5 ms·

This is awesome! I look forward to my teflon pans that I don't have to throw away after 6 months because they stop working.

by jtchang 12y ago

lumpypua 12y ago
Same! But for now, baby the shit out of them. Buy one that gets legit amazon reviews for your next one. Hand wash it and mayyybe use a sponge when washing it. Only use wooden, plastic or silicone utensils in it. If somebody cleans it with a scrubby pad or uses a metal spatula, they get shot/buy you your next pan. :) I did 2 years on my most recent nonstick pan until my roommate cleaned it with a scrubby pad.
ScottBurson 12y ago
Avoid Teflon -- it leaches toxic PFOA into food. The ceramic nonstick pans work about as well, and are safe.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  What is your source on that? "Non-stick cookware is not a significant source of exposure." is what cancer.org [0] has to say about Telon and PFOA. [0] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid--pfoa http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a...
  - ScottBurson 12y ago
    Personal experience. A few years ago my prostate enlarged relatively suddenly, to the point of making urination difficult. My doctor had no idea why, but it eventually dawned on me that I had recently been eating a lot of scrambled eggs, scrambled in a Teflon-coated skillet. I replaced it with a ceramic nonstick skillet, and the problem went away. If you want absolute proof an anecdote won't satisfy you, but it's plenty of evidence for me. Look at the cost/risk calculation. The cost of a ceramic pan is on the order of $35; the cost of getting cancer is potentially quite large. There doesn't have to be a very large probability that Teflon causes cancer before it's not worth taking the chance.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      What if ceramic pans cause cancer?
      - ScottBurson 12y ago
        Ceramics don't break down at temperatures encountered in cooking. Teflon does. The only question is whether the breakdown products are bioactive. Did you even read the second paragraph? Skepticism is a valuable thing, but it is not an unerring guide to truth. You need to be less credulous of your skepticism.
      - ScottBurson 12y ago
        Look. It takes science a long time to settle all these questions with rigorous research. In the meantime we all have to make decisions in our lives with imperfect, incomplete information. Dismissing all reports of potential risks until there is incontrovertible proof of danger is foolish; doing so out of some misguided fealty to Science and Progress is arrogant. Downvote all you want, but you're not going to get me to stop posting anecdotes when I think they're relevant. Yes, their probative value is limited; I even acknowledged this in the post! But it isn't zero, and in a world of limited and often conflicting information, sometimes it's the best we can get.
    - andrewflnr 12y ago
      That doesn't even begin to prove anything about cancer specifically. If it went away just like that, it wasn't cancer.
sjtrny 12y ago
6 months? I think you're doing something wrong here. Keep teflon coated material to low temperatures, use plastic/wood/silicone utensils and avoid abrasive cleaning techniques.
- hueving 12y ago
  >Keep teflon coated material to low temperatures How exactly do you cook with it then?
  - m_eiman 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety "While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), and decomposes above 350 °C (662 °F). … Meat is usually fried between 204 and 232 °C (399 and 450 °F), and most oils start to smoke before a temperature of 260 °C (500 °F) is reached, but there are at least two cooking oils (refined safflower oil and avocado oil) that have a higher smoke point than 260 °C (500 °F). Empty cookware can also exceed this temperature when heated."
    - ericd 12y ago
      This is a pretty big design flaw for someone like me who loves putting a good sear on steak. Good thing cast iron is fairly cheap...
      - tobz 12y ago
        Did you have some implicit expectation that you could heat it for an arbitrary amount of time, at full power, and it would just be fine? Almost all of the spot checking I just did shows temperature warnings / upper limits of around 450 degrees F for non-stick pans, right on their packaging. Also, equivalently-sized cast iron pans are almost always cheaper than their quality non-stick (i.e. Calphalon) counterparts, and you can restore them if you jack up the seasoning on them.
leni536 12y ago
When I went to college and moved in a dorm I got a really good teflon coated pan from my parents. It's still works fine and it's 6 years old now. I even lent it to other guys in the dorm and I wasn't extremely cautious with it. I dealt with shitty pans too though. I think the quality of Teflon coatings could be extremely varying .
sgift 12y ago
May I recommend iron or copper pans? No sticking, can be used for your whole life. This new structure still looks nice.
- protonfish 12y ago
  Seriously yes - after I figured out how to use and care for cast iron I wondered what the heck made me buy nonstick pans in the first place. The main downsides are the weight of cast iron, or if some clueless person in your house throws it in the sink for a few days.
jameshart 12y ago
Instead you can worry about nanoscopic metal particles detatching from the pan surface and embedding in your food which you then ingest...
- iamthepieman 12y ago
  I wonder if it would be any worse than cooking on cast iron.
dreamcompiler 12y ago
I'd expect pans made with this new technique to be as delicate as Teflon, if not more so. Those laser-etched ridges are quite tiny, and if you scratched the pan with a piece of metal, you'd probably wear away the ridges very quickly, creating localized areas of non-hydrophobia.

