6 ms·

Teflon pans are cheap, and you don't have to care for them at all. Just throw it in the dishwasher and after a year or so get a new one. Having said that, I'm

Teflon pans are cheap, and you don't have to care for them at all. Just throw it in the dishwasher and after a year or so get a new one. Having said that, I'm really liking the two nonstick ceramic pans I bought a few months ago, and I'm not sure if I'll need to toss them next year, yet.

VLM 11y ago
"Teflon pans are cheap ... after a year or so get a new one." Really? "Real" nonstick pans (not walmart) sell for something like $40 to $100+ a piece, but cast iron (Lodge Inc, etc) sells for something like $20. So CI works better, last forever, is cheaper, and its less toxic. Its true that you can buy a pan shaped object from walmart for $5 that doesn't really work, but in all fairness the CI equivalent is the "free to a good home" pile of CI at an estate sale, so CI is still cheaper. I will say there is one, exactly one use for teflon pans and thats burned cheese or burned eggs. Just something about it chemically that makes it stick to cast iron. Yet meats don't stick, very strange.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  I've had two of the Lodge cast iron pans crack completely, and being able to dishwash the nonstick pans saves me a lot of time.
  - azinman2 11y ago
    Crack? Like fall apart? What are you doing man?! It's freaking iron!!!! I'm using my great-great grandmothers pan all the time and it's amazing despite being from the 1800's
    - ectoplasm 11y ago
      There are many reasons why a cast iron skillet inexplicably cracks. Poor quality control in manufacturing, natural crystalline formation defects, excessive impacts in handling, extreme thermal stresses, etc. Cast iron, being a non-ductile material, in the daily thermal cycling of cooking, any minute microscopic fissure will start to propagate through a process known as metal fatigue, and eventually fail catastrophically. To some degree, cast iron can be annealed or hardened, depending on your cooking habits. Something I do which I would not recommend to anyone else: I buy cheap cast iron cookware, heat it up red hot and pour cold water in it. If it didn't crack, them I heat it up again in an oven and let it cool down as slowly as possible to anneal any internal stress. In any case, if the skillet is of great value to you, there are places that actually can repair it for you. As a last tip, stop practicing skillet abuse and trying to be an iron chef. :-)
      - azinman2 11y ago
        Can it really anneal at normal oven temperatures? Cast iron has a melting point of 2200F -- so how can 500F oven do anything?
        ectoplasm 11y ago
        I looked it up and the truth is in between. You get "ferritizing" annealing starting at 1300F. Microscopic amounts of that will happen at 500F but nothing significant. Thank you, now I will stop wasting my time with this piece of folklore...
- gambiting 11y ago
  You can buy an original Tefal pan for like $15-20, if it lasts a year that's ok with me. I wouldn't trust the no-brand $5 stuff either, but I would think that Tefal pans should be ok?
  - azinman2 11y ago
    That stuff is just more toxicity. The non stick vaporizes at high temperatures (the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen... And that's the Teflon website!!!), and all those knicks and scratched are material coming off and into your food. There's no need for toxic cookware. Get high quality cast iron and you can give it to your future generations like my grandmother did for me. And if that flakes into your food, it's just iron which your body needs!
    - metasean 11y ago
      "the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen..." But Big Bird is okay in the kitchen? ;-)
    - criddell 11y ago
      Having a bird in the kitchen is just a bad idea (unless you are going to eat it). If you overheat oil, that becomes toxic as well and will kill a small bird the same as overheating teflon.
      - kaitai 11y ago
        You might have a house with a kitchen next to the living room and no door in between, and if you've got everything closed up in winter you can kill a bird in a nearby room with Teflon toxicity. Overheating oil will not kill a small bird, and even some quick smoke inhalation won't necessarily kill a bird. Smoke inhalation and Teflon toxicity are really different death mechanisms -- if you're interested, a quick read of the abstracts of articles on mass bird deaths from PTFE toxicity at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10879927 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10879927 or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/ is illuminating.
taivare 11y ago
Ceramic pans and when they get older still use them , prefer extra virgin coconut oil , Iam thinking at least somewhat safer then the Teflon pans.
eevilspock 11y ago
Great. More synthetic and toxic crap in our landfills. All for our myopic convenience. Dupont and 3M love you.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Well that and really good omelettes!
- ars 11y ago
  Teflon is not toxic. Some precursors are but once made it's completely inert. And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.
  - toufka 11y ago
    'not toxic' - until you heat it above its suggested operating temperature - which as I recall is about the temp of a 'high' setting on a stove.
    - ars 11y ago
      If you heated it that high you would have smoke in your kitchen from the oil catching fire. The operating temperature of teflon (approx 600f) is higher than the operating temperature of the oil (approx 400f) you cook with.
      - toufka 11y ago
        You keep saying this. You've said it many times in this thread. 1) there are lots of different kinds of oils each with their own distinct flash points and toxicities. Olive oil has one of the lowest flashpoints and has very little toxicity when burned. 2) Not all cooking is done with oils. 3) even if oil is toxic, it seems to be something that is a required part of cooking - we assume the risk. Teflon, not so much. 3) Teflon does get that hot in the course of regular cooking. And it releases toxic fumes under those conditions. Saying oil is bad too does not negate what teflon is doing. Especially when there are choices for pans/cookware that do NOT release fluorocarbons at high temperatures.
dceddia 11y ago
The T-Fal one I have has been going strong for a few years now (maybe 3?). The trick is to NEVER put it in the dishwasher. Hand wash only. It's the easiest thing ever to hand wash, since nothing sticks, and most of the water drips off before I grab the towel.
ddispaltro 11y ago
Literally the only they tell you not to do with non-stick pans is stick it in the dishwasher.

