PFC bans are going to change waterproof garments
cyclingnews.com
cyclingnews.com
This is basically the way most outdoors products have been marketed since the previous century so I’m not sure how much we’re actually talking about here. What I was hoping to see in that article was something more quantitative — does “heavy and doesn't breathe as well” mean something is 20% heavier or 200%, etc.?
I’ve done 30 mile runs in the pouring rain w/ my ShakeDry jacket and come out “dry” at the end. The material never wets through. The only downside for me is that it does wear “warm” so I mostly wear it in under 45F degree weather — which coincides nicely with Portland’s rainiest weather.
My jacket was around $300 and more than worth every penny.
Yeah. For cycling, I wear short-sleeved summer jerseys under the Shakedry down into the 30s Fahrenheit. It gets pretty warm and sweaty in the high 40s but beats alternatives. (I'm up in Seattle.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCdQfbLw7o
For those who don't know, FortNine is a YouTube channel from a Canadian motorcycle gear seller. Their producer has a physics background and makes excellent videos. Like xkcd, there's a relevant video for so many things even tangentially related to motorcycling.
To be honest, I don’t particularly care what performs best according to research. I’m the one wearing it while running and ShakeDry is best for me.
I would agree that optimal PTFE is a mini layer, bc it’s got such poor air perm.
However, the ‘working’ layer in futurelight and Neoshell has about 1/3 the material as PTFE and much higher void volume, making for higher flow rates. It’s worth checking out.
Not to mention the main downside of getting cancer
> As a result of a class-action lawsuit and community settlement with DuPont, three epidemiologists conducted studies on the population surrounding a chemical plant that was exposed to PFOA at levels greater than in the general population. Studies have found correlation between high PFOA exposure and six health outcomes: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Why do you think they are discontinuing it if it is so amazing in what it does?
The grandparent comment seems to imply that wearing these materials is a cancer risk but it really doesn't seem like that is the case. Am I wrong? I can't find anything that indicates it is an issue.
(I live in an old house with some asbestos-wrapped ducts, I think asbestos is bad and should not be produced anymore but I also think that the duct wrap in my house is not endangering my family.. this seems like that sort of a situation to me.)
These flourinated organics don't break down in nature, they are known as 'forever chemicals'. They just stick around and get concentrated as they climb up the food chain. Like dioxins, the best way to get rid of them is burning them at sufficiently high temperatures, which apparently not all industrial incinerators reach.
I guess if enough of this stuff is pumped into the environment eventually some fungus or something will learn how to decompose it, but there will be a lot of cancer case before we get there.
> The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC 2017) concluded that PFOA is possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), and EPA (2016e, 2016f) concluded that there was suggestive evidence of the carcinogenic potential of PFOA and PFOS in humans. Increases in testicular and kidney cancer have been observed in highly exposed humans.
Less research on PFOS that aren't PFOA though, so there's room for dismissing the available evidence if you're so inclined.
[1] https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=1... [2] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp200.pdf
To be clear I'm not diminishing the experience of the people who live around the plant where it was produced if that's what you're referring to, where clearly it had a terrible effect, but my understanding of that was DuPont dumped thousands of tonnes of toxic waste in the ground near the plant that went into the groundwater, which is very different from wearing the product.
Overall though for cold (32-45F) and rainy weather like we get a lot in the PNW, it’s an amazing fabric.
Only thing I can think of would be very rainy and very windy weather but those are pretty rare in my area.
Durability is a big factor now though since I’m primarily bike commuting where it’s about daily use & weight is less important.
Nothing's more annoying than an expensive rain jacket or pants soaking through after a couple years of sporadic use. The crotch and knees of rain pants always wear out from the inside. Sunlight probably damages materials from the outside.
More and more I've learned to live without that gear, or to use it sparingly, by timing my trips and wearing fast-drying clothing. But sometimes it's just necessary.
Also, honesty compels me to note that if I wanted to shave weight off of my riding load out it’s a lot cheaper to start at the waistline.
This is a total tangent but I recently added an electric mid-drive motor to my mountain bike and with the motor and the battery I was already adding a lot of weight, and now I have a rear rack and panniers and I use it to toot around the city and get groceries and stuff. Its just funny I am going the opposite direction, making my bike heavier while also making it less likely I will lose weight. Sure is fun though with 1500 watts at my disposal!
It's been transformative since it basically removes most excuses for shopping, recreation, etc. — we put more miles on the e-bikes now than our car — and we often laugh at the way your mindset changes. I currently have a heavy duty chain lock which weighs more than my lightest road-bike weighed unloaded, have been known to dig into the panniers and find multiple changes of clothes and toys for the boy, etc. What's really nice is durability: they make incredibly tough tires these days as long as you don't mind them weighing twice as much.
