Stainless steel with some basic seasoning every once in a while (oil, high heat, it’s easy to do) has done me well for a long time.
I do keep a non stick around just for eggs though, hard to beat.
I do keep a non stick around just for eggs though, hard to beat.
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.
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?
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!
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.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
You can lower your intake rather than skipping out on life's gold like scrambled eggs.
> 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...
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/