This is awesome! I look forward to my teflon pans that I don't have to throw away after 6 months because they stop working.

by jtchang 12y ago

This is awesome! I look forward to my teflon pans that I don't have to throw away after 6 months because they stop working.

lumpypua 12y ago

Same! But for now, baby the shit out of them. Buy one that gets legit amazon reviews for your next one. Hand wash it and mayyybe use a sponge when washing it. Only use wooden, plastic or silicone utensils in it. If somebody cleans it with a scrubby pad or uses a metal spatula, they get shot/buy you your next pan. :) I did 2 years on my most recent nonstick pan until my roommate cleaned it with a scrubby pad.

ScottBurson 12y ago

Avoid Teflon -- it leaches toxic PFOA into food. The ceramic nonstick pans work about as well, and are safe.

MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
What is your source on that? "Non-stick cookware is not a significant source of exposure." is what cancer.org [0] has to say about Telon and PFOA. [0] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid--pfoa http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a...
- ScottBurson 12y ago
  Personal experience. A few years ago my prostate enlarged relatively suddenly, to the point of making urination difficult. My doctor had no idea why, but it eventually dawned on me that I had recently been eating a lot of scrambled eggs, scrambled in a Teflon-coated skillet. I replaced it with a ceramic nonstick skillet, and the problem went away. If you want absolute proof an anecdote won't satisfy you, but it's plenty of evidence for me. Look at the cost/risk calculation. The cost of a ceramic pan is on the order of $35; the cost of getting cancer is potentially quite large. There doesn't have to be a very large probability that Teflon causes cancer before it's not worth taking the chance.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    What if ceramic pans cause cancer?
    - ScottBurson 12y ago
      Ceramics don't break down at temperatures encountered in cooking. Teflon does. The only question is whether the breakdown products are bioactive. Did you even read the second paragraph? Skepticism is a valuable thing, but it is not an unerring guide to truth. You need to be less credulous of your skepticism.
    - ScottBurson 12y ago
      Look. It takes science a long time to settle all these questions with rigorous research. In the meantime we all have to make decisions in our lives with imperfect, incomplete information. Dismissing all reports of potential risks until there is incontrovertible proof of danger is foolish; doing so out of some misguided fealty to Science and Progress is arrogant. Downvote all you want, but you're not going to get me to stop posting anecdotes when I think they're relevant. Yes, their probative value is limited; I even acknowledged this in the post! But it isn't zero, and in a world of limited and often conflicting information, sometimes it's the best we can get.
  - andrewflnr 12y ago
    That doesn't even begin to prove anything about cancer specifically. If it went away just like that, it wasn't cancer.

sjtrny 12y ago

6 months? I think you're doing something wrong here. Keep teflon coated material to low temperatures, use plastic/wood/silicone utensils and avoid abrasive cleaning techniques.

hueving 12y ago
>Keep teflon coated material to low temperatures How exactly do you cook with it then?
- m_eiman 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Safety "While PTFE is stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, it begins to deteriorate after the temperature of cookware reaches about 260 °C (500 °F), and decomposes above 350 °C (662 °F). … Meat is usually fried between 204 and 232 °C (399 and 450 °F), and most oils start to smoke before a temperature of 260 °C (500 °F) is reached, but there are at least two cooking oils (refined safflower oil and avocado oil) that have a higher smoke point than 260 °C (500 °F). Empty cookware can also exceed this temperature when heated."
  - ericd 12y ago
    This is a pretty big design flaw for someone like me who loves putting a good sear on steak. Good thing cast iron is fairly cheap...
    - tobz 12y ago
      Did you have some implicit expectation that you could heat it for an arbitrary amount of time, at full power, and it would just be fine? Almost all of the spot checking I just did shows temperature warnings / upper limits of around 450 degrees F for non-stick pans, right on their packaging. Also, equivalently-sized cast iron pans are almost always cheaper than their quality non-stick (i.e. Calphalon) counterparts, and you can restore them if you jack up the seasoning on them.

leni536 12y ago

When I went to college and moved in a dorm I got a really good teflon coated pan from my parents. It's still works fine and it's 6 years old now. I even lent it to other guys in the dorm and I wasn't extremely cautious with it. I dealt with shitty pans too though. I think the quality of Teflon coatings could be extremely varying .

sgift 12y ago

May I recommend iron or copper pans? No sticking, can be used for your whole life. This new structure still looks nice.

protonfish 12y ago
Seriously yes - after I figured out how to use and care for cast iron I wondered what the heck made me buy nonstick pans in the first place. The main downsides are the weight of cast iron, or if some clueless person in your house throws it in the sink for a few days.

jameshart 12y ago

Instead you can worry about nanoscopic metal particles detatching from the pan surface and embedding in your food which you then ingest...

iamthepieman 12y ago
I wonder if it would be any worse than cooking on cast iron.

dreamcompiler 12y ago

I'd expect pans made with this new technique to be as delicate as Teflon, if not more so. Those laser-etched ridges are quite tiny, and if you scratched the pan with a piece of metal, you'd probably wear away the ridges very quickly, creating localized areas of non-hydrophobia.