Enameled pans aren't going to leach anything if you buy them from any reputable manufacturer (which is at least all of the European, American, and Japanese ones) because any colorants added to the glaze will be rated as food safe. In fact, you mentioned titanium: that's what's used to make the inside of white enameled pots look white.
Enameled cast iron (or enameled anything) is a fine choice, it comes with its own limitations culinarily (and advantages) but it isn't going leach anything into your food.
Nevertheless, most glazes have a much more complex composition than the standard borosilicate or soda-lime glasses.
Glazes usually contain colorants and various additives that improve certain properties useful during manufacturing, which do not exist in the glasses used for vessels.
It is possible to make glazes that are perfectly safe for food contact, but historically there were many examples of glazes with harmful components.
Unless a manufacturer provides the composition of the glaze used by them, you cannot know how safe it is.
Moreover, glazes and enamels have a problem that does not exist for stainless steel vessels. The glazes or enamels may crack and expose the base material to the food. However that is somewhat mitigated by their lower price, which facilitates the replacement of the cookware.
Or you could just buy from any EU country:
https://www.european-enamel-association.eu/certification.htm...
> 4.8 Specification and determination of the release of toxic elements
> The specification and determination of the release of toxic elements must comply with the requirements specified in the national laws of the country.
Most of the other requirements are about the mechanical properties of the enamel.
There's also this:
> 4.32 Determination and control of Lead and Cadmium release for hot water tanks
But that doesn't apply to cookware.
There's nothing here about requirements for the composition of the enamel or the making public thereof. And what constitutes a "toxic element" (and presumably the dosage) is left to the laws of each country. Most of these countries would consider stainless steel to meet their leeching requirements as well. So we're back to square one. There's no way to tell what the enamel is leeching. You just have an assurance that it's considered safe.
So we consider stainless steel pans as food safe generally, yet they do leach something. I don't see how food safe could imply that something doesn't leach. Only that we either think it doesn't leach too much or we don't think what it leaches is harmful.
This is why I specified "buy from a reputable manufacturer" because there is no risk of this whatsoever if you get contemporary / new cookware from the indicated regions; that list isn't exhaustive but I stand by this: any cookware you buy new from EU, America, or Japan, will not contain lead in the glaze, or anything else you wouldn't want to eat very small amounts of.
Has this been verified in practice? Is enamel always pure, or can it contain contaminants that can leach?
Again, when you refer to ceramics, are you referring to the tons of ceramic coated cookware that is now immensely popular as a replacement for Teflon? Is this stuff just as bad? https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/cooking-tools/a26078798/bes...
I believe that they use the word "ceramic" to say that the coating is not made from an organic polymer, like Teflon, but from an inorganic oxide or mixture of inorganic oxides.
The correct meaning of ceramic is a material that before processing is soft and plastic, so you can give it any form you want. Then, after heating at very high temperature in an oven, a.k.a. burning, the finished ceramic product becomes hard.
I am pretty certain that this is not how the so-called ceramic coatings are made.
The cookware that I have seen with "ceramic" coatings had bodies made of aluminum. So I assume that the "ceramic" coatings are mostly of aluminum oxide, probably grown electrolytically or chemically.
True ceramic products consisting mainly of aluminum oxide are very common, so I assume that this is why the "ceramic" coating vendors use the word "ceramic".
Alumina, a.k.a. aluminum oxide, is inert enough in most conditions to be safe for food contact, even if not as safe in contact with acidic juices as glass.
As always, the base material is less concerning than the possible existence of undisclosed additives.
It is possible that the so-called "ceramic" coatings are perfectly safe, but nevertheless I would not buy one unless the vendor would state clearly the composition of their "ceramic".
I have seen too many contrary examples in the past, so that I cannot trust anyone who says "Trust us, it is good for you", without providing additional relevant information.
My big thing about this study is that they claim to use realistic cooking parameters. Some dishes may be cooked 6-20 hours, but how common is that? Wouldn't most dishes be under 1 hour and contain less acid? Seems like they're targeting worst case scenarios, which are plausibly realistic but not typical.
