I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumor that cast iron can leak par­ti­cles of iron into your food, and if you haven’t, I’m going to tell you about it right now. A lot of peo­ple have turned away from cast iron cook­ware in fear that they may be get­ting iron forced into their sys­tem through the meals they fix. Peo­ple freak out when they hear that metal is being put in their food and quickly buy the first glass pan they can find. You’d prob­a­bly like me to say next that this is all a lie and that cast iron leaks noth­ing at all…but then I’d be lying to you.

The great news is that iron is actu­ally good for you! In fact, your body needs iron to pro­duce red blood cells which your body uses to trans­port oxy­gen. A lot of peo­ple have iron defi­cien­cies, so cook­ing with cast iron can actu­ally help their bod­ies func­tion bet­ter, not worse. Women who are about to enter menopause may find this quite help­ful as their diets usu­ally don’t con­tain enough of the iron they need. Over­all, a lit­tle bit of metal may not be that bad.

Iron can be dan­ger­ous though for peo­ple who have an over­abun­dance of it in their sys­tems. Too much iron can increase a person’s risk of heart dis­ease, increased aging, or even can­cer. Peo­ple who eat a lot of red meat, dried fruit, nuts, or greens may already have a suf­fi­cient amount of iron in their bod­ies. Any­one who has been diag­nosed or may be diag­nosed with iron over­load dis­ease (hemochro­mato­sis) should prob­a­bly avoid cast iron cook­ware or use it only in moderation.

You can see why peo­ple are a lit­tle scared of cast iron cook­ware. For some it can be great, but for oth­ers it can be quite dan­ger­ous. So why use cast iron cook­ware at all? It’s bet­ter to be safe than sorry, right? Though this may be true, by elim­i­nat­ing cast iron from your kitchen, you are miss­ing out on some of the most durable and ever­last­ing cook­ware on the mar­ket. Invest­ing in a good cast iron pan is some­times pricey, but they last forever.

Another way to get the ben­e­fits of cast iron cook­ware while min­i­miz­ing any issues regard­ing iron leak­age is to choose enam­eled cast iron. The enamel coat­ing on qual­ity cast iron com­pletely encap­su­lates that cast iron essen­tially elim­i­nat­ing the iron con­tact with your food. But the heat dis­tri­b­u­tion and reten­tion char­ac­ter­is­tics are totally retained. .

If you choose to use the tra­di­tional cast iron, the trick to stay­ing healthy and still eat­ing well is in the sea­son­ing of the iron. You’ll want to choose a piece of cook­ware that has a pretty smooth sur­face with few div­ots or chips in them (you might be sur­prise at what you can find at garage sales). The smoother the sur­face, the eas­ier it will be to sea­son and the longer it will last. The oil layer on the out­side of the pan will help reduce some of the iron emit­ted and will also pro­tect the integrity of the piece.

Unless you know that you have too much iron in your sys­tem, you should have no rea­son to worry about cast iron cook­ware. If you’re still wor­ried about using cast iron, use the enamel alter­na­tive which is just as ver­sa­tile and is avail­able in an array of designer colors.

Cast iron may not be for every occa­sion but is one of the more ver­sa­tile options for the kitchen. You should have one or two pieces in yours.

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