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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

I'm generally pretty pro-chemical in moderation. I haven't fried a decent egg on cast iron yet, and I enjoy breathable waterproof fabrics.

I understand the concern, but I guess I don't understand the risk yet. My understanding from chemistry class was that PF- compounds are so useful because of how inert they are. Their indestructibility is what makes them mostly harmless - if you eat a pile of (room-temperature) Teflon, it just goes right through your body.

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Long chain like PTFE is fine. The issue is short chain fluorosurfactants (think PFOA and GenX) which contaminate the environment around the factories that make PTFE, harm the workers in those factories, and probably end up in trace amounts in the final products as well. These are very chemically stable in that they don't react well with most things, making them long lasting in the environment, but they do interact (but not react) with animal endocrine systems, which makes them so dangerous.

You need other, more dangerous, short-chain PFAS to make those inert PFAS polymers. Costs would greatly increase if manufacturers weren't allowed to release any to the environment. I think enforcing this and increasing prices is a better idea than a ban.

I suspect then the reason seafood is becoming the chief source of PFAS is that most of this is made in China and lax environmental rules means most of it is getting dumped down the Yangtze.

Getting a $20 Teflon pan instead of a $15 one but they actually dispose of the chemicals properly seems like a no-brainer here.

Teflon is not a PFAS anyway, so that's not really the issue.

It's waterproofing that's the problem - for example paper straws.

> Teflon is not a PFAS anyway, so that's not really the issue.

No but PFASsen are used (and typically discarded poorly) in the production of Teflon.

I use stainless steel and it works fine.

I hate frying eggs on cast iron. I need to wait so long for it to come up to a reasonable temperature, it always seems to overcook the whites and leaves the yolks cold. Every time I mention having trouble with cast iron, people jump out to tell me I'm holding it wrong and it's so easy, but it's really a finicky way to cook.

However, a seasoned stainless steel skillet is a lot like an aluminum teflon skillet except that it doesn't care if you heat it too hot, in my opinion.

The 15" version of this pan is magic. It is super easy to season (apply some oil / butter, get it really hot a few times, wipe it off with a rag, repeat) and is very non stick with just a light coating of oil. Of course never clean it with soap. Water only if necessary. Afterwards I always just pour some oil on and wipe it clean with a paper towel.

https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/carbon-steel-pan?sku=C...

> never clean it with soap.

This is a myth. I was struggling with getting a good non-stick-ability on my Lodge, until someone pointed out the 'patina' is really just burnt carbon and does nothing for non-stick. The non-stick seasoning comes from polymerized oils, which aren't affected by lye-free soaps. I haven't had any sticking issues since I've started washing my pan with soap after a messy meal and leaving a microscopic film of Crisco on after drying.

It was years before I understood this and got a good patina on mine. Give the pan a good clean and do a lot of gentle frying dishes in a row.

The soap myth harkens back to the day when soaps were actually pretty caustic - they were lye based formulas that you had to use gloves to wash dishes with. That stuff would eat through enamel.

I feel like ceramic enamel cookware is underrated.

Non stick, easy to clean, durable, good temperature properties.

Ceramic micro-fractures over time. So while it can stay pretty easy to clean, but the non-stick degrades drastically over time. Especially the ceramic on steel or copper - metals that want to expand under heat.

I have this enameled cast iron pot that I cook just about everything in - but it just destroys eggs.

Cast iron on the gas stove is fine (by me). Cast iron on the electric with a cast iron tops is PITA for making something fast-and-once like fried/scrambled eggs. With something which takes a long time to make (like a stack of pancakes) you manage, mostly because they are made at the max t° anyway, but quick things suffer.

If you care about your health, you wouldn’t use a cast iron. Normally seasoned with unsaturated vegetable fats which produce polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at high heat which is required for the seasoning process. These compounds are carcinogenic.

But to what level? The seasoning usually don't go into the food. Once the process is done, it should stick to the pan as a polymer, not as something you eat like overcooked food.

And from what I've seen, while charred food is carcinogenic, eating an entire course of badly charred food is like an order of magnitude less carcinogenic than smoking a single cigarette.

Teflon pans are also mostly harmless unless you overheat them by a lot (i.e. forget it on the stove, empty and on high heat), it is the large scale accumulation of manufacturing byproducts in nature that is the problem.

Pre-heating is essential for cast iron. I primarily cook with it for everything these days on an induction cooktop. Induction is pretty fast at heating the pan and has excellent temperature control.

I mean there’s a reason commercial kitchens use stainless steel (or aluminum)

Fried eggs on Teflon pans are rather soggy in my opinion…

My preferred pan for fried eggs is stainless steel. With plenty of butter the eggs crisp up and release from the pan with no stick at all. The only real trick is to not flip too soon.