So some of it is what you expect, cast iron is basically non stick for lots of things (AKA I would never use anything other than cast iron for pancakes/etc), but I keep a couple Henckels Capri Notte Granitium pans we picked up at cosco handy for the morning eggs. Those seem to be the survivors at this point of a long series of trial and error with non-teflon coatings, most of which seem to work fine for a month or two and then are non stick at the same level as one might expect from cast iron. I have no idea how much I've spent buying pans a few times a year at $20-50 a pop to replace worn out nonstick over the past 10 years.
I make french toast, omelettes, over easy eggs, and toast. I have never had sticking that you are talking about...
A good tip I read is to wipe down the pan with such a thin layer of oil that it's as if you made a mistake and want to remove the oil with just the paper towel instead. It should really be as thin as possible, and you'll see it sort of glaze over as it drys on the stove top. After about 6 months of this, using the pan about once a week, it has been truly non-stick for a while.
Basically following this guide: https://www.cuisinel.com/care-use
[0] https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-t...
[1] https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/02/black-rust-and-ca...
Also, the type of oil you use to season your cast iron cookware is important. You should use flaxseed, grapeseed or avocado oil. Do not use olive oil, because it has an extremely low smoke point. Canola and vegetable/soybean oils are unhealthy.
Fortunately, excessive quantities of iron in food are not dangerous for most people, even when the quantity is great enough to give an unpleasant taste to the cooked food.
In any case, iron cookware is preferable to ceramic/plastic/non-sticking cookware of unknown chemical composition.
All colored enamels have undesirable components.
White enamel can be made perfectly safe for food contact. Unfortunately, being white is not a guarantee for that.
Manufacturers are tempted to include in the enamel composition various oxides that improve the manufacturing properties, e.g. which increase the fluidity of the melted enamel, or which enhance the adherence of the enamel to the base metal, and so on. These additives may leach unwanted substances.
So one may use cookware with white enamel, if they trust that the manufacturer was not too greedy to reduce their costs.
Ideally there should be a law to force all manufacturers of cookware to publish the precise chemical composition of any material used for food contact, like there are laws for labels with the approximate food composition.
Until then, it is safer to distrust any kind of coatings, plastics, enamels or glazes with secret compositions, because in the past there were many bad surprises whenever any of these were analyzed.
Once your iron gets into contact with oxygen, you will no longer consume iron, you will consume rust...
Metallic iron cannot be used in any way by living beings, before it is oxidized to rust.
The leaked iron from cookware is already in the form of "rust", more precisely the iron is leached after it is oxidized to iron ions. The ions with 2 elementary charges remain dissolved in the water, and they may be absorbed by the body, while the iron ions with 3 elementary charges (these are the components of rust in the strict sense, i.e. of red iron oxide) will normally precipitate into red rust crystals, which will pass through the digestive tract mostly without being absorbed (a few might be reduced to ions with 2 charges, and then be absorbed).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32749629
You can buy them in the west now (even on Amazon I think):
It should also be noted that with a properly seasoned cast iron pan, the food isn't interacting as much directly with the iron, since the seasoning layer (polymerized fats) is in the way.
And by "ceramic" I assume you mean the faux-"ceramic-coated" ones that don't actually contain ceramic, right?
In all cookware where the body is ceramic, the surface is covered with some glaze, enamel or plastic coating, which is the material that really counts for food contact.
The information about soaking is interesting.
I was not aware of it, because there are many countries were unglazed pottery is no longer used, at least I have never seen any of it used for food contact, but only for different purposes.
Older Teflon pans and cookware have the problem of PFOA contamination, but that's IIRC been banned for years now.
Also using metal or other "hard" implements in those non-stick pots/pans, which damages the non-stick layer allowing it to flake away into the food prepared in it over time.
But yes, it's probably fine on your fancy glass induction stovetop.
There's a lot of plastics that don't commonly get used but are food rated in industrial applications, it would be cool to see them thoroughly evaluated and if they are safe, made into consumer items.
Ceramics are scary because a few have lead in them, but there are safe ones(Just not that you can afford), they're used for surgical implants.
I wonder what the possibilities are with magnesium. It can be extracted from the ocean and is nontoxic enough to just put back where you found it, so it seems to be the closest we have to a renewable metal.
There's also laser etched lotus effect patterns. Do metals still leach after you make them hydrophobic like that? Could you make magnesium corrosion resistant enough?
