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.
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.
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.
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).