safety of non-stick cookware

The following is cut and paste from cooksillustrated.com -- otherwise you would need to be a member to access (as I bet many of you are).

The moderators have correctly informed me that I can't quote an entire copy written article. In the interest of saving time I've cut the whole thing. See Cook's Illustrated for the article.

I am glad to see information about the dangers of non-stick pans to birds promulgated.

Cast iron is my preferred alternative. Attaining proper seasoning of a cast iron pan takes time, but after I was gifted with my great-grandmother's large skillet, I sought out and purchased some smaller sizes in junk/thrift/yard sale/antique venues, and now have a set of different sizes.

They are the most used pans in my kitchen.

There has recently been some research into the specific dangers of non-stick compounds to female reproductive organs, if I recall correctly especially in the puberty/childbearing years.

I don't have any references at hand, but as this is an issue that hits close to home for me, I encourage people to try to find out and make their own judgments about non-stick.

1) Heating a non-stick pan with nothing on it, so long that it would fume, is just plain dumb and can easily be avoided

2) Heating foods to 600 deg in your pan is also really difficult, especially if you're cooking with butter or olive oil, if you're even somewhat attentive to what you're cooking and can see and smell your food burning beyond recognition

3) So why does the article advocate using cast-iron, and a particular brand at that? Even if the person writing this article is not a shill, which we don't know, it does look suspicious to point consumers to one possible solution when most of the market out there clearly prefers another (stainless steel)

4) I'm no fan of non-stick either, but really for performance reasons. Scaring people away from non-stick because of what might happen if they do really really dumb things in the kitchen just seems wrong. Would they also advise against using gas stoves?

Hi,

Just last week, I believe it was Friday, the Chicago Tribune had a letter to the editor posted in the Tempo section. The topic of discussion was teflon pans, the writer suggested cast iron pans as the original no-stick surface or at least minimal amount of added fat. He said the only adjustment people needed to make was the style of cleaning their cast iron pans.

We haven't had a teflon pan in our household since we owned birds because of this off gassing problem.

Recently, when I was making crepes/blinis they highly recommended using a teflon pan. Once I had my usual first-one-never-cooks-right in my heavy aluminum pan, they popped out just fine with just an occasional re-buttering.

You can achieve good results without teflon, it just takes some practice.

Regards,

Dr Cheeseman?