Non-stick cookware with no fluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons

[thollandpe]

I recently got to see Heather Henrikson from the Harvard Sustainability Initiative speak, specifically about the dangers of fluorinated and perfluorinated chemicals in building materials, flame retardants and stain-resistant coatings. Nasty stuff and the health risks are many, and the problem of groundwater contamination by PFOA and PFOS is daunting.

Choosing a Chemical Flame-Retardant Free Campus - Center for Environmental Health | Center for Environmental Health

And yet I still fry eggs in a teflon-coated pan. I'd like to stop.

What's a decent non-stick pan with a stable, ceramic coating?

Thanks in advance, TH

PS If you're going to recommend seasoned cast iron, please stop. I have one of those and it does not work for how I cook eggs.

[guido]

Quite a dilemma. For the same reason, I tried a mid-range ceramic pan with the intent of using it for eggs. It worked well for about 5 uses. Was adequate for about 5-7 more uses. After that it stuck like hell...

I went back to teflon for eggs but try to use stainless, cast iron or aluminum for nearly everything else. Good luck!

[funcrusher]

scanpan

About

[Ras72]

Why use a non-stick pan to begin with? Not trying to be snooty but after using SS for years, I don't see the need for non-stick.

[thollandpe]

Why use a non-stick pan to begin with? Not trying to be snooty but after using SS for years, I don't see the need for non-stick.

I'm not the only cook in the house. Stainless has not done well in the past.

scanpan

About

Encouraging that it's so temperature and wear resistant. But it's still Teflon on a ceramic substrate. They don't use PFOA is their process, but isn't it used to make the Teflon?

Suspicious that this might be part of the game, like when long-chain fluorochemicals (C8 = eight fluorinated carbon atoms) are banned, the manufacturers replace it with C6 = six fluorinated carbon atoms. It's not that C6 isn't toxic, it's just going to take a while to get the body of evidence that it takes to ban that too. That is not a nice game, and it's why Harvard's School of Public Health recommends ditching whole classes of chemicals, rather than the whack-a-mole game of banning C8, then C6, etc.

Do you think Scanpan is good enough?

TH

PS C6, C8 and See No Evil

[funcrusher]

I'm not the only cook in the house. Stainless has not done well in the past.



Encouraging that it's so temperature and wear resistant. But it's still Teflon on a ceramic substrate. They don't use PFOA is their process, but isn't it used to make the Teflon?

Suspicious that this might be part of the game, like when long-chain fluorochemicals (C8 = eight fluorinated carbon atoms) are banned, the manufacturers replace it with C6 = six fluorinated carbon atoms. It's not that C6 isn't toxic, it's just going to take a while to get the body of evidence that it takes to ban that too. That is not a nice game, and it's why Harvard's School of Public Health recommends ditching whole classes of chemicals, rather than the whack-a-mole game of banning C8, then C6, etc.

Do you think Scanpan is good enough?

TH

PS C6, C8 and See No Evil

my chemistry fails me, but the woman who recommended to us is super anal about such things...she doesn't even have a microwave oven in her house!

the pan itself has held up nicely (we're on our second cuz my MIL decided to turn on the wrong burner torching an empty pan)

[dgaddis]

Have you tried carbon steel pans?

[big boom]

I just picked up some Heritage The Rock Ceramic pans, haven't used them yet but they are PFE/PFOA free.

[pdxharth]

I won’t recommend cast iron...really, I won’t. But I do fry and scramble eggs in it regularly, and make omelets and frittatas, too. It just works better than my stainless All-clad pan, which I bought twelve years ago because I didn’t want to fry in PFOA or Teflon type material any more.

What I am curious about is how you make eggs that doesn’t work in cast iron?

Harth

[dgaddis]

I got one of these through the kickstarter they did a while back, and I don't know about PFOS, it is PFOA free. It also works great. Can't speak to durability as we haven't had it that long, but so far so good.