I must say that the times I've been on a real road bike have definitely left me missing that feeling — it's basically the bike version of the jokes about someone selling their convertible and buying a minivan when they have kids — but what I really want is to rent a nice road bike on vacation since the safe & fun routes where I live really don't need any extra performance (I don't want to be the spandex bro slaloming around kids at 30+ MPH on the shared trails).
I love any form of transport that isn’t a car! Love that the e-Moto or e-Moped or HighPower_eMTB segment is taking off, I’m just anticipating that we’re going to eventually see them become their own segment with different rules, regs, and facilities from bicycles.
I’m pretty much riding it in on the streets with the flow of traffic, where less power would have cars whizzing past me and would feel unsafe. If I do take it on a bike path, I slow down and don’t use the full power. It is easy to reduce the maximum power on the control interface and move at a relaxed pace. I’ve been cycling for 20 years, and I have no interest in behaving in a way which would be upsetting to other people. I know too that inappropriate behavior reflects poorly on the ebike community and could get them banned, so again I am thoughtful with my riding.
I read that most waterproof fabrics do a good job of keeping water out. It's what happens when you sweat that makes the difference.
If there's water on the outer layer .. the sweat staying inside (soaking you from within). This is where this fabric excels .. removing the external water layer; allowing sweat to exit.
Shakedry actually delivers on this promise.
FWIW I do endurance cycling in the Seattle area, a.k.a. "The Pacific NorthWET". We tend to stress the hell out of waterproof clothing.
I have questioned the averseness northerners have towards getting wet. Living in Maryland now, so many I've interacted with will just not go outside all day if there is rain. They've been raised by parents who've trained them to wait for the rain to stop, to postpone yardwork, to waste time and space fiddling with umbrellas.
Is it just a comfort thing, or is there a real advantage to waterproof/breathable clothing?
Same with golf, most golfers in UK and Ireland will have extensive rain gear, umbrellas etc to play golf otherwise they’d be limited to like 4 weeks a year.
When I lived there I had that gear too but when i lived in Texas I just didn’t play when it rained as I knew a sunny day was around the corner, year round.
Florida rains everyday in the Orlando area but only for an hour and most of th time it’s dry and sunny.
I also don’t care about rain when going shopping, or walking through the park, or for tourism. But I’ll be extra careful if I’m trekking or biking, as there’s just no option to quickly move to a resting place if I get too wet or too cold. It’s not like I’ll hop into a Starbuck in the middle of the mountain trail.
Have you ever been out in the rain at 0°C? Or even 10°? Do you even know what it is to be cold and wet?
Visit a northern urban downtown. You will see plenty of people who pay little attention to the rain - not even rain jackets or umbrellas. They just go about their day.
I'd rather be in -20C temps than wet in rain at just-above freezing temps.
Florida rain is not comparable.
Me neither, but I live in Fiji. I suspect I'd absolutely hate the freezing rain of the Pacific Northwest.
So, "the south" refers to someplace like the Falklands? :-D
There are also people who don't like to be outdoors under those conditions, or who think that it's brave of me to ride my bike to work at -20 F, but I remind them that people work outdoors all day in places like Alaska, and survive.
Naturally, thunderstorms get a bit more attention. Those can produce hail and tornadoes, or blow down trees, with little provocation.
That's the real issue in Maryland and similar latitudes. We often alternate between sub-freezing and above-freezing temperatures. Snow falls, melts, and then accumulates in large puddles. Bonus: on a particularly cold night, the puddle freezes on top, and then you fall through.
I'm not trying to win some kind of misery Olympics. But mid-temperatures can be tricky to handle in ways that aren't obvious.
Shakedy is however a gamechanger for anyone doing ultra distance and self supported racing. The ability to bike through a rainy night without worrying about Your upper body being wet is nothing short of amazing. And I say that as a proud owner of a not-too-old Goretex Pro mountain jacket and some older membrane jackets before that.
Not sure it’s revolutionary.
You reduce weight and bulk by eliminating the outer fabric but at the expense of abrasion resistance. Why it works for road cycling but not much else.
My guess is that road cyclists have a tendency to buy new gear on a shockingly frequent basis, so if your jacket only lasts a year it's not really a problem.
Sounds reminiscent of asbestos.
Edit: TIL it's not banned for bicycle/motorcycle
I'd call attention to the "Upper Midwest": Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. These are all states with severe winters and frequent snowfall, and all ban the use of studded snow tires.
> As it turns out, that press release was a big deal. Expanded polyethylene is the future of the Gore product line.
