If Cooking Spray's Chemical Propellant Sticks To A Non-Stick Pan, Why Eat It At All?

I bought a new non-stick hard-anodized pan recently and noticed this warning in the intructions:

DO NOT use aerosol cooking sprays. Aerosol sprays contain a chemical propellant that is difficult to remove. Instead, use an oil mister filled with olive or vegetable oil, or dab a bit of oil on a paper towel and carefully wipe the interior of the pan.

Now, in a lot of cases like this I'd be suspicious that they were just trying to get you to buy more crap you don't really need, or establish one of a hundred ways they'll try to get themselves out of fulfilling the warranty.

People are already way too mistrusting of government and American regulators do a very good job of protecting us from major health threats, so I don't want to sow too much mistrust. But after learning that McDonald's "egg whites" have 15 ingredients, that Velveeta contains sodium phosphate (also used as a bowel cleanser), or about any of the shady food practices banned in Europe but allowed in America, I'm beginning to wonder if smart consumers need to do more self-policing on stuff that's on the "somewhat to moderately" end of the awful scale.

I bought a Misto olive oil sprayer, which an exhaustive 15-second review of ratings at Amazon revealed was the best/cheapest one. Apparently they're a bit of a pain to take care of - you need to clean it once a month & even then they only last about a year. But I'd rather struggle to clean the oil out of my sprayer than figure out how to clean the propellant out of my small intestine.

Deep Thoughts on Blueberry Muffins

16 minutes seems like FOREVER when my blue heaven is waiting to come out of the oven.

While I'm waiting for my Saturday morning breakfast of Betty Crocker muffins to be ready, I thought I'd mock the tin the "wild" blueberries come imprisoned in. There's no indication of where the blueberries come from, and they're of course joined in the tin by high fructose corn syrup.

As part of the mix, the blueberries are almost an afterthought, looking tiny even on the box artwork. I mean, it's not the flour, sugar & milk I'm excited about. Nor is it the eggs, or even the vegetable oil. It's the blueberries. (I'm fully aware this package only cost me about $3 & I should temper my expectations accordingly.)

Fortunately, back in high school I spent many days in the kitchen of Rebecca's Cafe in Boston with people how actually know how to cook, like my cousin Paul Whalen & the immortal Jim Sterling. To get the muffins even close to the consistency they did, I have to add, and I am not making this up, an additional half pint of blueberries.

Finally, I can't make blueberry muffins without thinking about this scene from Casino. EQUAL AMOUNT: