Cooking and bird safety
teflon.com
teflon.com
I do keep a non stick around just for eggs though, hard to beat.
You can also use a drill attachment polish one stainless steel pan to a mirror chrome finish, then heat it up, add oil and add the rgg to thr cold oil. For me that guarantees teflon level performance of nonstick. However, the mirror finish has lower emissivity so its a bit weird at first when a hot pan doesnt seem to transfer heat to the food at nearly the rate that it “should”.
A lot of people will treat their woks with oil to get that type of low stick surface.
It certainly isn't as resilient as my cast iron, but it works and is super easy.
I wouldn’t normally offer unsolicited advice like this, but this is a thread about optimizing for health/safety. If you’re going to avoid teflon, you should probably avoid eggs too.
You can lower your intake rather than skipping out on life's gold like scrambled eggs.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-ch...
> Although some studies have found a link between eating eggs and heart disease, there could be other reasons for these findings.
and:
> Health experts now suggest eating as little dietary cholesterol as you can, aiming to keep intake under 300 milligrams (mg) a day. One large egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol — all of which is found in the yolk.
People really like eggs, me included. That unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that they’re bad for you and we shouldn’t eat them (and I no longer do). Two eggs is more than the recommended daily total amount of cholesterol, and a good omelette is 3. I don’t imagine most people are going to be vegan for 60 hours following to compensate.
Previously, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300 milligrams per day. The 2015 DGAC will not bring forward this recommendation because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol, consistent with the conclusions of the AHA/ACC report. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.
Page 72: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Scientific-Re...
"A note on trans fats and dietary cholesterol: The National Academies recommends that trans fat and dietary cholesterol consumption to be as low as possible without compromising the nutritional adequacy of the diet. The USDA Dietary Patterns are limited in trans fats and low in dietary cholesterol. Cholesterol and a small amount of trans fat occur naturally in some animal source foods. As of June 2018, partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the major source of artificial trans fat in the food supply, are no longer Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). Therefore, PHOs are no longer added to foods."
Source: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2020-1...
The quote appears on page 44. On the same page, before the quote, there's additional information about saturated fats:
> Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern include saturated fat. Approximately 5 percent of total calories inherent to the nutrient-dense foods in the Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern are from saturated fat from sources such as lean meat, poultry, and eggs; nuts and seeds; grains; and saturated fatty acids in oils. As such, there is little room to include additional saturated fat in a healthy dietary pattern while staying within limits for saturated fat and total calories.
Following that, on page 45, there's figure 1-11 called "Top Sources and Average Intakes of Saturated Fat: U.S. Population Ages 1 and Older". It breaks down the average saturated fat consumption by food types. It's summarized on the page 44:
> The main sources of saturated fat in the U.S. diet include sandwiches, including burgers, tacos, and burritos; desserts and sweet snacks; and rice, pasta, and other grain-based mixed dishes.
The Figure 1-11 shows that eggs amount to 3% of the average saturate fat intake; same as starchy vegetables (3%) and slightly less than non-starchy vegetables (4%). The main sources, as mentioned before, are sandwiches (19%) and desserts and snacks (11%).
Right after that there are practical recommendations about limiting saturated fats intake:
> Strategies to lower saturated fat intake include reducing intakes of dessert and sweet snacks by consuming smaller portion sizes and eating these foods less often. Additional strategies include reading food labels to choose packaged foods lower in saturated fats and choosing lower fat forms of foods and beverages (e.g., fat-free or low-fat milk instead of 2 percent or whole milk; lean rather than fatty cuts of meat). When cooking and purchasing meals, select lean meat and lower fat cheese in place of high-fat meats and regular cheese—or replace them with ingredients with oils, such as nuts, seeds, or avocado. Cook and purchase products made with oils higher in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat (e.g., canola, corn, olive, peanut, safflower, soybean, and sunflower) rather than butter, shortening, or coconut or palm oils.
Careful readers will notice eggs don't appear in the above paragraph.
They’re expensive, but given the nutrient density it’s worth it for me.
When people use that term, it generally refers to low-density lipoproteins, which are an endogenous transportation mechanism for cholesterol in your body.
All dietary cholesterol is just cholesterol, and it essentially has no impact on serum (blood) cholesterol levels.
*Found this though: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1199523/
1) Dietary (exogenous) cholesterol has been shown to have a lesser affect to the total cholesterol levels in the blood (70-80% of all the cholesterol in your body is produced by your body endogenously by your liver and other tissues).
2) Eggs are an affordable source of various fats and proteins that are essential to metabolic health.
3) There are a group of people who assert that correcting hypercholesterolemia is best done by understanding the root cause of the overproduction of endogenous cholesterol.
4) We are beginning to understand that not all cholesterol is the same, and that high total cholesterol alone isn't a sufficient biomarker for predicting heart disease. Advanced lipoprotein fractionation tests looking for the ratio of small dense LDL to normal LDL, and HDL cholesterol is a better test; small dense LDL is bad and is a biomarker for inflammation and artery calcification, which can lead to heart disease.
[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/how-its-made-cho...
5) we’re talking about pans, not diet. I am well aware that eggs aren’t health food and it comes off as condescending.
> Most of the cholesterol we eat is not absorbed and is excreted by our gut...
> ...most of the cholesterol in our body was made by our body.
> The process of regulating cholesterol is very complex and multifaceted with multiple layers of control.
> Eating cholesterol has very little impact on the cholesterol levels in your body.
[0] https://peterattiamd.com/the-straight-dope-on-cholesterol-pa...
Butter is the only thing that allows my eggs to not stick.
Olive oil and vegetable oils in general cause more sticking.
Maybe we preheat our pans differently? Do you use very low heat but preheat for a longer time?
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-truth-about-cast-iron#toc-my...
It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect without oil - a thin coat will yield perfectly comparable results.
To heat the pan I turn the electric range to high for a bit and then down to 4 (of 10), and then I turn it off before the eggs are done, as the thick cast-iron pan and the glass and coil has enough residual energy. Same for popcorn, same for pancakes, etc.
Maybe it's the seasoning? I haven't seasoned ours in a long time but the last time I did I used flax seed oil.
When I first get a new pan it's very picky with technique, but cooking some bacon and steak on it for a few weeks, and nothing sticks anymore.
I think we just forget how low maintenance a non stick pan is for normal people who don't care about cooking. To normal folks, the idea of preheating a pan slowly, or wiping some oil on with a piece of paper and reheating the pan to dry it (after cooking!) are extra steps that take time out of your busy day. I do notice I use fewer paper towels once switching back to nonstick. I probably also use less oil in my cooking too!
The oil fills the pores of the metal and polymerizes. Subsequent layers cross-link with each other to develop the non-stick coating. It doesn't really 'come off' although I'm sure small amounts will occasionally. It doesn't contribute to flavor and it's not exactly toxic. Same deal as cast iron, details here. [1]
[1] https://www.lodgecastiron.com/cleaning-and-care/cast-iron/sc...
This is in fact how they used to make linseed based paints. They'd boil the oil, setting the stage for it to polymerize, and add pigments. The oil would slowly polymerize after being applied, locking the pigment into place. These days I think they mostly use chemical accelerants instead, Which makes the curing times much more tolerable.
Cooking on stainless is not as bad as I expected in terms of sticking, it does require better care over temperature control, but that also seems to have resulted in me cooking better. Also when stuff does get a little stuck or burnt, it comes off without deteriorating the pan unlike non-stick.
I know you're going to rebut with saying that iron pans are too, and I'm sure they are, but most people don't want to put in any level of the effort needed to make iron pans as non-stick as teflon.
A lot of people care only a mild amount about cooking, and don't want to invest the time to know how to properly use a cast iron or a carbon steel (which I have and only seldom use). They'd rather get a non-stick pan which lasts a while anyway, throw whatever on there, and never worry about food sticking or cleaning it after.
If there's a little stuck-on stuff on the bottom after use (should have put a little wine in there, gotten that flavor back into the dish, oh well) then a Scotch-brite bad and 30 seconds fixes it.
> If there's a little stuck-on stuff
So it does stick?
There's way, way too much made over so-called 'non-stick' pans. Worst experience I even had with sticking? A non-stick pan.
https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/b4pxaq/yay_kenji_...
> You MUST use flaxseed oil to season your pan.
Then
> You MUST NOT use flaxseed oil to season your pan.
Just season the fucking pan with some cooking oil and be done with it.
I swear, the internet has made some of the simplest things into this relentless pursuit of perfection.
In general I agree with your sentiment though. Find something that works for you and go with it.
Hell, I scrub the hell out of it sometimes. Use oil the next time - no problem.
For people seriously care about cooking (perhaps you're one of them), this is non sticking.
For a lot of people this is the definition of sticking.
As a replacement, there are coconut fiber based pads that work better actually.
Last forever, too.
I have parrots so I theoretically have a strict "no Teflon in my house" rule but with a Japanese wife I've had to grudgingly tolerate a Teflon-coated rice cooker.
"should have put a little wine in there" - well, I should not have to! I expect that after I sear some meat, there will be nothing that will require scrubbing the pan with a Scotch-brite pad and that I don't even have to check if there's any little stuck-on stuff.
I don't care if fixing this is easy, because I can live in a world where it isn't something that needs fixing in the first place - and apparently moving to a cast-iron skillet would make me have to fix them. Also, why would I want to spend time (and, more importantly, attention) on 'seasoning the pan'? I expect the tool to be functional with minimal maintenance, a good tool is one that reduces the amount of care and attention that needs to be done, and a tool that requires extra attention itself isn't worth it if there are alternatives that don't require that. It makes sense to spend an hour preparing or maintaining an expensive tool, but it doesn't make sense to do that for something like pan, where you can get a new functional one for less than an hour of pay.
I never seasoned my pan. I never work to clean it, not any more than washing that non-stick on.
We've been sold a bill of goods, by the non-stick pan people, that there's some problem that needs solving. There isn't. The worst sticking problem I ever had, was with a non-stick pan. Threw it away, went back to iron.
It asks for a bit of technique, but it’s just technique needed to make good food anyway (preheating pan, using fat, deglazing, managing heat)
I wouldn’t recommend cast iron either, it’s just too much faff. Stainless steel by default, Teflon for the few things that it’s useful for!
Is all searing associsted with carcinogens regardless of how it is done — eg toaster, grill in open flame, in a pan? I tend to really like the seared pieces on bread, steaks, and especially slices of Schwarma / Gyro / Doner
beyond that, if you are using stainless, go ahead and clean it with steel wool. a bundle of small chain is a good equivalent for cast iron.
Teflon is hot garbage. I wont even use it for eggs.
With lead, a lot of people thought so, but still they put it in our gasoline, in solder for our water pipes, etc. and a lot of people got some pretty bad neuro-developmental disorders as a result. I certainly hope we are not repeating the same story with teflon, though I, personally am not willing to risk my and my families bodies to it.
Do we? PFOA is "possibly carcinogenic" but they've stopped using it when making teflon.
We also know that using more oil in cooking is bad, and who knows what results from the incomplete polymerization of oil and carbonized food. I'm at least as suspicious of it as I am of Teflon.
I wish it was possible to buy decent home cooked food for a reasonable fee :(
We can outsource pretty much everything else that's a chore. I drop my washing in a bag to be ready for a tenner tomorrow. Groceries can be delivered for cheap.
But delivered or takeaway food is generally very expensive and not very healthy. It's still viewed as a luxury.
There's just no benefit to cooking for a single person and I just hate doing it so much. So I get implements that make cleanup as simple as possible. Like the non-stick pans.
It's very different for someone who would view coming as a hobby and takes pride in it.
It might be nice to live in a society where not cooking is possible. Probably less healthy though, you have different incentives than people making your food. (Taste [salt levels] and “adictiveness” vs healthy and nutritious).
Cooking is a skill, it takes practices and you have to develop some dexterity. But I usually enjoy it now.
I have to admit I never really cooked extensively for 1 person. I imagine I’d use the freezer a lot for lasagnas and sauces etc.
Check out “Nat’s what I reckon”.
It's a statement kind of like insisting that everyone should know how to farm or do animal husbandry, when those were specialist jobs (sometimes serfs' jobs...) since time immemorial. Humans built cities millennia ago and lived in semi-specialized social groups before that.
The outmoded self-sufficiency obsession is very culturally American, due to its relatively recent status as a more or less agrarian colony.
I have an impaired sense of smell, as do 20% of the adult population. Most foods are utterly bland or actively repulsive to me. Sweet tastes are mildly pleasant, but otherwise I do not enjoy eating, I just do it to avoid hunger. I maintain a BMI of 19, but only because I actively monitor my food intake to avoid becoming clinically underweight.
Cooking is a chore that I will perform in the most perfunctory way possible in order to keep myself alive, but it is also something I will avoid wherever possible. Any effort I might put into making a delicious meal is wasted on me, because I don't have the sensory apparatus to perceive deliciousness.
From my perspective, the world seems almost pathologically obsessed with food. People often struggle to understand my complete indifference to food ("surely there must be some foods you enjoy"), but I struggle to understand how vast numbers of people eat so much that they become disabled and die prematurely. I can only make sense of it through the lens of addiction, which would raise all sorts of questions about the way in which we think talk about food versus other addictive substances.
My experience is obviously atypical (although not as uncommon as you might imagine), but I can't help thinking that the rest of you would be better off if you took a slightly more functional and utilitarian approach to eating. Obviously you can't just all pretend that you don't enjoy eating, but maybe you could all spend a bit less time talking and thinking about food?
