<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ryanobjc</author><text>The primary difference between vintage, “artisanal” and modern cast iron (eg: lodge) is the former is machined and the latter isn’t.&lt;p&gt;Cast iron, seasoned, is supposed to be slicker than non stick. You should be able to fry an egg in it.&lt;p&gt;With lodge you have to build up that non stick over the sand casting “bumpies” that are left over from the iron casting process.&lt;p&gt;They used to machine those out, especially on the cook surface. Until this latest crop of modern cast iron manufacturers, one would typically have to retreat to vintage or perhaps machine your own.&lt;p&gt;I think most people just look at the sorry state of “lodge” then grab a pfa laden non stick and go home.</text><parent_chain><item><author>jdhn</author><text>I looked at some of those brands to see what made them different from Lodge. One had a different handle, while another one had a thicker bottom and thinner sides for better searing, but they&amp;#x27;re also in the hundreds of dollars. A 12&amp;quot; Lodge skillet is $40, that&amp;#x27;s at least half the price of the 12&amp;quot; skillets for the other brands. For the price, I don&amp;#x27;t think that Lodge can be beat.</text></item><item><author>fencepost</author><text>As I understand it, most (all?) nonstick coatings on pans are chemicals in this general category - some variant of fluorine compounds that hold together well. The biggest problem particularly with older ones is that they start to get less stable as heat gets higher - like it may if you leave an empty nonstick pan over a burner, where it can give off fumes that are particularly toxic to pet birds.&lt;p&gt;Avoiding those compounds likely accounts for at least some of the increased trendiness of cast iron in the past decade or two, including the increase in new &amp;quot;artisanal&amp;quot; cast iron makers like Stargazer, Finex, Butter Pat, Smithey, Field Co and probably a few others (for reviews of a bunch of those, check out Kent Rollins on Youtube). There&amp;#x27;s also quite a bit of information on improving&amp;#x2F;smoothing less expensive cast iron.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Scientists cut the tolerable intake of PFAs by 99.9%</title><url>https://massivesci.com/articles/chemical-exposure-pfas-water-food</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>briandear</author><text>I’ve been to the Lodge factory in rural South Pittsburg Tennessee and I don’t understand what makes “artisanal” cast iron any different from Lodge. It’s pretty much just a marketing hook to convince hipsters to spend hundreds more. The folks that make Lodge are just as “artisanal” as the fancy-pants brands. Lodge has been doing this for over a hundred years. They were “artisanal” before anyone ever used that work. I agree, Lodge can’t be beat. Their iron isn’t any better or worse than the more expensive brands, they just don’t have some bearded “skillet master” in their marketing department convicting people about how good their products are.</text><parent_chain><item><author>jdhn</author><text>I looked at some of those brands to see what made them different from Lodge. One had a different handle, while another one had a thicker bottom and thinner sides for better searing, but they&amp;#x27;re also in the hundreds of dollars. A 12&amp;quot; Lodge skillet is $40, that&amp;#x27;s at least half the price of the 12&amp;quot; skillets for the other brands. For the price, I don&amp;#x27;t think that Lodge can be beat.</text></item><item><author>fencepost</author><text>As I understand it, most (all?) nonstick coatings on pans are chemicals in this general category - some variant of fluorine compounds that hold together well. The biggest problem particularly with older ones is that they start to get less stable as heat gets higher - like it may if you leave an empty nonstick pan over a burner, where it can give off fumes that are particularly toxic to pet birds.&lt;p&gt;Avoiding those compounds likely accounts for at least some of the increased trendiness of cast iron in the past decade or two, including the increase in new &amp;quot;artisanal&amp;quot; cast iron makers like Stargazer, Finex, Butter Pat, Smithey, Field Co and probably a few others (for reviews of a bunch of those, check out Kent Rollins on Youtube). There&amp;#x27;s also quite a bit of information on improving&amp;#x2F;smoothing less expensive cast iron.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Scientists cut the tolerable intake of PFAs by 99.9%</title><url>https://massivesci.com/articles/chemical-exposure-pfas-water-food</url></story>