8 ms·

We Tested Nonstick Cookware: Coatings Don't Need to Look Worn to Shed Particles

93 points by cdemer 3mo ago

cdemer 3mo ago
I’m the founder of RTINGS.com. A few notes about this investigation: - 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
- vaylian 3mo ago
  Thank you for doing this. The conclusion from the text is: > 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?
  - formerly_proven 3mo ago
    Anything that's high in protein, and you don't want to brown appreciably or use much fat. So mostly french omelette and pancakes. The upside is that these also require basically no tool manipulation in the pan and are low heat anyway and probably not something you're daily driving.
  - dfxm12 3mo ago
    I think the advice is to avoid using it as a daily driver. If you only have nonstick and carbon steel pans, you might not want to cook something acidic in the carbon steel as it will kill the seasoning. If you have nonstick and stainless steel, you can use the SS for that. 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.
    - stronglikedan 3mo ago
      > cooking eggs in nonstick might be easier/require less fat I don't understand why anyone would want to cook eggs with less fat to begin with.
      - salemh 3mo ago
        [dead]
      - kccqzy 3mo ago
        The usual health reasons I guess. And when I cook eggs in butter, most of the butter is discarded; I guess some could perceive this as wasteful.
        et-al 3mo ago
        I can cook an over-easy egg with less than a teaspoon of oil on a non-stick. If I do it on cast-iron, it's easily twice that. That adds up to a lot of oil being throw away in a year. And while I love butter on bread, I don't want the taste of it with my eggs.
        nvme0n1p1 3mo ago
        Maybe you could use less butter? When I cook eggs, the butter is basically all absorbed by the end. It took a few tries to dial in the perfect amount though.
        deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
  - milch 3mo ago
    My wife and I started doing this about 5 years ago or so. Since then, we gradually acquired more carbon steel, stainless steel, cast iron, and enameled cookware. Initially we were reaching for the non-stick for all the typical reasons, e.g. making eggs, but over time we found ourselves reaching for the non-stick less and less. It turns out that the "seasoning" on the cast iron and carbon steel improves their non-stick properties over time, which at this point is good-enough for anything... I can cook eggs, pancakes, a piece of salmon without breaking the delicate skin or shredding the fish, and so on. As I see it, non-stick pans have two benefits: they require less maintenance (you can stack them in the sink and deal with them whenever, which you shouldn't with uncoated metal pans after cooking anything liquid/acidic) and you can cook more easily without using any fat. For us, neither matter much, so about 2 years or so ago when our last non-stick pan needed to be replaced we decided not to get a new one and just get rid of it.
  - stult 3mo ago
    I stopped cooking with nonstick pans over 15 years ago, and the only thing I've found that can consistently be a bit tricky is eggs, but really only if the pan isn't hot enough yet when you add the butter or oil, you don't use enough butter/oil, you try to scramble the eggs in the pan, or you try to lift the eggs too soon. So arguably it takes a little more attention to detail to cook eggs on stainless steel, but in general I really don't think there is anything that requires nonstick. But even for the limited list of items that are easier to prepare on nonstick, it's usually just a matter of learning how to adjust your technique to match the 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.
    - Freedumbs 3mo ago
      Eggs stick if the pan temperature isn't right or if there's not enough lube. User error or skill issue. Here's how to do it: buy good pans, turn on pan to ~medium, add oil and rub in with cloth, add more oil (or butter, butter is better with eggs), when pan is hot add eggs. This works with good quality (all clad) or heavy (cast iron) pans.
      - dzhiurgis 3mo ago
        Personal opinion - deep fried eggs are goated. It's either runny scrambled (pretty hard on cast iron/stainless) or deep fried. Anything in-between is incompetence.
        SAI_Peregrinus 3mo ago
        Runny scrambled (French omelet) isn't too bad on carbon steel IME. And certainly possible on cast iron, since that was the type of pan used when Carême wrote his cookbook. By Escoffier's time carbon steel was more common. Neither of them is famous for having invented a time machine, both predate non-stick cookware, and they're the most famous French chefs in history.
  - dzhiurgis 3mo ago
