So, I got cast irons. It's trivial to keep them seasoned and thus non-stick, and they can take the beating of very high heat -- searing meats -- and any metal utensils or rough substances.
[1] See the paper linked in another comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10046612
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.
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.
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. :-)
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!
But Big Bird is okay in the kitchen? ;-)
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.
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.
Dupont and 3M love you.
And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.
The operating temperature of teflon (approx 600f) is higher than the operating temperature of the oil (approx 400f) you cook with.
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?
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...
Cast iron is great too though, don't get me wrong.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Health_concerns
These guys recommend stainless or cast Fe. http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=92
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.
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.
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-...
I just learned that recently.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forte
The pronunciation for the Italian word for strong/strength is "for-tay"
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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
* 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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It certainly damaged the seasoning IMO, but not as much as you might expect.
Not that I would ever do that.
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.
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.
IIRC (and I might not RC, I'm no food chemist) the coating is polymerized oil/fat and completely harmless.
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 :-)
Steel is about 5.5 - 6.3 and Iron is around 4.5 on Moh's Hardness Scale. Higher numbers are harder.
Also no metal utensils and don't heat it up like crazy especially without anything on it. Easy rules.