The TRUTH about Ceramic Cookware

if you have Instagram or you just exist on the internet there is a good chance that you have seen ads or videos about these very cute very fashionable looking pans that make the most beautiful dishes stick free this is not your roommate's Teflon pan this is a new face in the kitchen World ceramic cookware [Music] cookware now ceramic cookware has a lot of the same promises that Teflon had when it first came out plus a few more that we're going to talk about in a little bit but to understand why we're even talking about ceramic you have to understand Teflon first teflon's Shady history is this huge deeply unsettling can of worms that we just started to crack open in our Gore-Tex video if you're interested in learning about that more check out that one but to sum things up for the uninitiated Teflon is basically one brand name for a magical substance called polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE which is best known as the coating that makes your cookware non-stick in the early days PTFE was manufactured by using her floral octanoic acid pfoa which has since been banned in many countries for doing really annoying things like causing cancer killing people and over overall wreaking havoc on our ecosystems around literally the entire world because it never degrades like ever it's like herpes you just you get it and it never goes away after facing legal challenges Teflon no longer uses pfoas specifically and has shifted to using a related chemical that hasn't really been around as long and we don't really know what the dangers of that might be understandably people don't necessarily trust this company anymore it's not just that they helped poison literally everyone on the Earth but they did so knowing of the danger manufacturers have been using pfoas since the 1930s when they were finally forced to stop over 70 years later you just know that if their updated manufacturing processes are equally as destructive they're not going to slow down until the legal pressure kicks in but for all their Hang-Ups Teflon got us used to an amazing substance that does honestly make cooking and cleaning so much easier which puts us in a bit of a pickle potentially cancerous forever chemicals or having scraped Gunk off of your pan how are you supposed to make a decision like that well fortunately our Place Green plan blue diamond and many others are here to tell you that you don't have to anymore they've got all the answers to your cooking problems and it is ceramic cookware ceramic is a super basic material that humans have been using for tens of thousands of years traditional ceramic is just clay heated in an oven it's durable hard often stylish and as a bonus it doesn't produce toxic waste that may be killing you and everything around you but see when we say ceramic and when they say ceramic we're not actually talking about the same thing when you see all those brightly colored beautiful always pans on Instagram they're not a hundred percent ceramic they're not even clay rather they're just regular metal pans that are ceramic coated and by that we mean that they're coated with some kind of silicon base but that doesn't sound all that sexy so they called it ceramic when the pan is heated it releases part of its coating to create a non-stick surface for your food in the end you have an incredibly stylish lightweight easy to wash product that really feels like it should be eco-friendly and non-toxic if you look at the advertisements for these that's exactly what they say companies highlight that their products don't contain things like pfoas ptfes and yet are just as functional if not more so than those options even just the name ceramic Harkens back to a time-tested tried and true traditional material used by Artisans since before we can even Farm of course that's not what ceramic cookware technically means anymore but there's still this earthy artisanal Association played up by these companies that lends itself well on social media gaining the ceramic movement massive attention on places like Tick Tock and Instagram now science is very impressive and it can make all kinds of wonderful things happen and not all of them are horrible and cancerous so is the ceramic cookware Trend as scary as the Teflon one let us first start with the eco-friendly claims it is likely true that most ceramic cookware does not use the same level of hazardous chemicals as say Teflon however avoiding some of the worst chemicals known to a humankind doesn't make something eco-friendly there's a bit more to it than that one of the first things we have to consider when we're talking about sustainability is how long the thing will last it turns out that ceramic cookware can be vulnerable to warping at high temperatures which is usually fine since ceramic is an excellent conveyor of heat on top of this upkeep is a little finicky for these things you can't just use metal utensils or dishwashers and even if you perfectly maintain your ceramic pan just by cooking with it the coating will slowly wear off until you have to just buy a new one this could happen in just a matter of years for what can sometimes be a thousand dollar cook set that's ridiculous especially when you can get an indestructible cast iron pan from your local thrift store for like five bucks but in some ways they're actually worse than Teflon pans which are supposed to last about five years by going ceramic you might be cutting back on chemicals per pan but you'll still be getting more pans overall but to make matters worse you might not even be cutting back on the chemicals as much as you think the thing is not a whole lot of ceramic cookware is totally open about what they're actually putting into the product there's been complaints about things like potentially hazardous nanoparticles like titanium dioxide contaminating your food which seems a little bit like the the thing that they set out to fix in the first place and that's just in the first layer you might notice that these companies tend to emphasize the non-stick nature of their Coatings but what they don't talk about as much is what's in the metal base after all it's not supposed to be touching your food so why make sure that it's food grade right but as we've learned these Coatings break down so that one time your buddy uses a metal spatula in your pan next the bottom that could mean that now your food is picking up on whatever metals are in the pan below this could include stuff