That sounds reasonable, and by the way, today I learned we were so casually wearing Teflon clothing all the time just to be comfortable in rainy days. That's atomic.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/stainless-steel-or-cast-iro...
More generally, ingesting anything your body can’t break down doesn’t end well. It typically builds up and causes cancer. E.g. asbestos, silica lung, stomach cancer from chewing tobacco, etc.
Why is there even a market for potentially harmful cookware? Was it driven by marketing or am I mistaken, and my pans aren’t any good?
Where teflon nonstick is as foolproof as you can get, as long as the coating hasn't worn out things basically won't stick. It also makes cleanup very easy even for things where you don't specifically need nonstick, which is very practical for how a lot of people cook, especially people who don't particularly enjoy cooking. Can't really put carbon steel in the dishwasher either, which again people who enjoy cooking and maintain nice gear look down on, but is just a practical consideration that a lot of people weigh heavily so you can't ignore.
If you're talking about cast iron that's a different thing. A lot of overlap with teflon nonstick but some things aren't comfortable or practical in it so it's not a complete replacement.
I'm not specifically an expert on cookware or anything but I have like 20 years of professional cooking experience so not totally ignorant either.
Eggs. There's a reason almost all professional chefs, despite knowing more than anyone about how to season metal-based pans, use nonstick pans for eggs. (And sometimes fish.)
I can believe nonstick is X amount faster for Y different dishes. I am still easily able to cook crepes, omelettes and fried eggs perfectly with my well seasoned cast iron pans.
I'd note that nonstick pans are usually coated aluminum and so a fair amount lighter than cast iron pans. If I needed to produce a certain number of eggs per hour, that would be a big thing for me. But should society decide based on this?
btw I’d recommend cast iron over non-stick for frying pans. Liberally used oils on heat treated pans work the same as nonstick coatings but require much less care. PTFE surfaces are more suitable for stew pans and rice cookers than pans.
But this is true of most plastic fabrics, and plastic fabric is to blame for much of the microplastics in our lifestyles. Just throwing a nylon top into the dryer and you'll see all the lovely little plastic fabric particles making their way into your laundry.
The modern materials can be effective while being very light weight and take up little space. But I think these are much more niche concerns than most people like to acknowledge.
I think the real reason the modern materials are more popular than wool+ is that they are more profitable when marketed, and hence are heavily marketed.
But generally speaking I do think we're going a bit crazy with the exotic materials in travel/active gear. It's probably just not necessary for a lot of people's use cases.
It is a bit on the heavy side, though. Not really good for sports/cycling/etc, I wouldn't imagine. Also gets a bit ratty/threadbare wherever it gets repeatedly creased and un-creased.
But it really does work, and is long-lasting. I had previously been buying a new raincoat every few years due to some tiny crack in the waterproof layer that can't be easily fixed.
There's probably no perfect solution here but this definitely isn't a direct replacement, though sure it's practical for a lot of applications.
Here in Denmark, "Fjällräven" is a household name to the point that it can be used to refer to their small backpack model.
Perhaps soy wax could be used for this...
At least if we use beeswax we can approach it sustainably, filling the world with microplastics doesn't seem like a sustainable thing to be doing.
Not everyone has the option of “just don’t stop moving”.
You get the warmth from something else underneath use the very thin Shakedry shell to keep the rain and wind out. Except that with a breathable fabric you won't get (as) sweaty[1].
If you pair it with arm and leg warmers you can cover a really big temperature range, like you might encounter on a multi-day cycling tour without taking up much space or weight.
Despite the marketing you can still get a bit sweaty with Shakedry if it's hot weather.
The perfluro- line of chemicals are quite amazing.. if it werent for them being completely obnoxious and stay in the body like lead.
Edit: Ah adding chlorine destroys the ozon layer, what's why.
My undergraduate research project at involved identifying poly-tert-butyl-methacrylate as a polymer with similar hydrophobicity (as measured by the wetting angle) to the fluorocarbons, but I don't think anything ever really came of it. It may be unfavorable for other reasons; I don't remember.
As for the PFC-free DWR membranes that apparel makers have been using, I don’t know enough about them but I don’t believe them to be toxic per se.
When it comes to Gore Fabrics, it has actually telegraphed its next move, at least to an extent. Back in September, a press release went out but never got much traction. I remember it coming through my inbox at the time and the title "Introducing New Gore-Tex Products with Innovative Expanded Polyethylene (ePE) Membrane for AW22" didn't exactly catch my eye. I sent an email out to Gorewear and asked about it, but there was nothing to test and it fell off my radar.