Nonstick Skillet

[Dmoeny]

I too got concerned about non-stick and ditched it about 10 years ago, maybe a bit more. We do a fair amount of eggs, and on the carbon steel front, I have one that's reserved for just eggs. Primarily french omelettes, but also just plain fried. After getting the seasoning right, it's quite nonstick. Using it for something else will screw up the non-stickiness, but it's restored after another cycle of heat / oil. it's a bit of a pain to have that one pan for one food, but worth it to us. We've a stack of vintage cast iron, that truly agreed, don't work nearly as well.

[Too Tall]

Todd-ski, during High School and just after I managed a pet store. We knew all about teflon and how it was certain death for birds.

Let's science this and here is your challenge. I know this works, it is not "as good" as teflon but I'll give it a solid 90% as good as long as you always use a hot pan.

Take any old SS non-junk pan that's fairly substantial and polish the out of it. Your goal is a mirror surface or as close as you can reasonably get. Now heat that up and slide some eggs around and tell me I'm not crazy.

When I get home from camping I'll look to see the ancient German (??) pan I have that is made just as described. I can slide eggs around in that all day long and it cleans up with steel wool.

Now can we talk about the joys of slow cooked eggs swimming in a deep bath of good olive oil?

[ericpmoss]

There are people out there who are as obsessive as we are. :)

[Too Tall]

He is obsessive in a good way and yeah he nails it.

[thollandpe]

Missus Aitch just bought a Zwilling ceramic-coated unit, but I will continue my quest. There are a lot of reviews that say the ceramic pans lose their non-stick qualities after a while, which is of great concern. Because as hard as ceramics are if it's losing something after a while it's probably not getting scratched, there's some coating over the ceramic that's going away. Going into your food and into your dishwater.

I'd really like these folks to simply tell us what's in the stuff they sell us. An ingredient list does not a recipe make, so it's not handing your secrets to the competition. This has actually led to some great innovation in building products and lots of business for a few manufacturers who have gotten on board: Declare Products | Living-Future.org

Regarding the high-polish stainless, how's it handle a slice of wet ham thrown in alongside the eggs, as those sugars caramelize and turn to mucilage? Or an errant cube of cheddar or dollop of chevre that misses the egg and hits the pan?

TH

[guido]

There are people out there who are as obsessive as we are. :)

The WokShop folks suggested a simplified version of this protocol with my new wok. It worked like a charm.

[Ras72]

Regarding the high-polish stainless, how's it handle a slice of wet ham thrown in alongside the eggs, as those sugars caramelize and turn to mucilage? Or an errant cube of cheddar or dollop of chevre that misses the egg and hits the pan?

TH

Like a champ. The secret here keeping a SS pan clean. Cleaning it with Bar Keepers after every use is what I do - never in the dishwasher. Then preheating the pan prior to cooking.
Made an omlette last night - huge slice of kolby escaped and sat cooking next to the eggs - let it stay until caramelized and crunchy - lifted it out with my fingers. The taste and crunch was divine! I will be doing this more often and topping my potatoes with grilled cheese.

This is not my video but is the pan I use.

[Too Tall]

Rick beat me to it. Come to the dark side. The convenience and speed of cleanup with teflon is compelling than we both consider it's poision so hey.

FWIIW I had success with DOSAS using a good SS pan. For the record, DOSA batter is basically Elmer's glue.

[happycampyer]

Not sure how toxic/non-toxic the coating is, but we recently picked up a couple of GreenPan frying pans (sold as a pair), and they are by far the best non-stick frying pans I've ever owned.

[Too Tall]

Not sure how toxic/non-toxic the coating is, but we recently picked up a couple of GreenPan frying pans (sold as a pair), and they are by far the best non-stick frying pans I've ever owned.

FWIIW I have been using a Martha Stewart , may g0d rest her soul 'cuase what we see is android, version for about one year and it's fine for a cheap POS pan.
It is what it is, you need to deal with some eggs and don't have enough pans or time to fiddle with proper pans so you backslide and this is the result ;) No question, I can make perfect eggs using a tin cup if I've got time and patience. Don't hate me.

Busted.

We are better than this, mostly.