maybe 3?). The trick is to NEVER put it in the dishwasher. Hand wash only. It's the easiest thing ever to hand wash, since nothing sticks, and most of the water drips off before I grab the towel.

Literally the only they tell you not to do with non-stick pans is stick it in the dishwasher.

"Teflon pans are cheap ... after a year or so get a new one."

Really? "Real" nonstick pans (not walmart) sell for something like $40 to $100+ a piece, but cast iron (Lodge Inc, etc) sells for something like $20. So CI works better, last forever, is cheaper, and its less toxic.

Its true that you can buy a pan shaped object from walmart for $5 that doesn't really work, but in all fairness the CI equivalent is the "free to a good home" pile of CI at an estate sale, so CI is still cheaper.

I will say there is one, exactly one use for teflon pans and thats burned cheese or burned eggs. Just something about it chemically that makes it stick to cast iron. Yet meats don't stick, very strange.

I've had two of the Lodge cast iron pans crack completely, and being able to dishwash the nonstick pans saves me a lot of time.

Crack? Like fall apart? What are you doing man?! It's freaking iron!!!! I'm using my great-great grandmothers pan all the time and it's amazing despite being from the 1800's

There are many reasons why a cast iron skillet inexplicably cracks.

Poor quality control in manufacturing, natural crystalline formation defects, excessive impacts in handling, extreme thermal stresses, etc.

Cast iron, being a non-ductile material, in the daily thermal cycling of cooking, any minute microscopic fissure will start to propagate through a process known as metal fatigue, and eventually fail catastrophically.

To some degree, cast iron can be annealed or hardened, depending on your cooking habits. Something I do which I would not recommend to anyone else: I buy cheap cast iron cookware, heat it up red hot and pour cold water in it. If it didn't crack, them I heat it up again in an oven and let it cool down as slowly as possible to anneal any internal stress.

In any case, if the skillet is of great value to you, there are places that actually can repair it for you.

As a last tip, stop practicing skillet abuse and trying to be an iron chef. :-)

Can it really anneal at normal oven temperatures? Cast iron has a melting point of 2200F -- so how can 500F oven do anything?

I looked it up and the truth is in between. You get "ferritizing" annealing starting at 1300F. Microscopic amounts of that will happen at 500F but nothing significant. Thank you, now I will stop wasting my time with this piece of folklore...

You can buy an original Tefal pan for like $15-20, if it lasts a year that's ok with me. I wouldn't trust the no-brand $5 stuff either, but I would think that Tefal pans should be ok?

That stuff is just more toxicity. The non stick vaporizes at high temperatures (the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen... And that's the Teflon website!!!), and all those knicks and scratched are material coming off and into your food.

There's no need for toxic cookware. Get high quality cast iron and you can give it to your future generations like my grandmother did for me. And if that flakes into your food, it's just iron which your body needs!

The teflon on pans is inert and non toxic. It would not be digested if it was scratched off and in your food.

"the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen..."

But Big Bird is okay in the kitchen? ;-)

Having a bird in the kitchen is just a bad idea (unless you are going to eat it). If you overheat oil, that becomes toxic as well and will kill a small bird the same as overheating teflon.

You might have a house with a kitchen next to the living room and no door in between, and if you've got everything closed up in winter you can kill a bird in a nearby room with Teflon toxicity. Overheating oil will not kill a small bird, and even some quick smoke inhalation won't necessarily kill a bird.

Smoke inhalation and Teflon toxicity are really different death mechanisms -- if you're interested, a quick read of the abstracts of articles on mass bird deaths from PTFE toxicity at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10879927 or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/ is illuminating.

Cooking oil fumes (not smoke) are toxic as well.

Butter in cast iron is toxic at 260 degrees. Teflon isn't toxic until 280 degrees.

Check out http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4723395

> Abstract: Japanese quail and parakeets were exposed to the pyrolysis products of: (1) commercial fry pans coated with Teflon® finish, (2) plastic fry pan handles, (3) corn oil, and (4) butter. Other materials used in the test were commercial aluminum fry pans and cast iron fry pans. A four-hour Approximate Lethal Temperature (ALT) was determined for each test material for each specie. All products tested were lethal to Japanese quail with ALT's ranging from 260° C for butter in cast iron to 370 °C for a plastic handle in a glass container. The ALT for a fry pan coated with Teflon® finish was 330°C. All products were also lethal to parakeets with ALT's of 260°C for both the pan coated with Teflon® finish plus butter and the cast iron pan plus butter. The ALT for a fry pan coated with Teflon® finish was 280°C.