As it turns out, that press release was a big deal. Expanded polyethylene is the future of the Gore product line. Like existing products, it's available as a three-layer fabric with a membrane-embedded between an inner and outer face fabric. It still carries the "Guaranteed To Keep You Dry" promise and it's still a microporous breathable design. What's different is that it is free of PFC [ed. Per-fluorinated compounds] and half the weight for footwear and clothing. It's currently unavailable in any cycling product, so for now, it’s a waiting game to see how it performs.
ePE refers to a replacement of the ePTFE membrane (which, in a 3 layer piece, is sandwiched between the liner and outer shell). That’s not what I’m referring to.
What I’m referring to is the DWR coating on the outer shell (that keeps the membrane from “wetting out”). Traditionally it was PFCs but there are non-PFC options now
The ePE membrane sounds cool though, if it works
perfluorocarbons themselves are among the least dangerous materials in the world, but the materials used to make them are very nasty indeed
additionally such levels of resistance to biodegradation are rarely found in combination with either of the previous two qualities
no other known organic compounds, out of the currently 182 million assigned cas numbers, are as thermally stable
we are not talking about the kind of research and development that a company can carry out over a commercially viable timescale; we're talking about fundamental breakthroughs in material engineering
perfluorocarbons were discovered almost a century ago, and nothing equaling or exceeding their properties in these ways has been discovered since
moreover, there are fundamental reasons to suspect that nothing ever will be; fluorine is the most electronegative element that exists or ever will exist, if we restrict ourselves to ordinary atomic matter, and there aren't any plausible room-temperature substitutes for carbon chains in this role either
so it wouldn't be surprising if the company tries to palm off inferior polyethylene substitutes as 'gore-tex' in preference to just declaring defeat, but it's not plausible that they're going to discover an equivalent or better non-perfluorocarbon alternative within the next decade or two
this is science, not magic
some things are just impossible
Then again, I don't do activities where failure of my clothes could kill me, so I'm not sure how the market would respond.
i hadn't thought of it as a useful adjunct to wrapping myself in essentially a garbage bag to stay dry in the rain
And yea, when people put sno-seal or whatever else on their winter boots they typically call it “waterproofing” even if it’s not technically the same meaning of that word as what you would say about a rain jacket
People are ripping on your for the technical difference between 99% waterproof and 100% waterproof. It really doesn't matter in practice since your body is going to sweat _and_ some of that will never, possibly leave the garment you're wearing.
Nikwax is amazing for crossing the threshold of "I'm freezing cold because I keep getting new water on my skin" and "I'm slightly damp, but warm".
It seems very likely that the same structures that give modern high tech materials their unique abilities are the same ones that make them so environmentally unfriendly.
Nature is full of stuff like spider silk, chitin, bone, phosphorescent materials, sponges,etc.
We are producing something like 50 billion chickens for slaughter every year. I don't think that estimate includes laying hens or culled males, either. The scale of chicken production is bonkers relative to natural bird populations.
The most abundant wild bird species is on the order of 1.5 billion. They are sparrow-sized and that's not their annual number.
Framed animals dwarf wild mammals and wild birds by mass:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/08/total-biomass-weight-...
Although industrial farming could be considered an environmental problem, regardless of the chickens.
Or in Norway it turned out throwing into fjords pieces of stones that are a by-product of quarry is very problematic. It releases into water copper and other metals within years poisoning plants and fish. Through natural weathering it takes thousands of years to release the same amount.
That's exactly 1 km^3 of water. The Earth has 1,386,000,000 km^3 of surface water.
I don't think increasing the amount of water by ~0.00000007% would be noticeable.
But stick to the charitable interpretation, where the water is distributed evenly in the environment, shall we?
"This equates to each household in NYC wasting an average of 8.4 pounds of food per week." [1]
Each household could feed a flock of 7 chickens with that household waste.
[0] https://www.rts.com/blog/nyc-waste-statistics-what-you-need-...
I find it hard to believe that the meat industry throws their bones away instead of selling them back to the fertilizer manufacturers that supply their feed vendors. Only chicken bones thrown in the landfill by consumers are lost and these are hardly a problem compared to the volume of other crap we discard.
In my part of the world we incinerate most of our waste and turn some of the waste heat into electricity. I wonder what happens to the organic matter in that scenario. Most of it probably ends up as toxic ash which is pretty useless?
The correct approach would be to get more granular and specify that we only want to elininate chemicals, whether natural or synthetic, that do not break down or are toxic.
If you find a natural source of PFAS ("forever chemicals") then it isn't any better.
Everything "effects the environment" in some way, after all.
If we want there to be humans in the far, far future, more of us need to start going childfree NOW, and encouraging others to do so, AND working on sustainable ways to have a decent standard of living without eviscerating the Earth.
This certainly seems plausible, but on what basis do you find it likely?