    > specialized tool Thing is, I don't even have need for this tool. Other for perfect scrambled eggs (creamy french style, that nobody really appreciates so it's a moot) I don't have a need for it. Especially if you upgrade to induction, cast iron + stainless are absolute goats. They are indestructible and zero maintenance. Non brainer. My conclusion for teflon pans existence is the shitty electric cooktops. Replace them with induction. It costs like $400-600 if it's in built in (idk why US are so reluctant on built-in one). Your existing electrical line probably can support it. It's a 15 minute DIY job.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 3mo ago
      I do French-style omelets in a carbon steel pan, on an electric cooktop. Mine's an 8.5" omelet pan, perfect for two egg omelets. I treat it a lot like a wok: heat up until a bit of water dropped in shows the Leidenfrost effect, dump out the water, dump in oil, let it smoke for a few seconds, dump out the oil, then reduce heat, add butter, and drop in the (pre-scrambled & strained) eggs & start mixing while moving the pan back & forth. As the eggs start cooking through, begin rolling by folding up the side & back over, once fully rolled slide onto plate. This takes practice. I made an omelet a day for a bit over a month to get it to the point I could make one perfect every time. The first few were garbage, after about a week I got a decent result, and the rest was just refining my heat control to get it correct reliably.
  - Izkata 3mo ago
    I got a stainless steel skillet out of curiosity after yet another painful experience with nonstick: Bacon grease sticks very well to nonstick and can be almost impossible to clean off. Picked stainless steel after reading about the different types because it seemed to take the least effort to handle and last the longest, turned out really easy to clean after bacon/sausage as well.
  - xtiansimon 3mo ago
    Eggs. Chef says don’t touch my omelet pan on pain of death.
- Cider9986 3mo ago
  Appreciated your VPN testing. Organizations like yours improve my life every time I'm going to buy something.
  - cdemer 3mo ago
    Thanks! That's exactly why we do this work. Feedback on what we could improve is always welcome.
- archagon 3mo ago
  Thank you for RTINGS, it’s an absolute gold mine for picky comparison shoppers.
bob1029 3mo ago
PTFE is not the only way to get "nonstick" cookware. The amount of stickiness perceived is 99% a skill / procedural issue. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFaFgg4P6QI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFaFgg4P6QI
- soco 3mo ago
  Indeed I don't see much talk about non-PTFE non-stick: I have a set of enamel pans which work for me just fine, and for the eggs a granite pan (which I have no idea how's actually made). I must say that as nice the cast iron might be when cooking, I didn't like the cleaning part so I ditched them (also the "seasoning" sounded yuck), and for the love of me I couldn't get the stainless steel to not awfully stick.
dfxm12 3mo ago
If you're looking to switch, difficulty around cooking technique for stainless steel, carbon steel & cast iron is overblown. Same with seasoning/cleaning the latter two. Trust me, if I can figure it out, you can too.
- bloke_zero 3mo ago
  Carbon steel is amazing - durable self repairing non-stick surface that after the inital seasoning is trivial to maintain: wash the pan with a brush when its still hot without any detergent - cleans in seconds. 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.
  - not-kinsale-joe 3mo ago
    I have seen non-stick pans for eggs.
    - butvacuum 3mo ago
      yea, eggs in a busy kitchen or when you haven't been out of bed for more than 5m is risky.
  - petronic 3mo ago
    My current favorite pan is the best of all worlds - stainless clad outer layer, aluminum internal layer for efficiency in spreading heat and a carbon steel interior to develop non-stick seasoning with use. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88
    - sodapopcan 3mo ago
      I feel stainless steel is the simplest, most versatile option that lasts forever. I've never actually tried carbon steel, though. I've had cast iron in the past but I just don't get the hype. They're heavy and require a lot of maintenance. I'm not saying they are bad, of course, it's whatever floats your boat!
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
wjakob 3mo ago
I used to switch coated (teflon, ceramic, other fancy gadgets) pans every 1-2 years after eventually wearing them out. This seems so wasteful! I wish somebody had given me the following advice earlier: get 1-2 good uncoated steel pans. They build up a coating from cooking oils that works just as well. I've had mine for over 12 years now, and it's pristine and just a joy to use. I will probably never need another one.
ndr 3mo ago
Thank you for these tests! 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.
- elevation 3mo ago
