Non-Toxic Cookware (1 Viewer)

[Linda]

I recall my Grandmother and Mother using cast iron and steel skillets and stew pots. Then came the wonders of aluminum and teflon. Oh, those non-stick surfaces were an answer to every cooks cleaning nightmares. Then the studies emerged about heavy metals leaching from steel, aluminum, and iron, as well as teflon flaking and going right into our bodies - all not so great for our health.

Over the years, I've been replacing my cookware with Le Cruset, which I love; however, it is expensive and quite heavy. So, I went on a search for other brands. One of them is the Green Pan, which is a bit pricey unless you stumble on them for 1/2 price at Tuesday Morning (Reseller in the US).

I've used my new skillet several times and am very pleased with how evenly it cooks and the ease of cleaning - all the wonders of a ceramic surface. I've not burned anything in it, so I don't know how it reacts in that scenario.

When you’re buying pots and pans, whenever possible, choose items made from safe, non-toxic materials like carbon steel, ceramic, lava rock, porcelain enamel, or tempered glass. Cast iron and stainless steel are generally okay, though they too can leach heavy metals – iron and nickel respectively – into your food, so it’s generally a good idea to stick to other materials for long-simmering dishes or recipes that contain a lot of acid, such as tomato-based foods.​

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There are two materials, however, that you should avoid whenever possible: aluminum and Teflon. There’s been quite a bit of research linking elevated aluminum levels to central nervous system problems, including one 2013 study in Immunologic Research that linked aluminum to Alzheimer’s, ALS, and autism spectrum disorders.​

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As for the latter, it’s the material used in most nonstick cookware, but studies have shown that the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating on the pans turns into toxic Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) at high heat, making it dangerous both for the cook and for diners. In fact, award-winning filmmakers Morgan Spurlock and Stephanie Soechtig have teamed up to take on the chemical with a new documentary featuring activist Erin Brockovich: “The Devil We Know”.​

BTW, the perils of aluminum also apply to aluminum foil. Here is an article about other brands that are considered safer for cooking.

http://www.organicauthority.com/7-non-toxic-cookware-brands-to-keep-chemicals-out-of-your-food/

 

[Anaeika]

Thank you for writing about this Linda.

I have used Saladmaster for years because it is all surgical grade stainless steel.

There is a pot test you use that is fun & educational. Boil water and baking soda in each type of pot. Then taste a bit of water. You can taste the leached chemicals & metals. Teflon tastes like battery acid. It is really terrible! Teflon also comes with a warning paper that most people disregard. It says to open a window while cooking and to not have small children, animals & birds in the kitchen. When I found this out, all of my teflon went into the trash. It was good to nobody!

 

[Linda]

So far, the Green Pan is performing like Le Cruset, which is good news to me because I like ceramic cookware.

 

[Linda]

Teflon also comes with a warning paper that most people disregard. It says to open a window while cooking and to not have small children, animals & birds in the kitchen.

You have to wonder if people actually read and comprehended the warnings whether or not they would continue to use the products.

 

[Linda]

I burned something (that did not take long), and the clean up was easy. I let the pan cool, added some water, and everything came right off. The surface looked just fine, too. Looking like a good value for my $23.

 

[Pucksterguy]

I'm the cook in the family. I've always used SS pots. (one day I'll have y'all over for some real Italian tomato sauce and pasta.) For their even heat heating. Mine have a thick 3/8th inch base. But I had no Idea of the leaching. I thought they were somewhat inert. All my Teflon frying pans need replacing so a while ago I started with a stoneware frying plan and I Love it! It\s just a small one for frying eggs and it's a treat to work with. I'm gonna replace them all with stoneware. These all need a very thick bottom as well I hate it when frying pans warp or "bubble"or arc in the middle. For roasting I use glass Corning ware. Great products, mine are tinted blue.

 

[Angela]

All of our cooking stuff is either stainless steel or cast iron.
We really want to get some ceramic but it hasn't been on our necessary to do list yet. Maybe I'll keep more of an eye out for deals.
Thanks for this wonderful information.

 

[Anaeika]

I like my cast iron and like that cooking in it brings up my iron labs. Plus food is tasty.

