I can be very chemophobic. In the vast majority of cases I refuse to eat food if it's been cooked in a non-stick pan or saucepan. There are teflon coated cooking utensils in my home but I never use them. I've read that provided they aren't scratched, it's perfectly safe but I still wont use them.
Do you use teflon coated cooking utensils at home?
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Well first of all, you should get the notion that Teflon is some "highly toxic" material or some kind of significant health risk material out if your head, as it's not.
The only part that would be toxic in Teflon is PFOA, which is a chemical used to make Teflon, but isn't actually present in the finished product (or if it is, it's so miniscule it's not remotely a problem), it can cause tumors if you ingest this chemical...but these days, most Teflon manufacturers don't use PFOA in their pans anymore, so it's a non-issue.
That said, there are things you shouldn't do with Teflon pans, but not because they're toxic, it's just to increase the lifespan of the product.
Firstly, you should never use Teflon pans over high heat. This will ruin the coating and start melting the plastic, which is bad (since no one wants their food coated in plastic, even if it is save to eat plastic).
Secondly is not to scratch them with metal utensils, as this will ruin the non-stick of the pan. If you have scratched pans, toss them since they're no longer useful (but not because they're suddenly toxic).
Thirdly, you shouldn't toss them in a dish washer, always hand wash as heat from dish washing can damage the material.
The only real concern with Teflon is what the chemicals used to make it can do to the environment if not disposed of properly by manufacturers, but using them to cook food is 0 problem at all.
I suggest taking a look at what the ACS says, not sensational journalists/Facebook moms.
The only part that would be toxic in Teflon is PFOA, which is a chemical used to make Teflon, but isn't actually present in the finished product (or if it is, it's so miniscule it's not remotely a problem), it can cause tumors if you ingest this chemical...but these days, most Teflon manufacturers don't use PFOA in their pans anymore, so it's a non-issue.
That said, there are things you shouldn't do with Teflon pans, but not because they're toxic, it's just to increase the lifespan of the product.
Firstly, you should never use Teflon pans over high heat. This will ruin the coating and start melting the plastic, which is bad (since no one wants their food coated in plastic, even if it is save to eat plastic).
Secondly is not to scratch them with metal utensils, as this will ruin the non-stick of the pan. If you have scratched pans, toss them since they're no longer useful (but not because they're suddenly toxic).
Thirdly, you shouldn't toss them in a dish washer, always hand wash as heat from dish washing can damage the material.
The only real concern with Teflon is what the chemicals used to make it can do to the environment if not disposed of properly by manufacturers, but using them to cook food is 0 problem at all.
I suggest taking a look at what the ACS says, not sensational journalists/Facebook moms.
I totally agreed with you. I fear that too. What do you use to cook then ? I am curious.
I knew it. Use oil in it to avoid the sticky. I don't liked to use the oil all the time, you know. My parents are in 70's and they always used teflon cooks and they are doing just fine. I know and I hate teflon but I look at my parents and they went to the doctor regularly for their ages and they are in clean bills of healthy. I don't know.
Have been eating stuff coming out of teflon coated pans and cookware for the last 36 years and I still don't show up symptoms of dying.
Also didn't have any symptoms of cancer yet, and though I believe probably my excess of red meat consumption during my life might lead me to colon related cancer, I am confident heart failure will kill me before that. Anyway, neither of those are teflon related.
Also didn't have any symptoms of cancer yet, and though I believe probably my excess of red meat consumption during my life might lead me to colon related cancer, I am confident heart failure will kill me before that. Anyway, neither of those are teflon related.
Cast Iron is just the Thing for cooking,you just have to be able to handle it.....
I don't. I've read you have to heat it up to well above what you possibly would in a normal kitchen setting before anything toxic gets released (and I don't remember the source of this claim, might be BS altogether).
My reason for not using it is that I think the roasting surface just doesn't get any good with those things. I also don't use a microwave, not because I think it's harmful but it's in my view a machine for making your food taste terrible, I reheat things using the oven.