  > Leidenfrost effect Okay for a steak, not great for eggs!
  - ndr 3mo ago
    Maybe not for creamy scrambled eggs, but for most eggs that's entirely doable. Frying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpYK1DV_SU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpYK1DV_SU Scrambled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtkmInrlWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtkmInrlWw
    - Izkata 3mo ago
      I want to call something out here so people don't have to click / don't just gloss over it, because his videos are what made me go "hey, wait a minute..." Most tutorials on stainless steel completely fail to mention turning the heat down or adding oil/butter. If you've been using stainless steel for a while these are probably "well duh" things, but coming from nonstick these were both surprising. With nonstick, you can just leave the heat at medium the whole time, and usually need to to maintain the heat. The pan heats up a lot slower and doesn't get as hot. And because of the nonstick surface, oil/butter is unnecessary - I never used it the whole time I was on nonstick. But stainless steel heats up a lot better, so leaving it at medium it'll just keep heating up and burn your food (mentioned in the video), and the leidenfrost effect doesn't really work on some substances without oil/butter to act as an intermediary (I couldn't explain the physics of it, just that my pancake batter was burned to the skillet on one side and liquid on the other - it was so extreme I was concerned I just couldn't make pancakes with it, while adding butter the next attempt was like magic). Scrolling around the comments here on HN, a lot of people are mentioning how good stainless steel can be at not sticking, in a thread about nonstick surfaces, without mentioning any of the additional steps.
seemaze 3mo ago
Yuck, get some cast iron. At yard sale if necessary, their useful lifetimes are measured in (human) generations. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88 [1] https://duparquet.com/products/solid-silver-cookware https://duparquet.com/products/solid-silver-cookware
breakyerself 3mo ago
I don't have any nonstick. It's not that hard to cook anything or to clean stainless or cast iron. For cast iron/carbon steel 99% of the time I run it under water and rub it with my hand and it comes clean in 30 seconds. Rarely I use some soap. 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.
- kccqzy 3mo ago
  I no longer have any nonstick or cast iron. I almost never manage to clean my cast iron pan in 30 seconds; it’s more like 3–4 minutes. Stainless steel is all I use now. It goes in the dishwasher, so literally two seconds to put it in and two seconds to remove it when the dishwasher is done.
- bluedino 3mo ago
  It's much easier with non-stick and I'm not the only one that cooks in my house.
- clickety_clack 3mo ago
  I use all stainless steel now too. When I first got a stainless steel frying pan (a good thick one with some kind of impressive layering system that I’ve long forgotten about) I just assumed that things would stick to it, but I’ve never had any problems that didn’t come off with at most a basic sponge and moderate effort. Mostly food just rinses right off. I’ve had that pan for something like 15 years now. As far as I can tell, non-stick is just a ploy to get people to keep buying new pans as it wears off.
  - milch 3mo ago
    > As far as I can tell, non-stick is just a ploy to get people to keep buying new pans as it wears off. 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
datadrivenangel 3mo ago
Isn't Teflon (PTFE) inert biologically? (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)
- snowe2010 3mo ago
  Supposedly, yes, but other studies have shown that teflon pans continue to off gas after construction for a long time so it’s not just PTFE you have to worry about, but PFOA as well. And in addition, purchasing Teflon pans increases the amount of these chemicals making it into the soil and water streams so it doesn’t really matter how inert they are when they make it into your food, since you’re consuming them other ways and also destroying the environment at the same time!
- this_user 3mo ago
  They are, which is why this pearl clutching over particles from cookware is a bit silly.
- bluedino 3mo ago
  > Isn't Teflon (PTFE) inert biologically? Either way, it will be 'bad' forever with some people, like MSG and other things
upcoming-sesame 3mo ago
Coincidentally just saw an ad for this https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/barecookware/everpan https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/barecookware/everpan Not affiliated in any way. But looks promising
- Kirby64 3mo ago
  Not really useful. Others have made titanium coated stuff, and it's not really significantly better for non-stick than just a nitrated steel pan.
