But both works well enough.
Still very little sticks if you use them enough.
They make some nice stainless and iron gear :) no joints either so nothing to break over time.
Darto makes decent carbon steel that won’t exactly break the bank :)
(I'm a fan of teflon but I like cast iron even more.)
Think of it kind of like a barbecue surface (more accurately like a griddle), which people generally don’t soak in soapy water. I never do the “oil and then bake it” stuff, I don’t think it’s necessary.
I’m torn right now because I also just replaced my nonstick pants with a high quality $70 new nonstick pan, and then came across all these articles about PFAS. I usually only use nonstick for eggs and other delicate items but I’m paranoid now. I’m curious if anyone knows what percentage of exposure is via cookware compared to other environmental sources?
- heat it up so it's warm in the oven
- coat it generously with vegetable oil (it's what I had, but basically any oil will do)
- wipe the excess with a paper towel so it's still shiny but not runny
- put it in the oven for an hour just above the smoke point of the oil
(I'm not really a fan of cast iron, as they are too heavy for my liking and have too much thermal mass to react quickly to temperature changes)
If the coating turns white, recoat with oil and try a lower temperature or less time. Cast iron is an extremely old technology, and was common back in the days of wood stoves. It doesn’t require precision instruments to maintain it.
If you somehow ruin the seasoning, you can always scrape it with steel wool and try again. I once forgot a mini skillet in a frequentLy used propane grill for ~ 3 years, then left it outdoors with a burnt off coating for winter or two. I spent 5 minutes scrubbing rust off it in the sink, then oiled and seasoned it. We use it for sunny side up eggs these days.
By subtle, I mean similar to the difference between veggie oil and olive or canola oil. These all have a distinct taste to me, and I dislike canola enough to notice when it's been used.
The egg by itself has flavors that get dominated by the oil flavors.
To some people it matters. Simple as that.
If you want to use metal cookware, go for cast iron (heavy) or carbon steel (light). There's a lot online about how to season or maintain them -- you can safely ignore all of this advice. These are pans you can abuse. They're not as nonstick as Teflon so you still want to use some cooking oil, but that's about it. Both kinds may rust if there's humidity, but that's fine -- just wash before (instead of after) cooking and a bit of leftover rust is just a tad extra iron in your diet ;)
They are great because you can get them really hot and they have excellent heat inertia. You can put them in the oven if needed. And cleanup is simple: just hot water & a brush. No chemicals. I've often got the pan clean and back in the cupboard while my protein is resting.
But if it's not protein that your cooking on your pan, but instead perhaps its an acidic sauce, then I would recommend a stainless steel pan for that.
For pots I would go with stainless also. Or copper if you can afford it.
Also geez flax seed oil for seasoning. It gives a near glass like finish.
Cast iron really doesn't require much maintenance. You can season it and never wash it and be delicate with it like a fancy chef, or you can abuse the hell out of it and it doesn't matter because it's basically indestructible. The only thing you can't do is let it sit in water or run it through the dishwasher. I mean, you can, but it rusts… which also isn't that difficult to clean if it happens.
Cast iron and a green scotchbrite pad or a stainless steel scouring pad and you are good. You can use hot water and soap to clean it. It will deteriorate any "seasoning" but so what. Clean after use, dry and store away. Takes maybe two minutes. If you want to get it seasoned so it has some non-stick to it you can, but you don't have to.
Much faster than scrubbing.
There are a few thing that are still a pain though, like eggs and fish.
An aluminum skillet from a restaurant supply store is cheap and low-maintenance. I use this one [0] for omelets and scrambled eggs, and it's probably my favorite pan. The thickness means that the heat is incredibly even, and there's enough mass that it won't cool down much when adding food to a preheated pan.
[0] https://www.foodservicedirect.com/alegacy-eagleware-the-poin...
I think the safest option is stainless steel, and funny enough, Teflon. They are both inert and Teflon is only toxic if you cook on high heat. I keep a Teflon around solely for scrambled eggs and fish on low heat, but they are very doable in a well oiled stainless fry pan as well.
The main caveat I've seen is when making acidic foods with iron cookware (cast iron or carbon steel) it may affect the taste ever so slightly as some of the acid is reacted and takes off the top layer so you end up with a "stain" that looks like the food. Still just cosmetic only though.
According to the EPA Teflon frying pans do not leech any PFOA into food, that's not where people are exposed.
I've noticed that for some reason a ton of people think they get exposure to PFOA from cookware, and that's simply not true. PFOA exposure mainly comes from waterproofing coatings, slippery coatings (like the bottom of skis), and firefighting foam.
Paper dishes (plates, straws, etc) are a big source of exposure because they need to make them waterproof. Make sure to ask for plastic.
https://www.teflon.com/en/consumers/teflon-coatings-cookware...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluoroisobutene
Although acutely toxic, this substance is not a persistent "forever chemical" because there are multiple mechanisms that rapidly degrade it in the environment:
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Perfluoroisobutyle...