My reason for not using it is that I think the roasting surface just doesn't get any good with those things. I also don't use a microwave, not because I think it's harmful but it's in my view a machine for making your food taste terrible, I reheat things using the oven.
True. But it is such a nice device for heating milk......
Actually, I wonder if I use my microwave for anything else.
PS: it may also be quite lazy to brew hot coffee, add cold milk and heat the result in a microwave... but it works for me I guess, and I prefer doing that than using the milk recipient of my espresso machine that later needs to be cleaned.
Note to self: should get myself a dish washer.
I've never had any reason to heat milk. But there's another good use for a microwave oven, thawing frozen hot dog- and hamburger buns (I guess all bread), that actually worked really well if you surrounded them with a paper towel to catch the moisture... But I can live without that.
I could never live without a dishwasher though (it's running as I type this), if I had to chose between a dishwasher and a bed I'd be "Let's sleep on the couch then or a pile of clothes thrown on the floor". That was the first thing I bought when I moved away from home (already had a bed).
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The issue isn't that people are being "ignorant", it's that over the 60-ish years of Teflon cookware being a thing there's been a lot of misinformation and "once accurate but now outdated" info on why Teflon is unsafe in the first place, so it's not quite as easy as just "googling it" to find that, oh yeah, Teflon is fine now, as there are a lot of conflicting articles still around today.
For example, as I mentioned above, PFOA was used to make Teflon, which is a toxic chemical for humans. People who worked/lived near Teflon manufacturing plants when the chemical was still being used were found to have a higher chance of developing cancer (kidney and testicular, are the main ones I've found), as well as things like ulcerative colitis and thyroid disease. Even though the end-result product of Teflon did not contain enough PFOA (as I mentioned above, it's usually 0 or so minuscule it doesn't matter) to really harm humans if a Teflon pan was overheated, it still caused a lot of warnings and safety precautions that Teflon had the potential to be an "unsafe" product, which has survived to this day as PFOA was only mostly phased out of Teflon cooking products around 2013.
There are also legitimate "concerns" from (improperly) using Teflon, which might scare a lot of people (even if it's mostly harmless): if you massively overheat a Teflon pan and start melting the plastic, breathing in those fumes can cause "flu-like" symptoms which might scare some people. But this only happens when you heat the pan to like 300C+, at which point you probably shouldn't be cooking in general anyways (since that's like, way high for most normal pans and you're going to burn whatever you put in it).
But so long as Teflon pans are used properly and you don't go around abusing them, they're literally just as safe as any other pan. But that said, I would never recommend using any Teflon pan as your "main" cooking pan, period. It should only be used occasionally for like...eggs or pancakes or grilled cheese, stuff that doesn't require any heat over like medium or medium low and you don't want sticking to the pan. Anything else and you're just going to ruin the coating and it'll end up being useless after a few months as opposed to a few years.
With woks, on the other hand, 300°C is when things start getting interesting. Stir-frying in a wok requires insane heat (which makes the existence of Teflon-coated woks a real mystery to me).
Teflon is safe if you don't actively abuse it. Just make sure you buy the more expensive, quality shit. This is one of those times where quality really does come at a price. If you read up on the manufacturing process, you'll find cookware is coated in Teflon between one and ten (or more) times, and the more layers the better. Cheap non-stick crap will scratch and flake easily. The more layers, the more scratch-resistant and durable the coating.
If you are looking for alternatives, ceramic coatings are not bad, but some of them have a layer of non-stick compound on top of the ceramic layer so it defeats the whole point and you're back to Teflon.
I avoid it as much as I can. I have one electric pressure cooker, that is non-stick coated but works wonderfully.
I figure the utensils you cook in are basically part of your diet, as absolutely everything will somehow end up in your food. And as there are no controlled studies for human diet, it's NOT a good idea to think it's safe because that is what academia seems to think this day. They just keep changing their views on anything related to food and it's probably wiser to ignore this part of academia altogether. As an example, there were quite literally no heart attacks before vegetable oil processing and somehow everyone thinks it's okay to use it.
