The French National Assembly on Thursday unanimously adopted a bill aimed at restricting the manufacture and sale of products containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — also known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” The MPs, backed by the government, voted to exclude kitchen utensils from the scope of the text.
Thanks to an intense lobbying push, manufacturers of frying pans and saucepans — including the SEB group, which owns Tefal — are exempt from this ban under the proposed law penned by French Green MPs.
Majority groups initially tried to delay the ban on kitchen utensils until 2030 — a timetable refused by the French Green MPs who instead suggested an exemption until 2026.
Barely useful. Stainless steel and cast iron can achieve an almost equal non-stick effect, and handle much higher temperatures without toxic offgassing or stuff chipping off and ending up in the food.
Leaden flatware works too, but why use it when we have ceramic?
Teflon isn’t necessarily even easier to use than cast iron or stainless steel, I think the main issue there is that the education around how to use cookwear is very poor. It’s not just pop on the stove and go.
Yeah, I’ve never liked teflon either. The coating always seems to get scratched up no matter how careful you are with it (and some of those flakes end up in your food). But some people swear by it, so I could see them getting angry about a ban.
I’ve been auper happy with my ceramic pans the past couple years. Seems like nothing stocks to those bad boys
A dear friend of mine keeps birds, and she exclusively uses ceramic cookware. She swears by it, and honestly I get it.
Are the birds she keeps relevant to the ceramic pan discussion?
Yes! Teflon offgasses when heated up, and birds have extremely sensitive lungs. They die really fast from the gases.
You know the expression “canary in the coal mine”, right? It’s because caged canaries were used to detect methane or carbon monoxide. If the canary died, it’s time to get the hell outta there.
This is a problem with self-cleaning ovens as well. So if you keep birds, avoid non-stick and don’t use the self-cleaning function of the oven unless your bird is out of the house and in a well-ventilated spot because it’s quite likely to kill it.
Carbon steel can, too. Plenty of non-nonstick options. And, amusingly enough, many of the highest quality of these items are produced in France.
De Buyer Mineral B: Inexpensive and very very very decent.
I feel like ‘very very very decent’ is pretty close to ‘good’
Actually better than that, I’m also happy with those two pans I got off the Aldi centre isle for 10 bucks. The De Buyer seasons easier but the cheap ones are good enough if you know what you’re doing, only reason I’m not recommending bargain deals is because De Buyer has a known quality while the centre isle does not. Also the handles are quite simple (two loop ones), OTOH that means it fits even small ovens and keeps to itself on the stove, no handle wrangling needed. No good for flipping things, though, and have a kitchen towel at hand to not burn yourself.
I’d completely forgotten about carbon steel, but you’re right!
Almost as good and much bigger pain to use? Yeah, great deal lol
Cast iron: cook a load of bacon bacon before you try making tomato sauce and don’t put it in a dishwasher. Trying not to scratch Teflon is way more of a pain.
I just would probably avoid a tomato sauce in cast iron, high carbon steel, or aluminum pans. That’s what stainless is for.
It’s fine if you’re quick about it, or if you’re willing to re-do the patina. That is, there’s a huge difference in stripping between frying up some cut-up tomatoes a minute before you dump noodles into the pan, and reducing a tomato sauce.
We just have plastic and wood utensils for cooking. I guess it would be a pain if you had metal ones
It really isn’t that big a pain if you know how to use them. Carbon steel is also a fantastic option.
Right
You really think it’s that hard for somebody to learn to scrub something with salt instead of soap, or to let a pan heat up before you put stuff in it? You must hang around some dumb fucking people.
You’re ironically perpetuating a myth that cast iron needs special care. You can clean cast iron with soap just like anything else. You just have to make sure it isn’t wet for extended periods of time
IIRC there’s a specific kind of soap that strips the seasoning off cast iron pans, but idk, if they still make them.
Yes it’s called soap. Soap is made by mixing a base with fat, and the end result will still be basic. Washing-up liquid isn’t soap, though, it’s SLS, pH-neutral.
Still it’s plainly not necessary to use that on pans: First off, if you know what you’re doing (first heat up, then add oil, then fry) things won’t stick in the first place, if they do, deglazing will take it off, and if you’re not deglazing with wine or such to get a sauce (for which stainless is the better option because you get more stick) some water will do.
My routine is: Shovel dish onto plate, take the pan to the sink, pour in some water, scrub a bit with a brush, at that point the pan is clean. Put back on the hot plate, add a drop of oil, spread it with some kitchen tissue. The residual heat will make the water evaporate and the oil prevents rusting, it’s also going to be the source of new patina for the next heat-up cycle. The right amount of oil coating to apply is “try to get it all off with the tissue”.
And if you think that’s unhygienic may I remind you that the thing gets sterilised every single use: Heat up the pan past smoking point (you’ll see the still existing oil coating get dull), add oil and immediately whatever you want to fry.
Oh and get yourself a stainless steel spatula. Practically impossible to find in the kitchen isle nowadays, have a look at the grill section. Plastic doesn’t take heat well, wood tends to be annoyingly thick. I even sharpened mine so I can use it to cut stray too-big pieces in the pan easily.
Yeah, borax soap that no one uses anymore because it just destroys everything. Whatever soap you use to clean everything else is perfectly safe for a cast iron pan.
You wouldn’t wash a spoon or a plate with just hot water, so don’t wash your pans with only hot water either
I use all those pans and love them but I have never gotten them to be remotely non stick for low heat cooking. They’re great at searing, and you should never sear in a non stick, but for low heat cooking I haven’t found anything that remotely comes close to Teflon.
That’s fair, I just kind of put up with the fact that they don’t.