Why cooking with cast iron is good for you and the environment.
By Beth Politsch

You can take it from your stove top, to your grill to your oven. You can even hang it over a campfire. But there’s more to the benefits of cooking with cast iron than its ability to take a licking from open flames and still maintain its rock solid form. Experts agree that cooking with cast iron is good for the environment and even good for your health. Read on to find out why your grandma’s antique cast iron skillet is worth re-seasoning!

It lasts forever. And ever.

A while back a customer told me he had found an old cast iron pan in his grandmother’s house. He took it home, started using it, and then found an exact replica of the pan at an antique show that was billed as civil-war era! Indeed, once you’ve bought a piece of cast iron cookware, or found one, it’s yours for your entire lifetime, and the lifetime of generations after you. And, as writer Collin Dunn tells us on the Planet Green website, “this ultimate longevity is what makes cast iron such a great, green addition to any kitchen (or a great, green cooking option, if you’ve already got one or more). Imagine never having to replace your cookware again. Ever.”

The thing is, if you accidentally mess up the seasoning on your cast iron skillet or pot, all you have to do is re-season it, and you can do this over and over again. Got rust? No problem. Just scour off the rust and re-season the pan. That’s why very old cast iron cookware, like our customer’s civil war era pan, is still good today. It may look too dirty and worn to cook on, but many times, with a little elbow grease, and some actual grease (cooking oil or shortening), it’s as good as new!

The Natural Non-Stick

It’s not uncommon to hear people say that they’re leery of cooking with cast iron because of concerns about seasoning and cleaning. The truth is, cast iron is much better for your health and for the environment than “cookware coated with non-stick chemicals like Teflon,” according to the Environmental Working Group website, as referenced on the very informative blog, Cooking in Cast Iron.

Here’s an excerpt from information found the EWG website:

“Statistics reported by the Cookware Manufacturers Association indicate that 90 percent of all the aluminum cookware sold in the United States in 2001 was coated with non-stick chemicals like Teflon (Cooks Illustrated, September 2002). Chemicals and tiny, toxic Teflon particles released from heated Teflon kill household pet birds. At least four of these chemicals never break down in the environment, and some are widely found in human blood.“

It doesn’t take an expert to realize that the better option is cookware that you season yourself with natural oils and heat or pre-seasoned cookware, like the Lodge Logic line that Backyard Bash carries. Pre-seasoning is “nothing more than vegetable oil (and it’s Kosher vegetable oil if you get a Lodge pan!) heated at high temperatures. Yes, it can flake off, but it won’t hurt human beings or animals and this vegetable oil coating is fully biodegradable,” explains Rick Mansfield on Cooking in Cast Iron. And yes, if your nephew haphazardly tosses your pre-seasoned skillet into the dish-washer, you can still re-season it as usual.

Need to pump up your iron intake?

Another potential benefit of cast iron is that it adds iron to your food. According to the Go Ask Alice website, researchers have found that cooking with cast iron, and especially a new cast iron pan, can add significant amounts of iron to food. For example, “acidic foods that have a higher moisture content, such as applesauce and spaghetti sauce, absorbed the most iron. As a matter of fact, the big winners in the foods tested were these two items. For 100 grams of each (about 3 oz.), the applesauce increased in iron content from 0.35 mg. to 7.3 mg., and the spaghetti sauce jumped from 0.6 mg. to 5.7 mg. of iron.”

So, as long as you don’t have hemochromatosis, or iron overload disease, cooking with cast iron is beneficial, because it actually adds an essential mineral to your food!

Smoothed with rocks from the Tennessee River Bed?

Yep, that’s right. Writer Rick Mansfield tells us on Cooking in Cast Iron that part of the process of creating Lodge Cast Iron cookware is “pounding the pans with rocks to create a smoother surface on the molded cast iron. Lodge uses rocks taken directly from the Tennessee River bed for this process.” I guess it’s difficult to find a better example of eco-friendly production than using stones that have been smoothed over centuries by the rushing water of the Tennessee River to create the surface of a pan that someone will use to cook a nourishing meal for his or her family.

Sources:

Dunn, Collin. “Cook With Cast Iron Instead of Non-Stick.” Planet Green. 23 March, 2008. http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/cook-with-cast-iron.html

“Canaries in the Kitchen: Teflon Toxosis: Tips on Safe Cookware.” Environmental Working Group. http://www.ewg.org/node/8310

Mansfield, Rick. “Green Iron: The Environmental Benefits of Cast Iron Cookware.” Cooking in Cast Iron. 25 July, 2008. http://www.cookingincastiron.com/files/20080725_green_iron.html

“Does cooking with cast iron pots and pans add iron to our food?” Go Ask Alice. 28 March 2003. http://www.goaskalice.com/2378.html

More information:

Cooking in Cast Iron: Entire website is a great source of info about cast iron!

Lodge Cast Iron Eco-Responsibility: Read more about the measures Lodge is taking to make their foundry more environmentally friendly!

Backyard Bash: Read about seasoning and maintaining cast iron cookware in a previous BYB newsletter article.