  - upcoming-sesame 3mo ago
    They claim to have added small dimples that trap the oil and make it less sticky
    - Kirby64 3mo ago
      Others have done it even further, and done titanium with the hex-clad style pattern, and it just doesn't work well. Look at the reviews for this thing online, they're not good: https://fromourplace.com/products/titanium-always-pan-pro?variant=44381106045122 https://fromourplace.com/products/titanium-always-pan-pro?va...
      - upcoming-sesame 3mo ago
        Good to know!
ForHackernews 3mo ago
I wonder how this compares to this new "no coating" nonstick they are hyping up: https://fromourplace.com/blogs/care-use/a-new-kind-of-nonstick-understanding-the-noco-technology https://fromourplace.com/blogs/care-use/a-new-kind-of-nonsti...
- Kirby64 3mo ago
  It's worse. Non-stick PTFE is basically always the best. All these alternative "non-stick" coatings want you to use a little bit of oil. PTFE needs 0 oil to work.
Zigurd 3mo ago
My observations from experience: - Nonstick helps, but don't use it instead of a fat. - 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.
- clickety_clack 3mo ago
  The thing about “ceramic” is that it’s not actually defined or regulated as a term so it could still be some kind of PTFE.
  - Ekaros 3mo ago
    Sometimes I wonder if we discover that "ceramic" is also bad for health. As I understand it is really not meaningfully defined. And I also think about having heard that it is sometimes sacrificial that is that it wears out... Meaning it might leech something to food.
  - Zigurd 3mo ago
    I've definitely seen brands of cookware that obfuscate their use of PTFE nonstick. The brands that use Kyocera ceramic coatings often specify that by name. Even cheap brands like Green Pan play it straight. So you have to do a little bit of due diligence, but it's pretty easy to avoid the hidden PTFE. Some kind of trustworthy certification would be an improvement no doubt.
    - clickety_clack 3mo ago
      I’d like to think it was actually some kind of neutral, non-harmful clay, but I guess the problem with clay is it can be made of whatever is in rocks, which is basically anything.
dredmorbius 3mo ago
Looking at alternatives (and I already have both cast-iron and aluminium fry pans which I prefer using), what are people's experiences with ceramic cookware? 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49071016> immediately on submitting this ;-)
- Cider9986 3mo ago
  I have a greenpan it works well enough although it degrades in nonstick over the years. The only thing I need it for is unbrowned eggs. And those are some of the hardest things for non-stick. 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.
thegabez 3mo ago
How are you suppose to cook an over easy egg on anything other than non-stick? Only thing I keep my non-stick around for.
- et-al 3mo ago
  If you watch the videos, folks use a generous amount of oil and butter. They basically "shallow"-fry their eggs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070419
- loco5niner 3mo ago
  I use my well seasoned carbon steel, but with a very nice metal spatula with a fairly 'sharp' edge. It really is necessary to scrape under the egg in a quick motion. Works great even without too much oil. You do have to use some oil.
- Cider9986 3mo ago
  It's possible apparently. The types described should be harder than over easy. A well seasoned cast iron and butter. https://ask.metafilter.com/376998/Scrambling-eggs-without-nonstick-pans-or-extreme-effort https://ask.metafilter.com/376998/Scrambling-eggs-without-no... https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_nonstick_pepinstyle_french_omelet_on/ https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_non...
  - et-al 3mo ago
    I beg to differ: over-easy is more difficult because the egg whites stick more readily because there's no fat there. And you really can't mess up scrambled eggs. Everyone here seems to drown their over-easy eggs in oil to make them not stick to the pan.
    - Cider9986 3mo ago
      Yeah, cooking without enough oil is not gonna get you far without nonstick no matter what food.
- 3mo ago
ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
When I was a teenager, I saw a commercial for Visions Cookware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_(cookware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_(cookware) I got really excited and I purchased a complete set for my mother on her birthday. And she took one look and was unable to share my enthusiasm. She said it was all completely different from the vessels she normally used, and so it was a rubbish gift, and she stashed them all in a drawer, and never used them at all.
alienbaby 3mo ago
is there info anywhere about the effects of ingesting PTFE particles over time?
stefap2 3mo ago
Where does the hexclad fall in this regard?