> The only real trick is to not flip too soon.

Do you manage to get a runny yoke?

I legit went through 2 dozen eggs trying to get a perfect fried egg on stainless steel. I tried everything - hot pan, cold pan, oil, butter, swirling the pan, a touch of vinegar. I could not find any combination that worked - I suspect that you either have to have very particular equipment.

Try more heat. It needs to crisp at the bottom while staying runny at the top. Don't let them sit in there once done, get them out to stop the heat transfer. I only do one side.

So it only works for a specific type of egg? My wife prefers over-easy - that's basically impossible on stainless?

Over easy is easy on cast iron. I tend to put a spoon of butter, spread it a little, and crack the egg into it. The butter should sizzle but not brown too quickly. You should be able to slide the egg in the pan like on a nonstick.

I would support more heat argument.

SS easily heats but easily cools.

You can cheat with a lid - just seconds the whites would be in your preffered condition (ie with/out crust) cover the pan, sing aloud 'We all live in the yellow submarine, yellow subma' and move the pan off the stove, but don't let it rest under the lid too long! In 20-30 seconds it would catch to be the nice, yet runny one, but anything longer and it would be more thicker, though if you like subs/burgers with eggs - it's a way to it.

PS you can sing something more palatable for you, if you wish *grin*

The trick is to let the pan get to the right temperature. You don’t want it super hot, but you need it hot enough for the Leidenfrost effect. You can tell the pan is hot enough by splashing water on it. The water should not boil, but rather bead up and roll around. It takes a few minutes of heat to get the pan to this temperature. Once you reach this temp, the pan is basically nonstick as water in your food instantly vaporizes and creates a barrier between the food and your pan.

Most range levels can get to this point, even medium-low, but you need to leave the pan on the heat for some time before starting to cook.

Yes, I am familiar with this effect and can recreate it in my stainless steel pan. But I have yet to successfully retrieve a over-easy egg from it.

I suspect that equipment is a huge factor. My $20 stainless steel pan might not have the right surface characteristics.

Yes you need a thick pan. But also I would try using a lower heat.

> Do you manage to get a runny yoke?

nit: yolk

The scrambled eggs my girlfriend cooks on the $10 stainless steel, well greased pan blow any eggs I have ever made on any "nonstick" or "seasoned" surface so out of the water that I no longer consider nonstick pans to be anything more than a mild convenience. I have one nice one that I use for general cookery and only rinse out, and it has stayed super non-stick.

Stainless steel pan + butter + a stainless spatula + chainmail or steel wool. I cook can egg on stainless everyday and it's easy to clean. Teflon pans are not inert. The fumes from a hot teflon pan can kill birds.

Don't call for the meme that saturated fats are bad. Butter is safer than unsaturated fats which change when heated.

not to distract from your central point, but while the saturated fat in (unclarified) butter doesn't smoke like veg oil, the proteins in it do seem to burn up

> The fumes from a hot teflon pan can kill birds.

Thank you, I was unaware of that. Important to note that it happens only when the pan is grossly overheated (280C/580F) [1]. For reference frying an egg is done at 300F.

Still a concern, it's not that hard to imagine being distracted and leaving an empty pan on a coil set to high, it will likely reach 600F after a few minutes.

1. https://vcacanada.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluoroet...

I fry a fair amount of eggs over easy on my cast iron and get good results so it's definitely doable. I think preseasoned cast irons are fairly cheap these days although I picked mine up on Craigslist with a set.

For the most part, cleaning the cast iron is two seconds of chain mail scraping under the faucet because not much really sticks to it and there's just the small leftovers that weren't worth scooping, then I put it on the stove for a minute or two while I wipe up other things and just let the water evaporate off so it doesn't rust.

I got nicely seasoned cast iron at Target for cheap, was very surprising.

I like sticking mine in the oven and letting it preheat to dry them, plus it's genuinely pretty convenient to store them there when unused anyway.

I make eggs every morning on a stainless steel pan - I find it just as easy to clean as Teflon. Most restaurants use stainless steel.

Stainless still is only hard to clean if you suck at doing dishes. After you cook something, let them soak (really just let them sit with water and dish soap in them) for like an hour and you can almost just rinse them out. Even dishwashers with modern soaps have little problem with them once you soak them.

staub enameled cast iron are great for eggs and other things that usually stick to non-enameled cast irons or stainless

I have used ceramic nonstick pans for eggs and pancakes and the like for years. Also, trying to cook completely without butter or oil, unless you have highly specific dietary restrictions, is unnecessary.

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