 

[Anaeika]

I'm the cook in the family. I've always used SS pots. (one day I'll have y'all over for some real Italian tomato sauce and pasta.) For their even heat heating. Mine have a thick 3/8th inch base. But I had no Idea of the leaching. I thought they were somewhat inert. All my Teflon frying pans need replacing so a while ago I started with a stoneware frying plan and I Love it! It\s just a small one for frying eggs and it's a treat to work with. I'm gonna replace them all with stoneware. These all need a very thick bottom as well I hate it when frying pans warp or "bubble"or arc in the middle. For roasting I use glass Corning ware. Great products, mine are tinted blue.

I am coming over for Italian & margaritas. Yum!

 

[Pucksterguy]

I like my cast iron and like that cooking in it brings up my iron labs. Plus food is tasty.

I have a new cast iron frying pan that I only ever used once. I gotta give that thing a work out. It's up at my camp rather then home, tho. Dying to see how they work.

 

[Anaeika]

I have a new cast iron frying pan that I only ever used once. I gotta give that thing a work out. It's up at my camp rather then home, tho. Dying to see how they work.

You can cook in the oven and on the stove top or put it on the grill.
Clean up is a breeze. The key is to keep it seasoned. You can even make a potpie in there from scratch on the stove top and then add pie crust on the top and into the oven it goes. Makes it easy.

 

[Pucksterguy]

Do you use a shortening to season it? Or will bacon do?

 

[Angela]

I have an entire family of cast irons. Haha 4 different sizes. I Love them.

 

[Angela]

https://www.southernliving.com/food/how-to/how-t0-season-a-cast-iron-skillet

 

[Anaeika]

You can use bacon. Any fat will do.
Scrub clean with water. No soap needed. Put on stove top to evaporate water. Coat will oil.

Do you use a shortening to season it? Or will bacon do?

 

[Linda]

I have some (what is now) vintage corning ware - that stuff lasts forever.

Love your stories about cast iron. Alas for me, it is not a possibility as I have a glass cooktop (no natural gas in our neighborhood).

Looking forward to Pucksterguy's meal. I'm really good with pies - fruit, pecan, buttermilk, chess, etc.

 

[Pucksterguy]

OK sold me...

 

[Anaeika]

Linda , I have a glasstop stove and on electric. Cast iron works fine.

 

[Linda]

I have a glasstop stove and on electric. Cast iron works fine.

Not on this one.

 

[Linda]

Almost 8 months later, and I can report the Green Pan is working just great. It is so easy to clean - a quick rinse gets all the food off. Also, I can get by with less oil or butter.

Over the holidays, I had 3 skillets going at once (French toast, sausage, scrambled eggs) - ceramic clad cast iron, stainless steel, and the Green Pan. Nothing gives a good crust like cast iron, but for everything else, the Green Pan is perfect.

 

[Lila]

I heard that a good veteranarian hearing that a bird suddenly died will ask 'what room was the bird in?' because if it was the kitchen with someone cooking on a nonstick (teflon) pan then it is known that a bird may die from the fumes. At about the same time I heard about the warning label Anaeika mentions above. When I heard this I tossed all the teflon in our house out immediately and did not let any back in though this was not always a popular decision.

This is as close to the 'canary in a coal mine' analogy as one can get (if one visits only kitchens and not mines). The miners used to keep a canary in the mine as an early warning system for any toxic gases that sometimes leaked out of the rock. Since some of the gases had no colour nor smell they needed a way to know when things were getting unsafe. Birds have a fast breathing rate and this means that toxic gases effectively go into their system faster than ours. A canary was perfect since canaries sing. A miner could be a long way away in the mine and able to hear the sudden silence that would cut off a dying bird's song. This would give the miners at least a bit of time to flee. I don't need a canary in my kitchen to know that teflon is not something I want around myself nor my family.