Great. More synthetic and toxic crap in our landfills. All for our myopic convenience.

Dupont and 3M love you.

Well that and really good omelettes!

Teflon is not toxic. Some precursors are but once made it's completely inert.

And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.

If you're doing wok cooking, you can get to 900 degrees, although most of us who did not have the gas company adjust the stove for optimal Chinese cooking don't get quite that high. 600 F isn't crazy in wok cooking on a stovetop, though, and Teflon is not guaranteed to retain its properties above 400F. [1,2] Here's a PSA: Teflon-coated woks suck anyway!

Remember that Teflon and related products aren't only for stovetop use. There are many non-stick baking sheets and muffin pans as well, and it's not that unusual to cook muffins, scones, cakes, or pizza (esp pizza [3]) at temperatures above 400. Moreover, using the broiler can quickly get you to a high temperature.

Interestingly, there are a lot of documented cases of bird death in conjunction with Teflon usage [4]. Birds are very sensitive -- hence "canary in coal mine" -- but it is interesting to see that bird death can happen during normal use of Teflon and related products, certainly at temperatures below 400F.

[1,2] http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/06/the-food-lab-for-the-best..., http://www.boedeker.com/ptfe_p.htm [3] http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-homemade-thin-crust-pizza-re... [4] http://www.ewg.org/research/canaries-kitchen/teflon-kills-bi...

'not toxic' - until you heat it above its suggested operating temperature - which as I recall is about the temp of a 'high' setting on a stove.

If you heated it that high you would have smoke in your kitchen from the oil catching fire.

The operating temperature of teflon (approx 600f) is higher than the operating temperature of the oil (approx 400f) you cook with.

You keep saying this. You've said it many times in this thread. 1) there are lots of different kinds of oils each with their own distinct flash points and toxicities. Olive oil has one of the lowest flashpoints and has very little toxicity when burned. 2) Not all cooking is done with oils. 3) even if oil is toxic, it seems to be something that is a required part of cooking - we assume the risk. Teflon, not so much. 3) Teflon does get that hot in the course of regular cooking. And it releases toxic fumes under those conditions. Saying oil is bad too does not negate what teflon is doing. Especially when there are choices for pans/cookware that do NOT release fluorocarbons at high temperatures.

> and has very little toxicity when burned

When burned with a wick, no. But if just heated till is smokes? Just as toxic as any oil.

> even if oil is toxic, it seems to be something that is a required part of cooking - we assume the risk. Teflon, not so much.

Oil does not have to be toxic. Just don't exceed the smoke point. And like oil, in normal cooking Teflon is not toxic either. It's completely inert.

> Teflon does get that hot in the course of regular cooking. And it releases toxic fumes under those conditions.

No it does not. No one cooks at over 660f. (OK, maybe some specialized stuff, but not with regular cooking where you would use a pan.)

> Especially when there are choices for pans/cookware that do NOT release fluorocarbons at high temperatures.

Like Teflon? Which does not release them either?

I don't recall reading that caveat on the box my teflon pans arrived in.

Ceramic pans and when they get older still use them , prefer extra virgin coconut oil , Iam thinking at least somewhat safer then the Teflon pans.

Gotta love the cast irons, inherited one that's about 50 years old, took me a while to season it properly, but now it's working like a charm. When you take good care of them, they will last for several generations.

For casual home cooks I'd recommend hard anodized aluminum. It's an excellent non-stick surface, easily hand washable, non-toxic, fairly durable, and low cost. Really as long as you aren't constantly gouging it with metal things then it'll hold up for years and years.

Cast iron is great too though, don't get me wrong.

Is that wise? Al cookware has questionable safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Health_concerns

These guys recommend stainless or cast Fe. http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=92

From your wikipedia link: Although the use of aluminium cookware has not been shown to lead to aluminium toxicity in general

> Al cookware has questionable safety.