93 points by cdemer 3mo ago

I’m the founder of RTINGS.com. A few notes about this investigation: - 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

vaylian 3mo ago
Thank you for doing this. The conclusion from the text is: > 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?
- formerly_proven 3mo ago
  Anything that's high in protein, and you don't want to brown appreciably or use much fat. So mostly french omelette and pancakes. The upside is that these also require basically no tool manipulation in the pan and are low heat anyway and probably not something you're daily driving.
- dfxm12 3mo ago
  I think the advice is to avoid using it as a daily driver. If you only have nonstick and carbon steel pans, you might not want to cook something acidic in the carbon steel as it will kill the seasoning. If you have nonstick and stainless steel, you can use the SS for that. 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.
  - stronglikedan 3mo ago
    > cooking eggs in nonstick might be easier/require less fat I don't understand why anyone would want to cook eggs with less fat to begin with.
    - salemh 3mo ago
      [dead]
    - kccqzy 3mo ago
      The usual health reasons I guess. And when I cook eggs in butter, most of the butter is discarded; I guess some could perceive this as wasteful.
      - et-al 3mo ago
        I can cook an over-easy egg with less than a teaspoon of oil on a non-stick. If I do it on cast-iron, it's easily twice that. That adds up to a lot of oil being throw away in a year. And while I love butter on bread, I don't want the taste of it with my eggs.
      - nvme0n1p1 3mo ago
        Maybe you could use less butter? When I cook eggs, the butter is basically all absorbed by the end. It took a few tries to dial in the perfect amount though.
        deleted 3mo ago
        [deleted]
- milch 3mo ago
  My wife and I started doing this about 5 years ago or so. Since then, we gradually acquired more carbon steel, stainless steel, cast iron, and enameled cookware. Initially we were reaching for the non-stick for all the typical reasons, e.g. making eggs, but over time we found ourselves reaching for the non-stick less and less. It turns out that the "seasoning" on the cast iron and carbon steel improves their non-stick properties over time, which at this point is good-enough for anything... I can cook eggs, pancakes, a piece of salmon without breaking the delicate skin or shredding the fish, and so on. As I see it, non-stick pans have two benefits: they require less maintenance (you can stack them in the sink and deal with them whenever, which you shouldn't with uncoated metal pans after cooking anything liquid/acidic) and you can cook more easily without using any fat. For us, neither matter much, so about 2 years or so ago when our last non-stick pan needed to be replaced we decided not to get a new one and just get rid of it.
- stult 3mo ago
  I stopped cooking with nonstick pans over 15 years ago, and the only thing I've found that can consistently be a bit tricky is eggs, but really only if the pan isn't hot enough yet when you add the butter or oil, you don't use enough butter/oil, you try to scramble the eggs in the pan, or you try to lift the eggs too soon. So arguably it takes a little more attention to detail to cook eggs on stainless steel, but in general I really don't think there is anything that requires nonstick. But even for the limited list of items that are easier to prepare on nonstick, it's usually just a matter of learning how to adjust your technique to match the 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.
  - Freedumbs 3mo ago
    Eggs stick if the pan temperature isn't right or if there's not enough lube. User error or skill issue. Here's how to do it: buy good pans, turn on pan to ~medium, add oil and rub in with cloth, add more oil (or butter, butter is better with eggs), when pan is hot add eggs. This works with good quality (all clad) or heavy (cast iron) pans.
    - dzhiurgis 3mo ago
      Personal opinion - deep fried eggs are goated. It's either runny scrambled (pretty hard on cast iron/stainless) or deep fried. Anything in-between is incompetence.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 3mo ago
        Runny scrambled (French omelet) isn't too bad on carbon steel IME. And certainly possible on cast iron, since that was the type of pan used when Carême wrote his cookbook. By Escoffier's time carbon steel was more common. Neither of them is famous for having invented a time machine, both predate non-stick cookware, and they're the most famous French chefs in history.
- dzhiurgis 3mo ago
  > specialized tool Thing is, I don't even have need for this tool. Other for perfect scrambled eggs (creamy french style, that nobody really appreciates so it's a moot) I don't have a need for it. Especially if you upgrade to induction, cast iron + stainless are absolute goats. They are indestructible and zero maintenance. Non brainer. My conclusion for teflon pans existence is the shitty electric cooktops. Replace them with induction. It costs like $400-600 if it's in built in (idk why US are so reluctant on built-in one). Your existing electrical line probably can support it. It's a 15 minute DIY job.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3mo ago
    I do French-style omelets in a carbon steel pan, on an electric cooktop. Mine's an 8.5" omelet pan, perfect for two egg omelets. I treat it a lot like a wok: heat up until a bit of water dropped in shows the Leidenfrost effect, dump out the water, dump in oil, let it smoke for a few seconds, dump out the oil, then reduce heat, add butter, and drop in the (pre-scrambled & strained) eggs & start mixing while moving the pan back & forth. As the eggs start cooking through, begin rolling by folding up the side & back over, once fully rolled slide onto plate. This takes practice. I made an omelet a day for a bit over a month to get it to the point I could make one perfect every time. The first few were garbage, after about a week I got a decent result, and the rest was just refining my heat control to get it correct reliably.
- Izkata 3mo ago
  I got a stainless steel skillet out of curiosity after yet another painful experience with nonstick: Bacon grease sticks very well to nonstick and can be almost impossible to clean off. Picked stainless steel after reading about the different types because it seemed to take the least effort to handle and last the longest, turned out really easy to clean after bacon/sausage as well.
- xtiansimon 3mo ago
  Eggs. Chef says don’t touch my omelet pan on pain of death.
Cider9986 3mo ago
Appreciated your VPN testing. Organizations like yours improve my life every time I'm going to buy something.
- cdemer 3mo ago
  Thanks! That's exactly why we do this work. Feedback on what we could improve is always welcome.
archagon 3mo ago
Thank you for RTINGS, it’s an absolute gold mine for picky comparison shoppers.