VLM 11y ago

"Teflon pans are cheap ... after a year or so get a new one." Really? "Real" nonstick pans (not walmart) sell for something like $40 to $100+ a piece, but cast iron (Lodge Inc, etc) sells for something like $20. So CI works better, last forever, is cheaper, and its less toxic. Its true that you can buy a pan shaped object from walmart for $5 that doesn't really work, but in all fairness the CI equivalent is the "free to a good home" pile of CI at an estate sale, so CI is still cheaper. I will say there is one, exactly one use for teflon pans and thats burned cheese or burned eggs. Just something about it chemically that makes it stick to cast iron. Yet meats don't stick, very strange.

ceejayoz 11y ago
I've had two of the Lodge cast iron pans crack completely, and being able to dishwash the nonstick pans saves me a lot of time.
- azinman2 11y ago
  Crack? Like fall apart? What are you doing man?! It's freaking iron!!!! I'm using my great-great grandmothers pan all the time and it's amazing despite being from the 1800's
  - ectoplasm 11y ago
    There are many reasons why a cast iron skillet inexplicably cracks. Poor quality control in manufacturing, natural crystalline formation defects, excessive impacts in handling, extreme thermal stresses, etc. Cast iron, being a non-ductile material, in the daily thermal cycling of cooking, any minute microscopic fissure will start to propagate through a process known as metal fatigue, and eventually fail catastrophically. To some degree, cast iron can be annealed or hardened, depending on your cooking habits. Something I do which I would not recommend to anyone else: I buy cheap cast iron cookware, heat it up red hot and pour cold water in it. If it didn't crack, them I heat it up again in an oven and let it cool down as slowly as possible to anneal any internal stress. In any case, if the skillet is of great value to you, there are places that actually can repair it for you. As a last tip, stop practicing skillet abuse and trying to be an iron chef. :-)
    - azinman2 11y ago
      Can it really anneal at normal oven temperatures? Cast iron has a melting point of 2200F -- so how can 500F oven do anything?
      - ectoplasm 11y ago
        I looked it up and the truth is in between. You get "ferritizing" annealing starting at 1300F. Microscopic amounts of that will happen at 500F but nothing significant. Thank you, now I will stop wasting my time with this piece of folklore...
gambiting 11y ago
You can buy an original Tefal pan for like $15-20, if it lasts a year that's ok with me. I wouldn't trust the no-brand $5 stuff either, but I would think that Tefal pans should be ok?
- azinman2 11y ago
  That stuff is just more toxicity. The non stick vaporizes at high temperatures (the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen... And that's the Teflon website!!!), and all those knicks and scratched are material coming off and into your food. There's no need for toxic cookware. Get high quality cast iron and you can give it to your future generations like my grandmother did for me. And if that flakes into your food, it's just iron which your body needs!
  - metasean 11y ago
    "the Teflon website will warn against small birds in the kitchen..." But Big Bird is okay in the kitchen? ;-)
  - criddell 11y ago
    Having a bird in the kitchen is just a bad idea (unless you are going to eat it). If you overheat oil, that becomes toxic as well and will kill a small bird the same as overheating teflon.
    - kaitai 11y ago
      You might have a house with a kitchen next to the living room and no door in between, and if you've got everything closed up in winter you can kill a bird in a nearby room with Teflon toxicity. Overheating oil will not kill a small bird, and even some quick smoke inhalation won't necessarily kill a bird. Smoke inhalation and Teflon toxicity are really different death mechanisms -- if you're interested, a quick read of the abstracts of articles on mass bird deaths from PTFE toxicity at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10879927 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10879927 or http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276392/ is illuminating.

taivare 11y ago

Ceramic pans and when they get older still use them , prefer extra virgin coconut oil , Iam thinking at least somewhat safer then the Teflon pans.

eevilspock 11y ago

Great. More synthetic and toxic crap in our landfills. All for our myopic convenience. Dupont and 3M love you.

tptacek 11y ago
Well that and really good omelettes!
ars 11y ago
Teflon is not toxic. Some precursors are but once made it's completely inert. And a frying pan is mostly metal, it'll get recycled at some point and the teflon burned away anyway.
- toufka 11y ago
  'not toxic' - until you heat it above its suggested operating temperature - which as I recall is about the temp of a 'high' setting on a stove.
  - ars 11y ago
    If you heated it that high you would have smoke in your kitchen from the oil catching fire. The operating temperature of teflon (approx 600f) is higher than the operating temperature of the oil (approx 400f) you cook with.
    - toufka 11y ago
      You keep saying this. You've said it many times in this thread. 1) there are lots of different kinds of oils each with their own distinct flash points and toxicities. Olive oil has one of the lowest flashpoints and has very little toxicity when burned. 2) Not all cooking is done with oils. 3) even if oil is toxic, it seems to be something that is a required part of cooking - we assume the risk. Teflon, not so much. 3) Teflon does get that hot in the course of regular cooking. And it releases toxic fumes under those conditions. Saying oil is bad too does not negate what teflon is doing. Especially when there are choices for pans/cookware that do NOT release fluorocarbons at high temperatures.

dceddia 11y ago

The T-Fal one I have has been going strong for a few years now (maybe 3?). The trick is to NEVER put it in the dishwasher. Hand wash only. It's the easiest thing ever to hand wash, since nothing sticks, and most of the water drips off before I grab the towel.

ddispaltro 11y ago

Literally the only they tell you not to do with non-stick pans is stick it in the dishwasher.