Aluminum yes, but hard anodized is alumina which is a different compound, also called ruby and emerald. It's very very hard (as you can tell since it makes gemstones) and completely inert to cooking materials.

Confusing aluminum and hard anodized is like confusing chlorine and table salt.

Using Aluminum cookware does not result in a significant ingestion of Aluminum, hard anodized Aluminum even less so.

I bought this set: http://www.costco.com/Circulon%C2%AE-Premier-Professional-Ha...

Not only does the hard anodized surface work well, the lids have small holes where the spout of the pan is so that you don't need to use a colander.

What about ceramic pans?

ceramic is a great option, as long as you take care of it (don't scrub with abrasive, etc.) I switched recently to ceramic pans and I love the look and feel, silky smooth and glossy white surface!

Teflon pan should never be heated without oil or something else on it. Heating it empty will vaporize the Teflon, which could be toxic when breathed. Also, use only plastic utensils when cooking so you won't scratch it.

You would have to heat it pretty hot for that! Like almost glowing.

I've put a blowtorch to teflon when sweating copper and very little happened to it.

> which could be toxic when breathed

At equal temperatures oil is more toxic than teflon.

You can also use wooden utensils

I'd bet the issue is that you did not season the teflon pans (yeah, just about the same way as a cast iron pan...) and that you regularly use the pans at a very high heat which isn't exactly a teflon pan's forte.

Teflon doesn't like high heat or rapid temp changes.

Here's a really good article on use and care from Fine Foods Mag:

http://www.finecooking.com/articles/the-science-of-nonstick-...

Off topic, but did you know the word "forte" in that context is pronounced "fort" not "for-tay"?

I just learned that recently.

Both pronunciations are now standard.[1]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forte

The pronunciation for the Italian word for strong/strength is "for-tay"

Italian --> English: forte --> loud. French --> English: forte --> strength.

In French, forte is pronounced "fort" In Italian, forte is pronounced "fortay"

In English, the pronunciation of forte depends on which language you borrowed it from. It inherits its proper pronunciation from the source language.

BTW, English --> Italian: strength --> forza.

I wouldn't say its a standard. It's more that those who do pronounce it correctly can't be bothered correcting a sea of semi-literates any longer. Dictionaries are no longer the bastion of language they once were as they now stuff in new faddish words at the drop of a hat.

Too bad they don't also have a removal process to remove them once they've had their few years of trendiness and are forgotten.

I think you have that backwards -- it would appear it's pronounced ˈfȯrt when used as a technical term of the the strong part of a sword hilt -- but not here, as it is used as a reference to a certain tools strong use-case?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forte

The OED gives the bisyllabic pronunciation for all meanings, with a note saying that the monosyllabic pronunciation used to be used.

Yep. That's how the word was taught to me. In the US, quite a few people say it as "fort."

I've lived in the US my whole life, and I've never heard anyone pronounce it "fort" in this context.

How do you keep them seasoned? I tried a couple of times, but couldn't get it right. Could you give me some tips?

Serious Eats has a very comprehensive guide [1]. The short version is rub lightly with canola oil, put in hot oven for about 30 minutes. Take it out and oil again. Repeat 3-5 times.

The only thing you need to avoid while cooking is overly acidic foods. If you try to make a tomato sauce in it you will see the seasoning flake off. That's not good, but is very easily fixed by repeating the above steps.

To clean it, scour the plan with kosher salt and a paper towel. Once clean, coat lightly in canola oil.

[1]: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/how-to-buy-season-clean-m...

For acidic things, buy an enameled cast iron. Those things are also great. They need no seasoning, but are a bit more delicate (you don't want the enamel to chip or crack).

I grew up with traditional CI cookware. I know how to season it and how to wash it.

The roommate recently purchased an enameled cast iron skillet. The use and care guide was pretty poorly written. So, a couple of stupid questions on the topic follow:

* The coating inside the pan is enamel, and doesn't need maintenance?

* One needs to not use metal utensils (or steel wool) in order to not damage the coating?

* One can wash the damn thing with soap and water without harming the coating?

