silicon cookware?

[jimpierce7]

anybody use this stuff? I have never seen it before today when I went to Walmart. Whats the 411 on this stuff?

[Monica]

Thus far, as long as you don't overheat it (which may be hard to do anyway), it's believed to be pretty safe to use, great with cooking sticky stuff (i.e. candies and whatnot that are known to sticking to pans), and is kind of fun to use!

[jimpierce7]

they have an awesome set of muffin pans at wally world. Guess I may have to get them!!

[kathleen]

I LOVE IT!!! You can't put it on direct heat and only accepts heat to 500 degrees, I believe. It melts. But, other than that...it's great. I have a square baking dish(?) and I bake cakes in it, I can throw a small chicken with potatoes and cover with aluminum. I have a loaf pan made of silicon that I can make meatloaf, breads, and a small lasagna. It' really nice because the clean up is great and you need less oil for preventing items to stick. Don't cut anything in it. I knew better but did it anyway and now there's a hole so I have to replace the item but I'm willing to do it. The muffin trays allow muffins to pop right out and it's uniformly cooked, not like the metal where the bottoms can be darker because the metal holds more heat.

Ooh, I sound like a commercial.

[Nazir's]

Kathleen, I am just glad that you like them and have shared your experiences with us. So basically, you would say that they are safe, right?

[jimpierce7]

thank you!! So far as I can tell, my eyes hurt from reading lol, tey are safe. So I guess I finally get some muffin pans!!

[kathleen]

Originally Posted by Nazir's

Kathleen, I am just glad that you like them and have shared your experiences with us. So basically, you would say that they are safe, right?

I like it and I use it. I'm not saying if it is or it isn't safe.

[Oscars Mom]

I think the cookware is OK but the oven liners areNOT. I read in a bird magazine thats someyones melted(after cooking a holiday dinner ) and she lost a budgie.

[Abyssinian1]

When I moved in with my future husband and our wife-munching macaw, I got rid of about two-thirds of my bakeware, all of my Teflon coated small appliances (I do miss you Geroge Foreman...) and proceeded to replace them with silicon and stainless steel bakeware and appliances. The silicon bakeware has been interesting to use - you still need to grease and flour things as you would any muffin pan (even the nonstick ones) or cake pan so I wouldn't put much stock in the TV commercials that show muffins efortlessyl popping out of the rubber tin. I would use a stainless steel pan under what they consider a cookie sheet (treat it as a baking mat, much like parchment paper) and keep it away from the heating elements (i.e. use stainless stee and parhmentl to broil anything). So far it seems to work just as well as the old non-stick stuff did.

There is an article on Silicon bakeware safety in the September issue of Birdtalk. The gist of the article is that silicon bakeware is safer than traditional nonstick bakeware, but that neither of them should be heated above a certain temperature. Most of the experts asked said that the bakeware in question met all of the the guidelines for safe usage WHEN USED PROPERLY, though they did not consider pet birds in most of the testing. It's the improper usage of silicon cookware (spacing things in the kitchen, getting distracted, setting the oven too high, leaving the broiler on) that's the real danger. Burning anything in the kitchen can release all sorts of stuff - even a basic carbonizing burn (such as letting chicken burn to a crisp in a stainless steel frying pan) can release smoke fumes that can be harmful to a parrot. Your best bet would be to keep all birds out of the kitchen while cooking, period, and to ventilate the kitchen to the outdoors, no matter what you're baking or cooking with.

[Pepper's Pa]

Sorry, but I don’t have anything to add to the topic of the safety of using silicon bakeware. I just wanted to add that I’ve read on several forums dealing with baking that silicon bakeware works best when PAM for Baking is used in it.
On a second topic, a new non-stick material is being introduced. I am not endorsing this material or saying it is safe, I‘m simply sharing some information about it. It does not contain PTFE, which is the harmful material in most non-stick cookware. The new material is called Thermolon. There is information on this material available on the Internet. Here’s a link to a description of this new product as found on HSN.com.
I hope this information is of some help to you.