> Perfluoroisobutene is quite toxic with an LCt = 880 mg⋅min⋅m−3 (mice).[1] It is a Schedule 2 substance of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
I don't know about you but I try and keep my ricin away from my breakfast foods. It is however reassuring that it'll be degraded in the environment.
To cause Teflon to degrade you have to heat the pan to over 500F / 260C.
No one cooks at those temperatures, even ovens don't go so high. You basically have to forget the pan on a high flame for a long time.
And the toxic chemicals you get from overheating oil are far worse, somehow everyone forgets about those.
I’d say it’s pretty easy to get teflon to degrade at home.
Still, I like cooking on teflon.
And plenty of recipes are cooked at 450 degrees. I don't even believe there's a full-sized (i.e. not a toaster) oven that doesn't go to 500 degrees, but I'm willing to be corrected.
That said, pyrolysis of fluorinated compounds does release very toxic substances, HF among one of them. On the other hand, the tradeoff is that below those temperatures at which they start degrading, they are extremely inert.
On top of that you have to heat the Teflon over 500F / 260C, and ovens temperatures don't go so high (except in self cleaning but a non-stick oven would not have self cleaning).
I suspect something else happened to your birds - probably simple smoke from food residue, which kills birds much easier than overheated Teflon does.
I don't know whether they're being intellectually dishonest, or genuinely don't realize they're spreading useless info.
They're claim that nobody gets a pan hot enough to degrade teflon while cooking is slightly more reasonable, except plenty of recipes start with "heat an empty, dry pan until it is searing hot" and that leaves a lot of room to screw up your pan.
So if you had been using oil with your pan the birds would have still died, and earlier than they did with the Teflon.
edit: I know for a fact that these birds smelled a lot of food cooking and lived. Teflon killed them in the next room.
edit2: I should really bow out of this discussion. The fact that Teflon.com thinks that Teflon is a special worry if you have birds is enough for me. Judging by the content of their page on the subject, I'm going to assume that they decided that comparisons to burning mystery oils were spurious.
When the product itself is actually publicly fessing up to being acutely toxic in some way, it’s a pretty safe bet it is.
There’s no reason to doubt the account here of the birds dying and this being the likely cause.
How long ago was this? I'm guessing that the relevant knowledge maybe still isn't widespread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
Seems totally healthy to me!
Just get used to the imperfect surface, its not going to be perfect, it may get to be smooth and black one day, but even my nearly hundred year old skillet I've gotten through my family sometimes gets a scratch or a flake off. Its self correcting the more you use it.
If that's still too much "maintenance" try a nice enameled cast iron skillet or pot from le creuset. Don't cheap out. These are fantastic, aren't bothered by acidic foods, and still have the same nice heat holding properties of seasoned iron. Really love these. Don't use steel utensils or bang them around the edges with sticks and they last forever, or at least long enough you feel the cost was well worth it. My mother in law had hers, used, for nearly 25 years before the enamel flaked, and she didn't bother treating it nice (scrubbed, used metal utensils, etc).
It should be obvious to anyone at this point that anything that promises to be a "healthy" alternative to teflon and is not stainless steel / cast-iron / carbon steel is most probably a scam.
You can effectively make stainless steel non-stick with correct use of a neutral oil and either cooking at a slightly lower heat and/or keeping the contents moving. Have to be ok with some oil though, for most foods it shouldn't be a problem.
It's not teflon, but I haven't come across anything that sticks to the pan in a consequential manner. Scrub with stainless steel scrubber to clean, done.
For an overview of "real" ceramic pans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G21f_ny_lxs
Hopefully not in the bad ways? Is the "ceramic coating" proven to not be harmful?
So it is not accurate to say, "Ceramic itself is safe".
(I have no idea what is used in the surfaces of "ceramic" pans but it is unlikely to be any of the substances I listed above; they all have high surface energy.)
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/08/563808879/ca...
And to answer your question, ceramics sometimes have heavy metals to get bright colors (cadmium mostly). Make sure to buy from a reputable manufacturer.
Where is that material?
> However, at temperatures above 500°F (260°C), Teflon coatings on nonstick cookware start to break down, releasing toxic chemicals into the air. [...] Polymer fume fever consists of temporary, flu-like symptoms such as chills, fever, headache, and body aches. The onset occurs after 4–10 hours of exposure, and the condition usually resolves within 12–48 hours.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nonstick-cookware-safet...
What evidence do you have for this claim?
Many ovens have their top temp at 550F. And when the broiler is on, it can go well above that (although in a smaller more focused area).
I would prefer to study and perfect our manufacturing and use of Teflon if there is no alternative to it that is much safer.
We also have a Teflon milk pan but that is never used at a high tempriture so I’m less concerned about that.