I mean that’s pretty much what supermarkets sell right? Ready meals that can be heated, which are effectively cooked the same way as at the home but just on an industrial scale. Or pasta that’s pre-made and pre-filled and you just have to heat and add some sauce that’s already pre-made.
Im in the UK where we have services like Cook that are good quality meals you can heat up.
There are made at store foods like you're talking about, but quite often they are 2-3x the cost of the ingredients.
I do agree that it's annoying cooking as a single person though. Batch cooking and freezing can help.
(Similarly, I like programming, but that doesn't mean I enjoy taking care of all the mallocs/free that a C program requires, I just use a language with a GC)
Considering the applications, I’ll pass :)
One of the first uses for wood was burning it for heat, creating toxic poisonous fumes.
I don’t have any problem using it as a material for my utensils, though.
By your analogy, we should all be eating uranium because it produces clean nuclear energy. Yes?
Here's another example. "Potassium explodes on contact with water! I think I'll pass on potassium in my diet, thanks!" That would not be a good reaction. Note the logical difference between saying "that's a bad reaction" and saying "you should eat everything that explodes." You're implying that I'm saying the latter. I'm not. I'm saying the former.
I hope you’re not living under the DuPont shitstorm umbrella as appealing as it may sound.
Check out the 3M/DuPont Missisipi teflon lawsuits as well as the story of Robert Bilott, and his nationwide class action lawsuit for anyone with detectable teflon in their blood:
https://www.taftlaw.com/news-events/news/taft-wins-class-cer...
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/06/dupont-pfas-chemicals-la...
More recently, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-08/how-cance...
None are as non-stick as the non-stick ones. Sometimes I can cook eggs in them without it sticking, but the results are inconsistent and underwhelming. Of course, when the cooking fails and it sticks, I need to re-do the non-stick layer of oil.
I also need to use way more oil when cooking than when using non-stick. I care about this because I'm trying to cut and I'm calorie counting.
And my wife is unhappy whenever I pull out the "wierd" pans, since she can't use them and they're heavy as hell for her.
So, overall, the non-stick sees the most usage.
It doesn't stick and contains no teflon or any other such material.
Sadly, it seems that some of these things still contain potentially nasty highly fluorinated compounds. Here’s a patent for such a thing:
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6d/25/ca/9ff2bbd...
Hmm, the “FAS” additive in the outermost layer has a perfluorinated C6 chain. Whoops. I wonder whether this is better or worse than PTFE. At least intact PTFE ought to be harmless. PFHxA is not so wonderful:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorohexanoic_acid
edit: some brands of “ceramic” nonstick pans are quite explicit about being PFAS-free, and CA AB1200 really ought to help here.
I had a lovely fight with my wife many years ago, because she threw away my cast irons; in her words it was “dirty” and “sticky” and she replaced them with teflon.
Years later she is a convert—from small, personal pans to dutch ovens that heat retention makes a difference—but I’m called to move them around but she’ll ensure that it gets oiled and seasoned after every use.
We also have high quality multi-ply stainless steel pots and pans but lightweight or not those are used less frequently.
If you only want non-stick without the fuss and don’t care about the health implications, it’s hard to beat teflon.
https://www.amazon.com/Ceramic-Marble-Coated-Aluminium-KW/dp...
I bought it at an Asian kitchen store 8-9 years ago because I needed a pan, and it's still unbelievably nonstick. I have overheated it multiple times, but carefully avoided using metal utensils on it. I'm not sure if it's really made of marble but it certainly is durable.
I personally use hard anodised aluminium pans for non-stick duties, and use le creuset pots for lots of stuff, and these last a long time if you take care of them. The non-stick stuff is typically eggs or reheating stuff like soup. I'd guess 10 years from the anodised stuff without much trouble, and more like 50 years for a le creuset (i've got a hand-me-down one from an aunt which was from the 70s).
I'm unhappy that I've done this exclusively with t-fal non stick pans over the years. Going to get myself a nice 3 ply stainless pan today!
Edit0: If you try it, the mushrooms sound like sneakers squeaking in a gymnasium.
Some online anecdotes <everyone sits up and pays attention> suggest that such absorbed odors are oil soluble and will not 'wash out' easily, except by way of the next batch of hot oil - a speculation borne out by my experience.
It’s funny, if you are into 3d printing a huge safety thing is not heating your hot end above 250c if you have a bowden tube - made of PTFE.
Over 250C is the breakdown point, which seems like a stove would hit pretty easily.
I was pretty glad that I run it in a spare room.