My favourite pans are cast iron. I don't mind a bit of iron leaching into my food, especially for the menstruating members of our family though I switch to either the steel or ceramic coated pans for anything containing tomatoes, lemons or other acidic foods... or I just add these ingredients at the end of cooking when putting the meal into another pot to serve.
I love my ceramic slow cooker and my clay rice cooker. The rice cooker is a bit hotter than the slow cooker and I use it for much more than rice; basically stew or whatever is a 'one pot' dish.
I do a lot of slow roasting as I try to keep the temperatures low enough that I'm not overheating the oils. For this I have a variety of ceramic dishes or a recently acquired large steel roasting pan that is the best ever for roasting veggies; one of my favourite meals and one that can feed a large crew deliciously. One of my favourites is to have some onions (or leeks) with garlic, tumeric, ginger and salt+pepper in with my chicken; slow roasted in one pan and roasted veggies in another pan. Yum!

Edit: Oh the ironies of life having a joke on me: as I was writing this post I was also letting a small (steel) pan of water for tea burn far longer than planned. When I smelled something the pan was dry and the kitchen needed to be aired out. Not the first time that's happened, just one of the more poignant

 

[buddy love]

have used cast iron and love it.

however I was in a living situation with no running water, so needed to find a pan which could just be wiped out with a tiny tissue, if needed.

https://madeincookware.com/

https://madeincookware.com/products/non-stick-frying-pan?variant=44269340042

was able to find this newer brand. very well made. and safe. pricey for my pocket, yet all that I was looking for and more in its abilities to cook and clean well.

I only have invested, so far, in the SAFE nonstick frying pan as I was living in that very rustic situation without running water.

When I am done cooking, the food just slides right out of the pan with no food bits left in the pan. if I want to, but don't need to, I could just wipe out with two pieces of toilet tissue, when done cooking and not need to be continually seasoned. this pan surpasses my dreams for simple easy and fun to use.

 

[therium]

Wait wait, is this the new Earth? I just saw the word "bacon" and a picture of donuts. Is this heaven?

Seriously, we have 2 ceramic coated skillets and stuff does not stick to them much. I hope they are safe.

 

[Lila]

however I was in a living situation with no running water, so needed to find a pan which could just be wiped out with a tiny tissue, if needed.

I know it's not the same situation, but your comment nevertheless reminds me of going camping and having no interest in pouring soaps into the pristine waters (I think I forgot to bring it the first time and then realized that this could be a really good thing). Thus was born, out of necessity, the sand or dirt cleaning tool. It works great and is a lot less work than the usual cleaning solutions and tools.

I grab a bit of whatever's available at the bottom of the stream, river or ocean and rub it into the pan, allowing it to clean the surface as much as needed. My favourite is fine grain sand. Great way to remove both burnt stuff and fats; really effective. Then rinse. Repeat at any spots I may have missed and watch the pan glisten in amazement. No soap required and the fats and grimy stuff gone even when the water is cold. Stream or other body of water remains clean and uncontaminated by whatever soapy stuff I would have otherwise used.
I never pack soaps or scrubbers for camping any more.

Don't tell the soap manufacturers. They'd go out of style

 

[buddy love]

great reminder, lila, how easily mother earth helps us to clean pans. thank you for describing it in detail.

 

[Snowmelt]

I burned something (that did not take long), and the clean up was easy. I let the pan cool, added some water, and everything came right off. The surface looked just fine, too. Looking like a good value for my $23.

I actually burn 85% of everything. No joking. I guess I take multi-tasking to ridiculous limits. Therefore, one of the tricks I've learned over the years is to immerse the burned pot in cold or warm water (hopefully the pot base is all that is burned but I have burned up the sides as well...) The water should be at least up the outside sides of the pot, as far as the burn goes on the inside of the pot. But do not put any water into the pot onto the burn and the burned food.

When the pot has fully cooled down with this treatment, get into some normal, hot soapy dishwash water and use elbow grease. It usually comes off quite easily.

 

[Lila]

From one ridiculously multi tasking pot-burner to another, I salute you Hailstones Melt
... though this is improving over time. Phew!

 

[Snowmelt]

From one ridiculously multi tasking pot-burner to another, I salute you Hailstones Melt
... though this is improving over time. Phew!

Yes, I have to admit to a small improvement over 50 years.

 

[Linda]

Having burned biscuits on many occasions and carefully sliced off the burned bottoms, we have a long-standing family joke about whether or not the biscuits or rolls have their bottoms. Parchment paper has been my salvation in this department.

 

[Lila]

Yup, I'm pretty handy with slicing off burnt bottoms too...