Gore continuation: biodegradable:degradeable ::(->) unbiodegradable:undegradeable
I have worn plenty of boots with Gore-Tex reinforced regions and they most definitely break down and become frail and brittle given enough kilometers of trekking.
PVC and PVDC have lower oxygen permeability so keep food better, but both environmental and food safety concerns in food contact applications.
“Why Isn’t Cling Wrap As Good As It Used To Be?”
Threw all non-stick pans away and learnt how to cook with just cast iron or inox pans.
Your stainless steel, high carbon steel, and cast iron pans require using a small amount of oil/butter to have nonstick cooking properties.
If I had to have a single pan, I’d probably go high carbon steel.
Canola oil looks like a superfood when you swap butter for it in the literature.
We knew that in the early 2000s, too. And in the early 1990s, which is more when when the war on fats was actually happening; by the early ’00s, the diet trend had focused on low-carb diets, reversing the war on fats.
Perhaps it's only a reminder how much the zeitgeist may be divorced from science, or how little impact the latter actually has on the former unless it's convenient. Though that's for another discussion.
Non-stick was popular well before the early 2000s, its popularity is not due to any “war on natural fats” that occurred at that time. (And the early ’00s is late for that, anyway.)
Non-stick is (and has been for a long time) most popular for particular forms of cooking that use natural fats, whereas particular steel designs (sometimes referred to as “waterless” because of their properties in other applications) were specifically promoted (including in the early 2000s, though they were around before and remain on the market now) as eliminating the need to use fats as one would with conventional and non-stick cookware.
Saturated fats were and remain to be generally thought unhealthy (if we say things like 'all' or 'always', we're almost certainly spreading misinformation; the world doesn't work that way). Other fats (polyunsaturates and monounsaturates) are believed to be healthy or neutral. There is ongoing uncertainty and debate; the degrees and nuances change; we don't get sure, hyperbolic answers.
https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/well/fda-healthy-food.htm...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/well/good-fats-bad-fats.h...
I'm not a grammar and spelling critic, but I'm going to be a style critic here (sorry to the parent; lots of people write this way): Hyperbole commonly leads to misinformation. 'War', 'all fat', 'nutritionists declared', 'bad' etc. divert us to an emotional, adversarial contest with a strawperson enemy, rather than into the pursuit of truth, whose object is always nuanced and whose pursuit is difficult enough as it is.
No, it's pushing hyperbole. It tells the world your emotional position - you think it was a war. Let's try something more factual, that reveals the underlying issues - if we know the facts.
Low fat and fat free is still a big selling point. Look at the NYT article on the FDA's plans, for example.
The first paragraph of the introduction, in case you don't have access:
> Since medical research first established a potential link between dietary fat intake, obesity, and cardiovascular disease [1], multiple components of the public health continuum have waged war on dietary fat. That war has generally been successful, not necessarily at preventing obesity or heart disease but at convincing Americans that dietary fat is bad for us.
Don't you see the impact of the Internet and its dialog on our society? Let's do something better.
It doesn't read as if they're describing their own position, emotional or not. It's a characterization of the public messaging surrounding dietary fat.
Low fat and fat free is still a big selling point
Yes, that's mainly because of aforementioned public messaging.
> It's a characterization of the public messaging surrounding dietary fat.
Hyperbole is characterization, reflecting the author's emotional state.
Scotch pancakes is still the one thing I can't cook without non-stick.
If anybody has any tips that doesn't include half a kilo of lard, then I am very interested.
A carbon steel wok is my favourite cooking implement of all.
Non-stick is not for people who know how to cook.
Because they are incredibly useful when it comes to certain kinds of food, especially eggs and fish.
I find all the "self-congratulatory" posts on the topic of non-stick pans, and demonization of people that use them, of the "thou doth protest too much" quality. Tons of renowned chefs, like Jacques Pepin, have spoken of the benefits of non-stick. There are ways to get closer to the quality of non-stick with other techniques (e.g. a meticulously cared for and seasoned cast iron pan), but it takes a lot more work and is still finicky.
I totally get it if you don't want to use a non-stick pan because of health or environmental concerns (I find there isn't much to be concerned about if you're not using too high heat on the pan), but this pretending that non-stick pans aren't super useful is silly. I'd challenge anyone to make a perfectly light and golden French omelette with, say, just butter on a non-nonstick pan (it can obviously be done, it's just way harder).
Cooking eggs on a stainless pain isn't particularly difficult, you just need to change your technique and use quite a bit more preheating along with more oil or butter than you traditionally would for a non-stick pan. So, it's useful in that sense, but it's not as if we wanted for pan fried eggs before non-stick existed.
