Cast iron pans have gone through a resurgence in recent years.
People love the involved maintenance of keeping cast iron seasoned.
It offers a connection to cooking that many modern materials lack.
Cast iron is also excellent for heat retention, making it highly efficient and predictable to work with.
If you’re considering cast iron but aren’t sure about safety, we have you covered.
Let’s take a look to see are cast iron pans safe.
What’s In a Cast Iron Pan?
Unlike modern pans that are made from alloys or even several different materials bonded together, cast iron contains only one ingredient.
That, of course, is iron. Iron is smelted in its raw form, impurities are removed, and then it is poured into a cast to form a pan.
So now you know exactly what’s in a cast iron pan, but we need to figure out if it’s dangerous.
Iron is not just a metal used for manufacturing products.
It’s also an important dietary element. You need the right amount of iron in your diet to remain healthy.
Cooking in a cast iron pan causes trace amounts of iron to leach into your food, which adds to your dietary iron.
This in itself isn’t dangerous, but it depends on a few factors…
- If you suffer from an iron deficiency, the iron you get from cooking in a cast iron pan could be beneficial for you.
- If you have too much iron in your blood, a cast iron pan could increase your levels, and potentially cause harm. Too much dietary iron can lead to poisoning.
- If you’re like the average person in good health, cooking with iron is likely to have very little discernable effect on your health or your blood iron levels.
The food you cook will influence how much iron you actually consume when using a cast iron pan.
Acidic foods and liquids are most likely to leech iron from the pan.
One serving of tomato-based pasta sauce cooked in an iron pan will leach around 5.7mg of iron, or almost all of the daily 8mg recommended for males.
Females require more iron and are recommended to get 18mg every day between the ages of 19 and 50, and 8mg every day after the age of 50.
The cast iron pan could contribute significantly providing that you only cooked acidic food like pasta sauce and ate it daily.
The key here, like in most aspects of life, is to cook a variety of foods, including non-acidic foods
It’s Safe to Cook with Cast Iron
When asking are cast iron pans safe, the answer is yes.
Limit acidic ingredients and rotate your cookware to avoid consuming too much dietary iron.
Beyond this, there’s nothing inherently dangerous about using cast iron cookware.
If you’re ready to try cast iron cooking to see what all the hype is about, you can invest in this
It comes with a lifetime warranty and is pre-seasoned for convenience.
Cookware that inspires you to try new recipes is always a good thing.
If you’ve resisted buying a cast iron pan because of safety concerns, you can now go ahead and buy your first one with confidence.