bob1029 3mo ago

PTFE is not the only way to get "nonstick" cookware. The amount of stickiness perceived is 99% a skill / procedural issue. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFaFgg4P6QI https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFaFgg4P6QI

soco 3mo ago
Indeed I don't see much talk about non-PTFE non-stick: I have a set of enamel pans which work for me just fine, and for the eggs a granite pan (which I have no idea how's actually made). I must say that as nice the cast iron might be when cooking, I didn't like the cleaning part so I ditched them (also the "seasoning" sounded yuck), and for the love of me I couldn't get the stainless steel to not awfully stick.

dfxm12 3mo ago

If you're looking to switch, difficulty around cooking technique for stainless steel, carbon steel & cast iron is overblown. Same with seasoning/cleaning the latter two. Trust me, if I can figure it out, you can too.

bloke_zero 3mo ago
Carbon steel is amazing - durable self repairing non-stick surface that after the inital seasoning is trivial to maintain: wash the pan with a brush when its still hot without any detergent - cleans in seconds. 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.
- not-kinsale-joe 3mo ago
  I have seen non-stick pans for eggs.
  - butvacuum 3mo ago
    yea, eggs in a busy kitchen or when you haven't been out of bed for more than 5m is risky.
- petronic 3mo ago
  My current favorite pan is the best of all worlds - stainless clad outer layer, aluminum internal layer for efficiency in spreading heat and a carbon steel interior to develop non-stick seasoning with use. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88
  - sodapopcan 3mo ago
    I feel stainless steel is the simplest, most versatile option that lasts forever. I've never actually tried carbon steel, though. I've had cast iron in the past but I just don't get the hype. They're heavy and require a lot of maintenance. I'm not saying they are bad, of course, it's whatever floats your boat!