like lead and cadmium depending on how strict the regulations are where you're living but yes these are generalizations here let's take a breath there are better and worse brands for this if you are worried about aluminum you can get stainless steel if you're worried about nanoparticles and heavy metals you can go for something like our place that assures us that these aren't present but what you can't get away from is the silicon-based soul gel coating that makes ceramic cookware what it is every single brand will use a different blend of their coating but the basic idea behind all of them is to take silicon which is basically like sand and oxygen and combine it with other inorganic components and suspend it in a solution that gels together to form a inorganic Matrix somehow this Matrix Bonds in the pan in a way that makes your eggs slide off nicely I'm going to be honest with you I don't fully understand a lot of what that means and from our research it doesn't look like a lot of these internet cookware reviewers do either which is a bit of a problem it's super not clear what's actually in these proprietary Blends and remember that we end up eating this stuff when the coating sheds is the coating just sand as some people say or do we end up eating actual silicone as others claim or are we dealing with some weird freaky blend of who knows what we actually don't know at this point and I would love to just say ignorance is bliss you know eat your heart out enjoy your non-stick miraculous cookware but we have Teflon as proof of how these things can go horribly wrong if you are interested in this we always list the sources in the description of these videos if you have more insight into them than we do please leave comments on these videos because that is an additional resource for people who are doing research into maybe buying pans and they click on this video so thank you for participating and if you did like the video up to this point and I haven't pushed you away maybe you can like it too so to recap here a bit we are giving you the Skeptics perspective they can't just sell something to the public that is deemed dangerous or causes cancer or something like that while they do do that with cigarettes but that's that's like a different thing the current rhetoric in the scientific Community about this stuff is that silicone and ceramic cookware in general is probably safe to use but they did say that same thing about Teflon when it first came onto the scene so you have to make your own decisions now I probably wouldn't have as much to complain about here if there was a genuine need for this kind of Technology but the reality is there's a ton of other cooking options out there that already exist that are awesome of course there is no magical cookware that will do everything for you and do everything that you want the Perfect Blend of convenience durability and health you're going to have to sacrifice something no matter what you get and might I just suggest and I know this is not going to be popular sacrificing on convenience the world of cookware is vast and complicated and there are pros and cons to everything but we got a few ideas to get you thinking probably the Granddaddy and most iconic cookware to have ever graced the Earth is the cast iron fry pan this is probably going to be the most durable thing that your family ever owns the downside is that you do have to season it which can take some time and diligence and sometimes you have to wash it in a specific way although there are arguments over this online of course what I like about it is that it's a more intentional purchase that will take a bit of extra effort but it retains your heat so well and it Cooks things really nicely and you also get to build a bit of a Sentimental attachment to this crazy looking pan now seasoning isn't your thing that may be a stainless steel pan is your best bet yes in some cases there is risk of chromium and nickel getting into your food with a stainless steel pots and pans especially as they get damaged but we've been cooking with them for a very long time and it's been a relatively small issue especially in comparison to the scandals of those um other cookware products for talking to me major downside of stainless steel however is that you will probably have to scrub a bit after you cook sometimes quite a lot and if you just like the name ceramic you could consider actual ceramic you can still get pure clay pots and pans that work wonderfully high quality ceramic and glass products might just be the only materials that will 100 not leech hazardous materials into your food extrema for example is a company that makes stuff simply with just clay minerals and water none of that other weird stuff that could potentially contaminate your food in fact their products are baked at such a high temperature that any kind of impurities will not survive the process even if they were included when treated properly extrema can last forever although it does have its own idiosyncrasies that you will have to get used to and figure out as you cook it is also not non-stick so yes you will be scrubbing these things you might have to do a little bit of work with these other options but your conscience might be able to rest a little bit better but the key here is to be intentional to look into Brands before buying from them and make sure that they're open about what they're putting into their products of all the stuff that you're going to put Research into and spend money on the stuff that you're cooking your food with should probably be it but no matter what you choose or what you think thank you so much for watching this video hit that like button if you did and if you subscribe then we'll see you in the next one thanks for watching thank you [Music] gotta get the sleeves rolled because I was told by someone that that would make me look more fashionable nailed it

Channel: Future Proof

Views: 1,135,725

Keywords: ceramic cookware, ceramic pan, ceramic, ceramic pot, ceramic pots and pans, pots and pans, kitchen, kitchenware, cookware, ourplace, our place pan, our place always pan, ourplace always pan, ourplace pan, ourplace cookware, non stick pan, nonstick pans, toxic, teflon, is teflon safe, is ceramic coating worth it, is ceramic coating safe, are ceramic pans safe, cast iron, cast iron pan, stainless steel pan, aluminum pan, education, sustainability, future proof

Id: TeXObJa4D4k

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022