What are the best types of pots and pans to use?
In my last video, I expressed concerns about using aluminum cookware. So what type of pots and pans is best to use? As I explained in my video, Stainless Steel vs Cast Iron: Which Cookware is Best? Is Teflon Safe?, stainless steel is an excellent choice. It is the metal of choice for use in “applications where safety and hygiene are paramount, such as kitchenware.” But what about the research showing that the nickel and chromium in stainless steel, which protect the iron from rusting, can leach into food during cooking? Leaching only seems to occur when the cookware is new. “Metal leaching decreases with repeated cooking cycles and stabilizes after the sixth cooking cycle.” That is, after you have cooked six times with the cookware. In more typical everyday situations, the use of stainless steel pots is considered safe, even for most people who are extremely sensitive to these metals.
Slightly leaching metal can In the case of straight iron, like a cast iron skillet, this may be a good thing, as it may improve the condition of the iron and potentially have a “beneficial effect.” reduce Incidence of iron deficiency anemia in children and women of reproductive age. The only caveat is that fry Cast iron. Frying is bad for your health regardless of the type of cookware you use, but at high temperatures vegetable oils can react with the iron to produce trans fats.
How about using a Teflon-coated frying pan? Teflon (also known as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)) is a material that is Used Teflon’s dark history was the subject of the 2019 film, “The Dark History of Teflon.” Dark WaterStarring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway as employees of DuPont’s Teflon division start Before DuPont got rid of all of their female employees, they had several women who gave birth to deformed babies. Of course, the company buried it all and hid it from regulators and the general public. Despite having “significant knowledge in the history of the industry” of how toxic some of the chemicals used to make Teflon were, the company managed to hide it. Eventually, they were forced to settle for over $500 million after one of the chemicals was found to be linked to “kidney and testicular cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension, ulcerative colitis and high cholesterol.”
“At normal cooking temperatures, PTFE coated cookware releases a variety of gases and chemicals that range from mildly to severely toxic” As you can see below and at 2:38 in my video, different gases are released at different temperatures and their toxic effects have been documented.
Have you ever heard the phrase “canary in the coal mine”? It’s more like the “kitchen canary.” Cooking with Teflon cookware has been known to kill pet birds, and Teflon-coated heat lamp bulbs can kill half your chicken flock.
“Apart from the gases released when heating the cooking pan, the coating itself also starts to cause damage after a certain period of time. When cooking with Teflon-coated pans, slow heating is usually recommended,” but it is not hard to imagine that consumers might ignore this. Also, if care is not taken, Teflon can flake off and get into food, although the effects of ingesting it are unknown.
We found only one study that looked at the human health effects of cooking with Teflon pots and pans. Researchers found that using Teflon cookware was associated with about a 50% increased risk of colon cancer, but it may depend on what you’re cooking. “Teflon cookware is primarily used for hazardous cooking techniques such as grilling, deep-frying, baking, and barbecuing meat, poultry, and fish at high temperatures.” These cooking techniques produce carcinogenic heterocyclic amines (HCAs) from animal proteins. In turn, animal fats produce another type of carcinogen called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, Teflon itself may also contain suspected carcinogens, such as the C8 compound also known as PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), which appeared in the movie “Dark Waters.”
“Due to concerns about toxicity, PFOA has been replaced by other chemicals such as GenX, but it is suspected that these new replacements may be similarly toxic.” However, we are already polluting the planet with PFOA, and it can be pre-packaged in foods before they are cooked, especially in dairy products, fish and other meats. Currently, “meat is the main source of human exposure to these toxic contaminants.” Among them, seafood is the worst. In a study of the global diet, fish and other seafood were the “main source” of perfluoroalkyl substances, as expected, given that everything ends up in the ocean. The aquatic food chain is the “main mechanism by which” these toxins are “transferred” to the human diet, but “foods stored or cooked in grease-resistant packaging materials,” such as microwave popcorn, may also be a source.
In 2019, Oral-B Glide Dental Floss TestedResearchers found evidence of Teflon-based compounds in 6 of the 18 dental floss products they tested. Did people who used these types of floss have elevated levels in their bloodstream? Yes, they did. As you can see below and at 5:28 in my video, Oral-B Glide flossers had higher concentrations of perfluorohexane sulfonic acid. video.
There teeth While many environmental exposures are unavoidable in modern society, we shouldn’t make things worse by adding them to consumer products. At the very least, we have the power to “reduce our personal exposure to these harmful chemicals.”
This is the second in a three-part video series on cookware. The first is Are aluminum pots, bottles and foil safe?and next Are melamine and polyamide plastic tableware safe?.
What about pressure cooking? We discussed that in “Does Pressure Cooking Preserve Nutrients?”.
So what’s the safest way to cook meat? See Carcinogens in Meat.