Basically, yes, it's certainly possible to get non-stick properties with a well-seasoned, very well-maintained pan. But even someone like Pepin, who has more than enough knowledge and experience to keep a pan in good working order, went the route of "that's too finicky, nonstick is just easier."
Which means you're trading one health benefit for another.
However, the jury is still out (rightfully, IMO) on saturated fats, and there is plenty of good science that says to be wary of them (yet, still not as open-and-shut as is often reported in the health media). I think this article gives a good, fair overview: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo.... It references this meta-analysis, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20071648/, that found that saturated fat did not lead to greater heart or cardiovascular disease, but there are some fair criticisms of their methodology, e.g. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/92/2/458/4597393
But, in any case, yes, for decades the nutrition experts in this country recommended replacing fats with carbohydrates and that was just horrible advice that wasn't supported by the science.
And my first attempt was just on a cheap pre-seasoned Lodge pan and it worked like a dream. It's not particularly finicky and didn't require meticulous labor — the seasoning is way less physically delicate than nonstick coatings.
In general I would recommend buying pre-seasoned pans — the initial seasoning is the laborious part, but with pre-seasoned pans you just skip all of that. Maintaining seasoning is pretty easy, it's basically just "use the pan" and "don't put the pan in the dishwasher." If it looks like it's getting old or messed up, just wipe a tiny bit of oil on it and cook at high heat.
Personally I also think carbon steel (or Solidteknics "wrought iron") are better than cast iron — they're lighter, heat up faster and more evenly, and they're still pretty durable. But they're a bit more expensive, and they all are similarly not-sticky.
I wanted to add, regarding cast iron, you can always sand the pan down a bit to smooth out the surface.
On of the biggest benefits to iron or steel cookwear is that you can easily remove and re-apply the non-stick coating. Lodge has the directions on their website. Just make sure you buy pans that have oven safe handles as you bake them repeatedly with a thin layer of oil to build up the seasoning.
(To be clear, I'm really interested in what the issue is. This isn't meant to be asking a question as a form of sarcasm.)
Behold my l33t level 10 cookware maintenance skillz:
We got it on sale for like $20, new, but then I accidentally left outside for a few years, which created some rust spots.
I fixed it by hitting it with a stainless steel pot scrubber and dawn for about 120 seconds, then put it in the oven at 350F with some canola oil on it for about an hour.
These days, I scrub it with a nylon brush (no soap) or wipe it out with a paper towel.
I've never been able to do a decent crepe or egg in non stick, due to uneven heating.
shrug
The exception is for eggs, we have a dedicated pan we only use for them, and although I've just read the other comments here about how easy it is to fry an egg in other pans, I find it goes much better in nonstick. And only frying eggs + using a plastic spatula seems to pretty much eliminate any wear on the coating.
Not sure why, but using a little butter instead of oil seemed to be the key.
probably neither any kind of fiction, nor any kind of movies, but least of all fictional movies, are a good source for information about scientific facts, toxicology, or risk assessment
movies lie to you on purpose to manipulate your emotions
there are lots of reliable information sources about pollution risks, like mmwr, the cochrane collaboration, msds, toxicology textbooks, wikipedia, epa assessments, and so on
there is no need to make yourself dumber by making life decisions contingent on beliefs you acquired from movies
i am not going to subject myself to hours of manipulative propaganda for which truth is not even a consideration in order to write a 'rebuttal' nobody wants to read, thus implicitly affirming all the errors that i missed or that didn't seem important enough to mention
dramatizations are works of fiction
literally everything in them is false with the occasional exception
every word, every facial expression, every event, every chemical reaction, every purchase, every article of clothing, every motivation
the exceptions where they say something objectively true are enumerable; the falsehoods are not
don't base your beliefs or life decisions on fiction
finding out what is true and making good choices are hard enough without deliberately sabotaging the process
I think it's a perfectly reasonable response to your assertion that "movies lie to you on purpose to manipulate your emotions" in order to defend the GP comment.
If that's a ridiculous question, it's only because your assertion was equally ridiculous given the context of the thread.
Side note: I wish HN would change Wikipedia links to desktop by default. It seems most people post the mobile version. It is a bit annoying, because when you are on mobile, a desktop version gets switched to mobile by wikipedia; but if you are on desktop, you end up with a mobile version which is not optimized for desktop reading.
Ironically the whole thing should be done with CSS, not with different URLs. That's such an old concept. Shows how outdated Mediawiki is. But make sure you donate to Wikipedia today! lol
All you can do now is get an extension that redirects you. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirect-mobi...
But so what? For the purposes of reading an encyclopedia article, it's perfectly readable. The mobile page is better than most desktop web pages out there.