Just as a general rule birds are delicate, there’s a lot given up to allow for flight. Teflon is somewhat risky for humans too but it’s not remotely on the same scale.
I use ceramic mainly then switch to cast iron for high heat
Generally the more you use it the better it gets.
A 12" Lodge skillet costs $30 [1].
A mirror-polished 12" Lodge skillet costs an eye-watering $250 [2].
Even if this is a special case, what is it about the polishing process that adds $100 or more to the base cost? I'd be interested to hear from anyone in the know.
----------------------------------------
[1] https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/round-cast-iron-classi...
[2] https://www.summershinemetalpolishing.com/product-page/mirro...
Edit: Given the text on the site, it appears this is a single individual craftsman polishing those pans, which likely also contributes.
Get a carbon steel pan instead. Same material as wok's, and they will take a seasoning.
I like the BelleVie, because it hits the mark on cost/quality, but you have to be accepting of a slightly uneven seasoning, or strip them once a year and start over (spring cleaning project).
Wear a respirator unless you want to taste rust every time you breathe for several days.
Thrift store/"buried in the back yard" pans are still my preference.
These are similar metal composition to cast iron, where you can season them with oils, but are forged (ie pressed) into shape, rather than cast. So you get a smooth surface, which is easier for non-stick use and lighter weight.
Carbon steel are better for eggs, omelettes, etc, but cast iron are often better for steaks/meats, because they retain heat better. There are tons of videos on Youtube if you are curious.
[edit]: I did not polish it nearly as much as the mirror finished ones in the link nearby. I only did the cooking surface, and probably worked on it for 15 minutes.
I went through about a dozen different seasoning formulas from reddit. Still stick. Someone then insisted my #10 Lodge must be from the 40s when the iron had too much boron or whatever because of war shortages. Really.
Every conspiracy in modern times is a distraction effort from the only real one: seasoning doesn’t work.
I’m sure a few of them will show up here. They’re everywhere.
At first I didn't listen and cleaned the pan with hot water and dish soap; don't do that. Just take a piece of suitable paper (I'm keeping a toilet paper roll around for that kitchen to avoid wasting the kitchen paper which is overkill here IMO) and get rid of the excess fat after use; after using butter, I warm the pan a bit first. It's just swipe swipe swipe, done and the paper goes to the compost. A very satisfactory state of affairs. Of course one can also re-use the fat or oil if deemed not too over-used; in that case just get out any bits the messy cook left in from the previous meal.
When you get a new pan then the first burn-in may seem intimidating but it's not rocket science; you're even allowed to let the oil smoke a bit nd if you don't believe me search for Adam Ragusea on YouTube who did a great video specifically on burn-in (of cast iron pans but no difference with forged ones AFAICT).
Hardly anything gets stuck in my pan, ever; even the sunny-side-up eggs just lift off. Before the iron pan I had a white ceramic one; that love lasted but a few months before the ceramic had one tiny dent and, worse, some micro-scratches and, presumably, many more nano-scratches that subtracted from its ability to repel stuff; it's been hanging for months on its hook, unused because why would I. It's not quite clear to me what caused the scratches because I was quite religious with only using a wooden spatula with this pan, although in some occasions I neglected that and sometimes the only thing that worked would be a thin metal lifter (orwhachamaycallit); I am not at all careful in that regard with the iron pan and it just bears with me, thank you pan.
To the people out there with slight eating <del>disorders</del> challenges and those inexperienced in cooking slash unwilling to cook—getting the right, mostly fairly cheap tools is an essential step because it lowers the entry fee to getting shit done. Even if it's just another sunny-side-up, well if it always sticks to the pan and / or if your pan forbids you to use that very capable flat-metal lifter, then it's just that much more frustrating each and every time.
So, it's not Teflon. It's burning your pan
(I wouldn't recommended breathing that in neither. And I would definitely not recommend you put your pan in the fire without any thermal load)
Preheating an empty pan is just not something you should do if you're cooking with Teflon. You'll want to at least put some oil or something in there, or have a temperature control stove. It's a tradition that doesn't apply.
We’ve completely transitioned to stainless steel and regular cast iron for all cooking.
non-stick is suchs a weird concept considering you don't require it for nearly any dish, and non-stick pans get damaged very, very easily by utensils.
It's not clear how convenience is even part of the equation. It's not their proper use, it's the manufacturing of teflon, the disposal of used cookware and use of it when scratched. What's better than non-stick cookware? Literally anything. Teflon is a scourge.
I think all three work on induction stoves as well.
This "article" is specifically about overheating teflon-coated cookware, and nothing else. (Sure hope your shoes are not on fire!)