Does iron from cast-iron skillets and other cooking vessels leach into food?
It can, but the amount is highly variable. Leaching iron could be beneficial in some circumstances, several careful studies have shown, said Dennis D. Miller, a professor of food chemistry and nutrition at Cornell University.
Two factors influence how much iron enters the diet, Miller said. Iron tends to be much more soluble at high acidity, so more would be leached into a tomato sauce cooked in an iron pot than into an egg. And second, iron leaching is a slow process, so foods that take a long time to cook will get more iron from the vessel.
Several studies have found a lower prevalence of iron deficiency in subjects whose food was cooked in iron pots compared with control subjects whose food was cooked in glass or Teflon-lined pots, Miller said. While some have suggested that iron consumption from pots could put some people at risk of an overdose, other nutritionists note that only about 1 percent of Americans have iron overloads, compared with 6 percent who are iron deficient.
ActiveStyle on 01/26/2015