From Our Place’s FAQ [1]:
> our Always Pan uses a sol-gel non-stick coating that is made primarily from silicon dioxide which is known in the cookware industry as "ceramic non-stick." It's tested not only to the standards of a ceramic coating (meaning no heavy metals are able to pass through the coating) but also tested to the standards of a polymeric coating (which means that absolutely nothing can pass through the coating).
They seem to be refuting that things can pass through the coating, but isn’t the concern more around the coating itself leaching into the food? And the claims around impermeability of the coating go out the window once it wears down too, right?
I’d love to believe that these pans are safe. But is it just wishful thinking until more extensive testing has been done?
There is an older technology that involves coating cast iron with actual ceramic. It is non-stick "enough", lasts generations and is safe. Example (high end) manufacturer:
But "made primarily from" gives me pause since they don't say what the other ingredients are.
I grew up in the area during the worst of the dumping. It destroyed basically all of my baby teeth and created cavities in a couple of adult teeth that no dentist has ever seen before. None of us at the time understood why it was happening. I had so many teeth basically just crumble that I had steel caps on one with a spacer where another was missing. Both my parents assumed it was something I was doing/poor care when I was at the other one's house. Turns out it was the goddamn water supply.
My stepdad actually worked at the plant long enough to retire from there too. I think he had mesothelioma from asbestos, or god knows what from the plant.
A lot of people in the area were heavily contaminated: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/legacy/healthnews/2017/05/h...
I have some items from Fjallraven which is made from a cotton/pollyester blend and I find it to be amazingly breathable and water resistant (when waxed).
The thing is, I own so much waterproof gear but I hardly do a great amount of anything in the actual rain, even if hiking or camping, I usually avoid wet weather, I suspect a log of people do?
I spend a lot of time in the snow but the was cotton works fine for snow.
It's heavier than other options, so it's not going to be popular for a lot of people in the outdoors.
It was used for immersion suits in the war!
It was a long time favourite with hunters and special forces due to it not rustling. It was also very durable.
If they didn’t degrade quickly, they wouldn’t be such a threat to the environment.
Edit: Sorry, I didn’t mean PTFE above but PFC.
Goretex shakedry came out a few years ago and changed things dramatically, it's just one layer of the unprotected raw goretex membrane. No need for coating with PFC and much, much lighter than the laminants. It's not as durable so there are some trade-offs but for people that can work with its limitations it is incredible waterproof tech. It's what we always wished rain gear was--light, breathable, waterproof.
Certainly seems like shakedry is being phased out because it contains a (banned) toxic chemical. What am I getting wrong?
Regular gore-Tex is still on the market and it’s also based on PTFE so I must assume it’s the special formulations in Shakedry that are now banned. I e whatever PFOA is.
At some point we're going to just move away from WPB rain gear and go back to waterproof but nonbreathable gear (e.g., silnylon and silpoly) and rely on mechanical ventilation (pit zips, 2 way front zips, wrist and waist cinches) for breathability.
Underneath I usually wear a wool singley and wool long sleeve shirt.
This keeps me very warm and comfortable all day.
Regarding the fit, though, their sizing more generally might also have deliberately changed. I’d expect a “large” to be bigger in some places, for example, than it was twenty or thirty years ago, for the obvious reason.
I doubt that recycled materials play a role.
Sadly i gave some away that were of the good vintage when i moved to a hot climate. i wish i'd kept them. (and i'm sick of the hot climate...miss snow)
You can’t make computer chips without pfcs.
Or like ducks use preen oil, something closer to that.
For the whole letter?
> reader
Only if the reader completely unfamiliar with Roman numbering system. I didn't even thought about it until I saw your comment. Get off my lawn, son?
One could guess that they meant “synthetic chemical”, as if that was somehow meaningfully different than a “natural chemical”, but it’s not and it’s just as wrong.
The working premise in many environmental discussions is that humans carry an inherent moral taint and whatever they do creates a problem that needs to be corrected, because it came from an evil source, regardless of whether the resulting state of the world is good or bad.
But that wasn’t the point of my comment. I am calling out people being pedantic and nitpicky just to argue, instead of recognizing the very obvious intent of the great-grand parent’s comment and debating something with merits, like whether man made chemicals are inherently bad.
Alcohol or vinegar from humans intentionally fermenting things?
A metallic aluminum alloy?
Sulfuric acid (which sometimes occurs naturally)?
Turpentine?
Soda-lime glass?
I get that it generally refers to substances that are more on the very artificial side, requiring advanced knowledge of chemistry to produce, and to have a connotation of harmfulness / toxicity. But it's not at all obvious what the speaker would consider to be a "chemical" because that varies from speaker to speaker.