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

wjakob 3mo ago

I used to switch coated (teflon, ceramic, other fancy gadgets) pans every 1-2 years after eventually wearing them out. This seems so wasteful! I wish somebody had given me the following advice earlier: get 1-2 good uncoated steel pans. They build up a coating from cooking oils that works just as well. I've had mine for over 12 years now, and it's pristine and just a joy to use. I will probably never need another one.

ndr 3mo ago

Thank you for these tests! 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.

elevation 3mo ago
> Leidenfrost effect Okay for a steak, not great for eggs!
- ndr 3mo ago
  Maybe not for creamy scrambled eggs, but for most eggs that's entirely doable. Frying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpYK1DV_SU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpYK1DV_SU Scrambled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtkmInrlWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtkmInrlWw
  - Izkata 3mo ago
    I want to call something out here so people don't have to click / don't just gloss over it, because his videos are what made me go "hey, wait a minute..." Most tutorials on stainless steel completely fail to mention turning the heat down or adding oil/butter. If you've been using stainless steel for a while these are probably "well duh" things, but coming from nonstick these were both surprising. With nonstick, you can just leave the heat at medium the whole time, and usually need to to maintain the heat. The pan heats up a lot slower and doesn't get as hot. And because of the nonstick surface, oil/butter is unnecessary - I never used it the whole time I was on nonstick. But stainless steel heats up a lot better, so leaving it at medium it'll just keep heating up and burn your food (mentioned in the video), and the leidenfrost effect doesn't really work on some substances without oil/butter to act as an intermediary (I couldn't explain the physics of it, just that my pancake batter was burned to the skillet on one side and liquid on the other - it was so extreme I was concerned I just couldn't make pancakes with it, while adding butter the next attempt was like magic). Scrolling around the comments here on HN, a lot of people are mentioning how good stainless steel can be at not sticking, in a thread about nonstick surfaces, without mentioning any of the additional steps.

seemaze 3mo ago

Yuck, get some cast iron. At yard sale if necessary, their useful lifetimes are measured in (human) generations. 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdORIBH3R88 [1] https://duparquet.com/products/solid-silver-cookware https://duparquet.com/products/solid-silver-cookware

breakyerself 3mo ago

I don't have any nonstick. It's not that hard to cook anything or to clean stainless or cast iron. For cast iron/carbon steel 99% of the time I run it under water and rub it with my hand and it comes clean in 30 seconds. Rarely I use some soap. 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.

kccqzy 3mo ago
I no longer have any nonstick or cast iron. I almost never manage to clean my cast iron pan in 30 seconds; it’s more like 3–4 minutes. Stainless steel is all I use now. It goes in the dishwasher, so literally two seconds to put it in and two seconds to remove it when the dishwasher is done.
bluedino 3mo ago
It's much easier with non-stick and I'm not the only one that cooks in my house.
clickety_clack 3mo ago
I use all stainless steel now too. When I first got a stainless steel frying pan (a good thick one with some kind of impressive layering system that I’ve long forgotten about) I just assumed that things would stick to it, but I’ve never had any problems that didn’t come off with at most a basic sponge and moderate effort. Mostly food just rinses right off. I’ve had that pan for something like 15 years now. As far as I can tell, non-stick is just a ploy to get people to keep buying new pans as it wears off.
- milch 3mo ago
  > As far as I can tell, non-stick is just a ploy to get people to keep buying new pans as it wears off. 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

datadrivenangel 3mo ago

Isn't Teflon (PTFE) inert biologically? (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)

snowe2010 3mo ago
Supposedly, yes, but other studies have shown that teflon pans continue to off gas after construction for a long time so it’s not just PTFE you have to worry about, but PFOA as well. And in addition, purchasing Teflon pans increases the amount of these chemicals making it into the soil and water streams so it doesn’t really matter how inert they are when they make it into your food, since you’re consuming them other ways and also destroying the environment at the same time!
this_user 3mo ago
They are, which is why this pearl clutching over particles from cookware is a bit silly.
bluedino 3mo ago
> Isn't Teflon (PTFE) inert biologically? Either way, it will be 'bad' forever with some people, like MSG and other things

upcoming-sesame 3mo ago

Coincidentally just saw an ad for this https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/barecookware/everpan https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/barecookware/everpan Not affiliated in any way. But looks promising

Kirby64 3mo ago
Not really useful. Others have made titanium coated stuff, and it's not really significantly better for non-stick than just a nitrated steel pan.
- upcoming-sesame 3mo ago
  They claim to have added small dimples that trap the oil and make it less sticky
  - Kirby64 3mo ago
    Others have done it even further, and done titanium with the hex-clad style pattern, and it just doesn't work well. Look at the reviews for this thing online, they're not good: https://fromourplace.com/products/titanium-always-pan-pro?variant=44381106045122 https://fromourplace.com/products/titanium-always-pan-pro?va...
    - upcoming-sesame 3mo ago
      Good to know!

