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Discussion (54 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
- For each piece of cookware, we purchased and tested three separate units
- Before taking the “new” measurement, each unit was washed three times with dish soap and rinsed with isopropyl alcohol
- Oil blanks and uncoated cookware were included as controls
- We did not chemically identify the particles that were released
- This investigation measured particle release, not toxicity or health risk
> For consumers who wish to minimize potential exposure to PTFE coating particles, the simplest approach may be to treat nonstick cookware as a specialized tool rather than a default choice. Instead, reach for uncoated cookware, such as stainless steel, cast iron, carbon steel, or glass, whenever practical.
If we follow that advice: For which type of food/dishes does it make sense to use nonstick cookware?
I made the switch to stainless steel and cast iron pretty much on a whim after I first read about Robert Bilott's lawsuits against DuPont, at which point I discovered it made almost no difference to my quality of life at all to avoid nonstick. To such an extent that I have never been even slightly tempted to switch back, despite honestly not feeling a particularly strong motivation to avoid nonstick in the first place. I've just always figured cooking with steel is an entirely painless way to reduce my potential exposure to dangerous chemicals, so even if it ends up being pointless, I haven't lost anything of value anyway.
On the otherhand, cooking eggs in nonstick might be easier/require less fat than working with stainless steel.
Nonstick also generally has a lower rated max temp, so avoid using it in the broiler...
All this is to say, it's a trade-off for convenience. With the right technique, or if you want to spend time to rebuild seasoning, you can pretty much use whatever pans you want to cook whatever you want. These types of non-stick pans are relatively new in the world of cooking.
I don't understand why anyone would want to cook eggs with less fat to begin with.
Stainless comes clean easiest right after you use it. Especially if you pour a little water on it while it's still hot. I do occasionally use an SOS on stainless.
There's nothing I'm unable to cook with my pans. I make french omelettes in stainless steel pans and they come out perfect.
This is one of the biggest reasons my wife and I switched away from non-stick too. We moved from replacing non-stick pans after a year of use to our carbon steel pans working better after 5 years of use than when we got them... or buying 80 year old cast irons from a thrift store for 5 bucks. We have more types of cookware now, but none of them have an expiration date
Heat pan on medium-low, add oil, add slightly-stirred eggs, turn heat off or minimum, mix with a silicone spatula. Perfect eggs in about a minute. The heat retention of the iron transfers at just the right rate to the eggs, the oil (olive, butter, avocado) prevents sticking.
My usual "scramble" has a bunch of ingredients (onions, garlic, sausage, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, seasoning, eggs), and there's more adhesion, but a 10--15 minute soak (whilst eating) hot water + detergent, and a quick scrub, and it's all good.
Apparently it's possible but hard to do in stainless steel:
https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_non...
I just get the pan hot, add oil, dump in the eggs, shake the pan with the fork agitating, but not touching the bottom, take off the heat or reduce to low depending on how it's going, switch to a rubber spatula, add filling, fold and plate in the traditional way.
yeah, a good stainless is more than non stick enough for anything. But something that doesn't get enough attention with these kinds of statements is the role of the cooktop.
stainless is easy when you have a cooktop that can maintain the proper temp. that just a hair over "medium" (i havent temped it but i suspect its about 350-375, right around the smoke point of peanut oil)
if your pan is too hot/too cold stuff will stick waaay more (or burn before it would release naturally)
id never been able to get stainless to perform properly on cheap gas burners. heat was too uneven and the hotspots on edges or center would make it not work. no way to get it dialed just right. switching to induction made all the difference. now i can do anything with no fear of sticking.
pan to burner size ratio matters a lot also.
- Ceramic works well enough that I'm shocked Teflon nonstick still exists. No reason to risk it.
- Use real food. Real butter, real olive for most things, real peanut oil for high temp.
- If you don't overeat or or eat junk or indulgences too often, you can eat anything you want, just not every day.
- Variety and exploration inherently limits bad habits.
- Nobody has time to scratch cook every meal. Cook batches and freeze them. If you use occasions when you have time to do this, you'll build up a variety in your freezer that you won't hate anything before you run out of it. OTOH 16 chicken burritos is at least five too many. Trust me.
- All of this is much easier if you're cooking for yourself or for like-minded people.
I've recently tossed all my coated pans (my favourite were the Anolon, but those too shed) and moved to stainless steel, save for a cast iron and carbon steel pan.
In the journey here the best I could find was a Hestan nanobond pan, which unfortunately laminated and has shown some pits after few months of use. They refunded me but titaniums isn't yet where stainless steel is.
Now I'm using a mix of Demeyere, De Buyer, and Made In.
It takes a bit of time to get used cooking in them without a ton of fat.
Look up Leidenfrost effect on youtube and you'll learn pretty quickly how to use stainless steel and do not let anything stick even fish.
I clean my cast iron pans with hot water and a brush or scraper only. No detergent (or maybe a small amount to break up oil if I cooked something really greasy). No scouring.
https://www.joghr.org/article/11950-testing-the-efficacy-of-...
https://luckyironlife.com/products/lucky-iron-fish
I do mostly cook in ghee, beef tallow and coconut oil.
If you're ok with refined/seed oils there's plenty more you can use.
Okay for a steak, not great for eggs!
Frying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpYK1DV_SU
Scrambled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtkmInrlWw
The trick I found is to take the pan off the heat after the droplets start jumping and add a bunch of butter and then add the eggs and put it back on low heat.
I've started seeing these, suspect it's relatively non-stick, should be metabolically benign, but also hear that surfaces are subject to scratching and chipping. (Our storage situation is ... less than ideal.) Prices seem somewhat spendy, but doable.
(And I see <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49071016> immediately on submitting this ;-)
If you cook properly at the right temperatures, you will be better off with stainless or cast iron because they will give better browning. So nonstick is effectively used as a crutch by most cooks to allow them to cook at a temperature which will make their food worse, or forgoe fat which I didn't even consider as an option because it's so foreign to me (the comment you linked reminded me).
Fish is stickyest food ime but it tells you when you've cooked it enough by releasing from the pan so I always use cast iron or stainless for fish.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070419
(the precursor PFOAS are nasty forever chemicals that people should go to jail over dumping them in water, but once they're inert they're inert)
Either way, it will be 'bad' forever with some people, like MSG and other things
The amount of stickiness perceived is 99% a skill / procedural issue.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFaFgg4P6QI
Not affiliated in any way.
But looks promising
Chris young has a great comparison of the physical differences between various metals used in pans. [0]. Maybe if you're on the right side of the AI bubble, you could spring for a solid silver version[1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88
[1] https://duparquet.com/products/solid-silver-cookware
Cast iron is good too but takes longer to heat the pan.
You only have to look in any professional kitchen - they don't use non-stick pans.
Strata makes them, they're priced competitively with standard carbon steel pans.
Chris Young turned me onto them in his video about a $4,200 silver frying pan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88
That's definitely not true.
Wash: a few drops of detergent and hot water immediately after cooking. Let sit while I eat. Scrub out with a brush, invert to dry.
Wipe with oil (I prefer flax, there are many other options).
Store on lower oven rack when not in use, inverted. Seasons whilst baking generally.
Once a month or two, or when the finish is looking grotty, I'll give it a good oil rub all over, and park it in the oven at 230C / 450F for 60--90 minutes, and allow to cool for 30--60 minutes after (depending on whether I need to use the oven). Like new.
Teflon is the best it'll ever be the day you get it from the shop. Cast iron only improves with age. My oldest pan is ~70 years old (a family hand-me-down), the newest has a few decades on it. All will undoubtedly outlast me.