Thanks in advance. :D

As I understand it,

* no maintenance for inside

* don't use steel wool. With a stubborn stain I use a little baking soda, which some folks say is ok and others forbid. I use metal utensils despite being told not to. I use them gently and accept a few scratches; I try to avoid cutting things in the pan. I also wear contacts while swimming because I'm that kind of rebel. Meh.

* Soap + water = great :)

In addition, a lot of enamel will just stain after some time, which is normal; This is why some of the vendors are just going with black enamel these days, instead of the long-used white. I haven't tried baking soda to clear up the stains on mine, I'll have to give it a shot.

Also, if the enamel cracks inside the cooking area of the pan, you may want to throw out the pan; it may expose your food to contact with toxins used in adhering the enamel.

I'd be more worried about eating chips of (sharp, hard) enamel than any toxins - the firing process is not going to leave much other than the ceramic behind.

Once it's seasoned well, it doesn't seem to flake. I've done tomato based sauces in my cast iron a few times and the seasoning hasn't flaked.

Tomato sauces weaken the non-stick seasoning on my main cast-iron skillet, but frying bacon in it once a week repairs any damage.

My best-seasoned skillet is the one I only use for cornbread, fried eggs, and grilled cheese, since I only cook with oil there.

A good seasoning is something you build up over time: when you first season a grey skillet, it looks unusable for a time, but keep cooking oily foods in it and it will blacken up.

The nice thing is that since it's metal, you can use metal utensils. And if something is badly burned on enough that normal soaking and scouring won't remove it, you can scrape it out with metal tools.

I'd recommend the following:

1. Scrub thoroughly using only hot water and a stainless steel pot cleaner -- this should give you a clean start

2. Make fried potatoes using lots of oil, fry potatos until black (throw them away, obviously) -- this should help soak the somewhat porous surface with oil

3. Apply a thin coating of oil and bring to immense heat -- this will create a solid surface

4. After every use, clean gently using only and old towel (or hot water and pot cleaner, if needed) and always rub some oil on it when dry -- this will give you a good start for the next heat-up

Please note that 3. will result in quite a bit of smoke from the burning oil, so you may want to do this on the grill outside your house.

Yikes. What makes you think this results in fewer carcinogens on your pan's surface than teflon?

The cleaning step.

Steps one through three are what is called "seasoning" the pan. It's a process that often makes a bunch of smoke. Ideally, you only ever have to do that once. Cooking on cast iron doesn't produce a smoky mess.

If "seasoning" the pan achieves anything at all, doesn't it necessarily have to result in some sort of coating of the pan's surface?

Yes. Seasoning leaves a baked-on coating of oil/fat. That doesn't mean that the coating is carcinogenic.

IIRC (and I might not RC, I'm no food chemist) the coating is polymerized oil/fat and completely harmless.

At smoking point, carcinogens are created both in the gas and what's left behind.

How sure are you that the non-stick coating left on the pan is more carcinogenic than browned hash browns?

What makes you think the pan's surface is more carcinogenic than the steak crust?

I don't, but I'm not sure that's relevant to the hypothesis that cast iron pans are less toxic than teflon pans.

It's been a while, I'll follow up anyway...

I don't use cast iron pans because I believe they're less toxic, but because they make a damn fine crusty steak or fried potatoes.

And I use teflon pans to stir-fry or steam veggies and chicken, or to make fried eggs, just because they're more convenient.

To be honest, I don't really care all that much about potential toxiticity in cooking equipment. That wasn't really my hypothesis to begin with, I was just sharing my love for cast iron pans :-)

Yes this is a good read. After reading that last year I bought a griswold #8 from ebay for $50. Stripped it with lye oven cleaner over a few days, and then seasoned it like above. I stopped 'washing' the pan with soap as I found chiseling any stuck on stuff with a metal spatula, followed by using "The Ringer" under hot water to be quickest and easiest. After that, I dry with a paper towel and spray with Pam (read somewhere that the oil in pam (canola?) was a good 'drying' oil). It is also good to bake stuff in the pan, pizza, pies, cornbread,ect. The extra heat will also help re-season. I have been super impressed by the pan after a year.

I love my Griswold.

Indeed, I might get another one for my grandma since the ones she has are super heavy. I think the lightweight griswolds might put less strain on her wrists. (not sure why newer CI is so dang thick/heavy)

Cook with oil and real fats. Avoid soap.