ForHackernews 3mo ago

I wonder how this compares to this new "no coating" nonstick they are hyping up: https://fromourplace.com/blogs/care-use/a-new-kind-of-nonstick-understanding-the-noco-technology https://fromourplace.com/blogs/care-use/a-new-kind-of-nonsti...

Kirby64 3mo ago
It's worse. Non-stick PTFE is basically always the best. All these alternative "non-stick" coatings want you to use a little bit of oil. PTFE needs 0 oil to work.

Zigurd 3mo ago

My observations from experience: - Nonstick helps, but don't use it instead of a fat. - 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.

clickety_clack 3mo ago
The thing about “ceramic” is that it’s not actually defined or regulated as a term so it could still be some kind of PTFE.
- Ekaros 3mo ago
  Sometimes I wonder if we discover that "ceramic" is also bad for health. As I understand it is really not meaningfully defined. And I also think about having heard that it is sometimes sacrificial that is that it wears out... Meaning it might leech something to food.
- Zigurd 3mo ago
  I've definitely seen brands of cookware that obfuscate their use of PTFE nonstick. The brands that use Kyocera ceramic coatings often specify that by name. Even cheap brands like Green Pan play it straight. So you have to do a little bit of due diligence, but it's pretty easy to avoid the hidden PTFE. Some kind of trustworthy certification would be an improvement no doubt.
  - clickety_clack 3mo ago
    I’d like to think it was actually some kind of neutral, non-harmful clay, but I guess the problem with clay is it can be made of whatever is in rocks, which is basically anything.

dredmorbius 3mo ago

Looking at alternatives (and I already have both cast-iron and aluminium fry pans which I prefer using), what are people's experiences with ceramic cookware? 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49071016> immediately on submitting this ;-)

Cider9986 3mo ago
I have a greenpan it works well enough although it degrades in nonstick over the years. The only thing I need it for is unbrowned eggs. And those are some of the hardest things for non-stick. 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.

thegabez 3mo ago

How are you suppose to cook an over easy egg on anything other than non-stick? Only thing I keep my non-stick around for.

et-al 3mo ago
If you watch the videos, folks use a generous amount of oil and butter. They basically "shallow"-fry their eggs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070419
loco5niner 3mo ago
I use my well seasoned carbon steel, but with a very nice metal spatula with a fairly 'sharp' edge. It really is necessary to scrape under the egg in a quick motion. Works great even without too much oil. You do have to use some oil.
Cider9986 3mo ago
It's possible apparently. The types described should be harder than over easy. A well seasoned cast iron and butter. https://ask.metafilter.com/376998/Scrambling-eggs-without-nonstick-pans-or-extreme-effort https://ask.metafilter.com/376998/Scrambling-eggs-without-no... https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_nonstick_pepinstyle_french_omelet_on/ https://reddit.com/r/cookware/comments/1ove4wy/finally_a_non...
- et-al 3mo ago
  I beg to differ: over-easy is more difficult because the egg whites stick more readily because there's no fat there. And you really can't mess up scrambled eggs. Everyone here seems to drown their over-easy eggs in oil to make them not stick to the pan.
  - Cider9986 3mo ago
    Yeah, cooking without enough oil is not gonna get you far without nonstick no matter what food.
3mo ago

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago

When I was a teenager, I saw a commercial for Visions Cookware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_(cookware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_(cookware) I got really excited and I purchased a complete set for my mother on her birthday. And she took one look and was unable to share my enthusiasm. She said it was all completely different from the vessels she normally used, and so it was a rubbish gift, and she stashed them all in a drawer, and never used them at all.

alienbaby 3mo ago

is there info anywhere about the effects of ingesting PTFE particles over time?

stefap2 3mo ago

Where does the hexclad fall in this regard?