On a stone, or over an open wood fire, the only way to cook! Though I’m so paleo I don’t believe in using fire to cook personally, and don’t eat anything I didn’t pick up off the ground with my bare hands.
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I would if I could.
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Plastic is carbon-based. Silicone, is, well, silicon-based, ie: not plastic.
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“Common” plastics have have a C-C bond backbone, with many flavors (polyesters with CO-O-C moieties, polyethers with C-O-C, polyamides with CO-NH-C, and many MANY more). Silicone have Si-O-Si-O backbone, with alkyls (typically methyls) hanging off to the sides.
But both are made primarily from crude oil, which is a naturally occurring material. (The silicone pedigree can be tracked also to silica sand, which is natural as well.)
So both “carbon” plastics and silicones could be considered natural.
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I’m no chemist, but I’m not so sure about that. Certainly some plastics are organic, and silicon is not organic, but silicone is sometimes created by pairing silicon chains with organic molecules to create compounds that are polymeric, which seems to be the definition of plastic according to the IUPAC.
Either way, to me is seems like plastic which just makes me uncomfortable using it in actual cooking. The more I learn about plastics, the less I like using them even for food storage.
Ah, I wasn’t clear in my meaning there. She’s a lovely person who shouldn’t be in ANY kitchen, not even her own (her family would be the first to agree with me).
As for how I would respond if I were the culprit of a mishap in someone else’s home, see @SmashMartian’s response above.
I’ve used some really nice Du Pont teflon bakeware liners in the past, but unfortunately they have proven to be entirely elusive in my search for more of them. Maybe I’ll try these instead. (Parchment paper feels a bit wasteful.)
Try to look at the vendors of industrial materials? PTFE- or silicone-coated fiberglass cloth is used in many industrial applications, including conveyor belts. Some of the materials are even FDA-grade, rated for long-term food contact.
http://www.precisionfabric.com/fiberglass-fabrics/ptfe-coated.html
Um, you know that most parchment paper is coated with silicone, right?
I don’t acually use parchment to avoid silicone; it’s more that because I use it, I don’t see a need to buy these expensive mats.
Anyway, thanks, I did not know that.
I buy If You Care unbleached paper, and it says on the side that it contains “Silicone, derived from Silicon, abundant in nature, non-toxic.” Which is confusing, given the distinction made here between the two:
The product description at Amazon says this:
Other so called environmental friendly brands are coated with Quilon, which contains metal and becomes toxic when incinerated. Silicone is completely safe because it is a non-organic natural product.
Isn’t, say, engine oil also a “non-organic natural product”?
So, I dunno, maybe at least shouldn’t add it to compost.
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