So yeah the best is usually cast iron/carbon steel. It's what I use the most, though it's a bit unwieldy and some thinks just don't work well with it. Next up I use stainless steel, because it's incredibly practical. Some stuff I cook in a clay(?) pan, like fish soup. Others in a soapstone one.
I figure the utensils you cook in are basically part of your diet, as absolutely everything will somehow end up in your food. And as there are no controlled studies for human diet, it's NOT a good idea to think it's safe because that is what academia seems to think this day. They just keep changing their views on anything related to food and it's probably wiser to ignore this part of academia altogether. As an example, there were quite literally no heart attacks before vegetable oil processing and somehow everyone thinks it's okay to use it.
So yeah the best is usually cast iron/carbon steel. It's what I use the most, though it's a bit unwieldy and some thinks just don't work well with it. Next up I use stainless steel, because it's incredibly practical. Some stuff I cook in a clay(?) pan, like fish soup. Others in a soapstone one.
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Oh sure, for like stir frying or searing meats that's totally fine, but you would use like...carbon steal or cast iron for that, so if you're using Teflon for that you just...probably shouldn't be cooking
I disagree with this, Teflon pans should not be seen as a durable product in general, and nearly every chef and person who are "hardcore" into cooking that I know always recommend you just buy the cheap shit, abuse it for a year or two, and then toss it. This is mainly because even the "highest end" Teflon pans have a "manufacturer recommended" 5ish years of "moderate" use before they recommend replacing it as the coating wears down over use.
Pots and pans, are all stainless steel. I know a lot of people don’t like them because food sticks to them - if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Simple trick, if you gently nudge something and it feels stuck, then it’s not ready to be moved. In general, if you’re cooking at the correct temperatures and so on, then the food will naturally “un-stick” after the appropriate time has passed for it. So basically, stop fannying about with the food and just let the damn stuff cook
Another reason I use stainless steel, over say cast iron, is that stainless steel is non-reactive. Which means, particularly when cooking tomato’s, they won’t become bitter. Honestly the amount of people who I’ve heard of using cast pots when making a ragu and complaining that it’s always bitter, or worse, they put sugar in to stop the bitterness. Without realising you shouldn’t cook acidic food in a reactive vessel. Clearly their grannies never passed on their years of experience
As for other utensils, I’m an old fashioned kind of guy, so it’s wooden spoons and so on.....
..... Yes, I enjoy cooking.
Simple trick, if you gently nudge something and it feels stuck, then it’s not ready to be moved. In general, if you’re cooking at the correct temperatures and so on, then the food will naturally “un-stick” after the appropriate time has passed for it. So basically, stop fannying about with the food and just let the damn stuff cook
Another reason I use stainless steel, over say cast iron, is that stainless steel is non-reactive. Which means, particularly when cooking tomato’s, they won’t become bitter. Honestly the amount of people who I’ve heard of using cast pots when making a ragu and complaining that it’s always bitter, or worse, they put sugar in to stop the bitterness. Without realising you shouldn’t cook acidic food in a reactive vessel. Clearly their grannies never passed on their years of experience
As for other utensils, I’m an old fashioned kind of guy, so it’s wooden spoons and so on.....
..... Yes, I enjoy cooking.
Although some of this is unavoidable, this is due to unproper seasoning of the iron utensil.
I’ll grant you, cast needs to be seasoned properly, so should stainless if you’re really serious. But you can’t stop the chemical reaction no matter what you do.
Reactive metals, such as cast iron, just don’t mix well with acidic foods. It’s unavoidable, even with properly seasoned pans.
Though, obviously (as you say) (well obvious to the more serious cooks) a well seasoned iron pan will have a much reduced reaction with acidic foods than a new, or poorly seasoned pan.
I always recommend that people who don’t season their cookware as it should be done, stick (pun intended) with a non-reactive metal such as stainless though.
Last edited by Stwert,
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