The last time I wore a heavy wool greatcoat in solid rain while walking, it stayed dry for a while, but got much heavier as it took up water, then started soaking through on the shoulders after about an hour. Admittedly it is antique and I'm guessing it has lost its original waterproofing (lanolin?).
Oiled fabrics like a traditional stockman's jacket can last a working day, but they weight a lot relatively, they need occasional re-waterproofing if used, and are not particularly cheap: https://drizabone.com.au/search?q=Oilskin
It certainly seems likely we’ll find some good alternatives with biology.
(I also have a couple of pairs of brandless rubber galoshes that would be unaffected. They're waterproof but I actually wear/wore (when I was cycle-commuting) them year-round - more to protect leather soles from the pedals than uppers from the rain.)
PDMS rubber, polypropylene, polyethylene, and PTFE all have very high water contact angles (a measure of the strength of interaction of water and the surface) and low water uptake [1]. I work with a stretched polypropylene film (Celgard — a material that is often used as a support/spacer material in Li-ion batteries) and it’s extremely hydrophobic. I used a piece of this film to build a bubble trap ([2]), for example (bubble traps typically use PTFE membranes…). It is not optimized for water resistance, so it does wet eventually, but it’s pretty good for “not trying”. Surfaces coated with PDMS (or glass coated with short PDMS chains — i.e., silanized glass [3]) are extremely hydrophobic.
The only time I personally use PTFE (or PFA, MFA, FEP, or ETFE) is when I need materials to be resistant (including both resistance to chemical degradation as well as swelling) to strong organic solvents (like NMP, THF, etc.) or strong acids and bases (like piranha, aqua regia, or a nitrating solution). These conditions are unlikely to be encountered while cycling.
This all said, I’m not an expert on the design of Gor-Tex type materials. However, I assume it is highly related to the pore structure of the materials to prevent liquid water intrusion (the same as for membranes designed for membrane distillation). Given the similar hydrophobicity of these materials, it seems like it should be possible to produce similar results with PP, PE, etc. And this is all before introducing the ability of nanomaterials and nanopatterning (perhaps transferred with imprint lithography [4]) to produce metastable ultrahydrophobicity [5] on the surface of materials.
[0] https://www.sungodtech.com/how-much-do-you-know-about-ptfe-w..., https://outdoorguru.com/how-to-en/how-does-waterproof-and-br... [1] https://www.accudynetest.com/polytable_03.html, https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-properties/propertie... [2] https://static.wixstatic.com/media/ec0ae9_aacc723ea77d46619d... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silanization [4] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.8b03138 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting#Cassie–Baxter_model
They're good jackets in my experience--truly waterproof and breathable like goretex, and very inexpensive. They are very very fragile though and easily rip or tear open from any sharp objects, like getting poked with a branch. As I understand it's basically like tyvek house wrap material but made into a more flexible material for clothes. Goretex stuff is more durable in my experience.
Stop using DWR. Buy frogtoggs or Columbia outdry and leave this stuff behind.
Outdry is lighter stronger, doesn't wear off after three outings, and the material breathes better than a wetted out goretex jacket ever will.
Unless you're in snow, goretex is next to useless.
Can you come up with a single incentive that would make the industry invent non-toxic alternatives faster than a ban on the toxic substances would?
“In November 2008, National Air Transportation Association president Jim Coyne indicated that the environmental impact of aviation is expected to be a big issue over the next few years and will result in the phasing out of 100LL because of its lead content.[45]
By May 2012, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA Unleaded Avgas Transition rulemaking committee) had put together a plan in conjunction with industry to replace leaded avgas with an unleaded alternative within 11 years.”
I can only assume that current regulators don’t have an incentive to wait when it comes to this problem. Perhaps they think not too many job are impacted, and no remote village will go without their mail service, etc?
Personally I don’t have a problem with some middle-and-upper class cyclists having to use regular Gore-Tex for their leisure activities so my kids don’t get poisoned. They’re not coming to take away your existing jacket, just continue biking like you’re used to…
https://www.fis-ski.com/en/international-ski-federation/news...
"Introducing New Gore-Tex Products with Innovative Expanded Polyethylene (ePE) Membrane for AW22"
Anyways the other stuff is extremely harmful to the planet. There are other (less effective) waterproof materials in the meantime.
Considering they are called forever chemicals, I suspect the results will favor the ban.
Someone's running hobby is not as important as clean water. Neither is your omelette. I'm sure there are professional and medical uses for those clothes, but we can't just spew crap that never goes away into people who don't get a choice not to consume it.
Also didn't they have unleaded avgas for years? I thought the leaded gas was just to keep some really ancient engines running? Probably wouldn't have been that expensive to subsidize replacements if so.