If you're having issues consider getting the pre-seasoned from Lodge. It's a few buck more and they've already got a dang fine seasoning backed on.

Here's a decent article on seasoning: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5820-the-ultimate-wa...

Buy a chainmail cleaner: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ringer-Cleaner-Stainless-Chainmail...

For $18 it will change your cast iron life.

The idea is that after you cook, you scrub all the stuff that gets stuck to the bottom with the chainmail and some water, then wipe it off with a paper towel. You'll never have to use soap again.

Is this that much different from a brillo pad (aka metal sponge)? That's what I use on my steel and iron cookware. They're like 2 EUR for a 4-pack; each sponge lasts for a very long time.

Yep! Very different. Chainmail is stainless steel, so it doesn't rust. Its also much more coarse than steel wool.

Brillo pads have soap, which you don't want because it takes the grease (read: seasoning) off the pan. They also rust quickly when you leave them out, which can discolor things.

I was (am) new to CI, I bought the ringer because it seemed like steel wool would scratch the season off (vs 'the ringer'), but then again, I never tried steel wool, so don't know.

Well, yes. It's chain mail. Really. Brillo's are just steel wool. You could wear that and safely expect it to stop a stab wound from a knife.

Just use it. I only use saturated fats in mine (mostly lard and butter) and I use metal utensiles which helps to keep it smooth. I avoid vegetable oils because I find that they go sticky (they're also not as good for you to cook with as animal fat).

Why do metal utensils not scratch it?

It's not that metal can't scratch it; it's that NON-stick surfaces are highly vulnerable to being scratched by metal, whereas cast iron is much, much less so, and scratches can heal as long as you cook with more oil.

I think what was meant (and that I can anecdotally confirm) is that metal utensils do a much better job of stopping what I will call "gunk film overgrowth" during cooking.

Iron is a harder metal than 'steel'.

Not true.

Steel is about 5.5 - 6.3 and Iron is around 4.5 on Moh's Hardness Scale. Higher numbers are harder.

They do scratch it, that's why they keep it smooth, but the iron is not a coating and is non-toxic, so it doesn't matter about wear.

We use bacon fat or avocado oil. For cleaning, we use a Lodge plastic scraper if needed. And we never use soap. We wash our cast iron with about 2TBSP of kosher salt. Just dry on the pan, maybe a few drops of water, rub with a paper towel. Removes all the food debris while protecting the seasoning. Rinse the salt out with some water then dry or deglaze immediately.

> And we never use soap.

In theory, soap shouldn't be a problem. The non-stick coating is polymerized oil bonded to the metal. It's not soluble by soap.

But there are conflicting opinions.

I went back to visit my mother once and discovered that for convenience she had started regularly running her cast iron skillets in the dishwasher.

It certainly damaged the seasoning IMO, but not as much as you might expect.

Not that I would ever do that.

The dishwasher might be more damaging because it uses detergent rather than soap and the water is typically very hot.

I doubt that. I do more or less as you do but, after that process, if I take a clean towel and rub it against the "clean" surface, it invariably comes back with a distinct brown color. That brown color doesn't look like "clean" to me, it's more like burnt oil... I'd expect my towel to be 100% clean if that "seasoning" was working as advertised...

You can think of the brown color as a feature, not a bug.

Yes, it is effectively burnt oil and you probably shouldn't eat too much of it, but it will give steaks for instance a great crust and I think it adds a bit of flavor as well.

When you want something even more practical and nicer, step up to a Matfer or De Buyer carbon steel pan.

America's Test Kitchen had a nice roundup review of these the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suTmUX4Vbk They also have some tips for seasoning them.

Cast Iron + Lots of Butter = Teflon

I have a 7 year old Tefal pan, I mostly used it in a dorm. I often lent it to my dormmates and even they couldn't destroy the coating.

Don't let soap and teflon touch. That's one of my rules. Wash with hot water and not too hard scrubbing. This and the heat from cooking take care of hygiene. My cheap ass Ikea teflon pan has lasted years in good condition.

Also no metal utensils and don't heat it up like crazy especially without anything on it. Easy rules.

They can't ... I have managed to burn off the seasoning on regular infrared electric stovetop.