The problem is that all plastics contain various additives, which are normally not disclosed by the manufacturer, even in the plastic grades that are approved for food contact.
The risks caused by unknown plastic additives are especially large when the plastics are used above room temperature, e.g. for heating food in a microwave oven.
Storing food in polypropylene vessels or polyethylene bags in a refrigerator is likely to be perfectly safe.
We fully believed BPA was "perfectly safe for food contact" for many, many years. Now of course we know that's not true.
It's always worth remembering to add as far as we know today.
There are hundreds of such examples. What we know today isn't necessarily a hard fact, it's just as good as we know with today's knowledge.
Some chemists have believed that the risks of depolymerization for the plastics that are made with BPA, e.g. polycarbonate, are low, so the risk of BPA leaching into food is low. However there have always been many chemists who have believed that the risks are too high for any such plastic to be considered as safe for food contact.
The problem is that the relevant true experts are almost never consulted for decisions regarding the use of materials for various purposes. Those who are consulted have usually very narrow specializations and can have informed opinions only about a part of the relevant criteria. The final decision about the use of materials is usually done strictly by financial criteria.
Some chemists have found a method to make polycarbonate, a plastic that combined useful properties, like high transparency and high impact resistance. They did not think about which are good uses for it and which are bad uses for it, it was not their job. Then someone else has developed a cheap method to make bottles out of it, also without giving much thought about what is suitable to be stored in such bottles or not, it was not their job. Eventually someone else has decided to fill PC bottles with some beverage and sell them.
The error has been at the end, because any material used for food-contact should be scrutinized much more than for almost any other purposes. There already are laws and regulations about materials for food-contact, but they are neither strict enough, nor applied correctly most of the time.
While there have been many problems with plastics used for inappropriate purposes, there are a lot of similar examples with all kinds of materials, crystal glass with lead used for many centuries (fortunately only the rich could afford it), silver-mercury amalgam used in dentistry for more than a century, uranium glazes and many others.
We can only learn from past mistakes and improve the existing legislation.
In my opinion, the most important would be a law forcing any manufacturer to publish the exact chemical composition of any material that is used for food-contact in their products.
This actually does not leak any valuable trade secret. Anyone with enough money can make a precise chemical elemental analysis of any object, only individual customers cannot afford it.
The valuable trade secrets are in the details of the manufacturing process, not in the final product, which can be analyzed by any competitor.
Although food seems to be improving(But getting more expensive at the same time) and BPA isn't good.
I'm confused, how is that relevant to the topic at hand?
I can't tell, but maybe your comment was calling that out sarcastically.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/hemochromatosis.htm
edit: forgot URL
A friend discovered a few years ago that he has (developed?) hemochromatosis. From what I understand, in Canada the "prescription" for this is to diligently donate blood to Canada Blood Services, I think more frequently than the general public is allowed to. He's got an awesome blood donation record now!
I don't know about Canada but in the US it is illegal to donate blood when you have hemochromatosis. I get phlebotomy every other month (for the past 10 yrs) and my blood is always thrown away.
[1] https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/10746/hemochromat...
I have no clue if his was hereditary or not, I just remember him going to Mexico, feeling funky about half-way through the trip, and his doctor diagnosed it when he got home. Would've been in his 20s.
My case was discovered when my doctor did an iron work-up as part of checking out my liver. The normal level in men is 12-300 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). Mine was very close to 1000 ng/mL at the time. These days my hematologist likes to keep me in the 50-75 ng/mL range.
[1] https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-pr...
(The optimal window also appears narrow enough -- even people with temporary anemia must limit supplements -- that I would not attempt to rely on cookware to supply my iron requirements.)
Is this dietary iron different from the iron you get from a pan? Or do Cheerios cause stress to cells and a special form of cell death?
That being said, I love my pans and probably wouldn't stop using them.
Such as? Could be I'm simply unaware of "most types of cooking."
I mean, sure, if we want to "well technically" the hell out of it, one could probably use glass if you're careful. But one also has to consider safety and convenience.
There are a few details about Flameware here.
https://gizmodo.com/the-pyrex-glass-controversy-that-just-wo...
You can find them on eBay still. I definitely wouldn't use one; they seem utterly impractical. They must be heavy, they are small, and the clip-on, rather than bolt-on handles are going to be rusted and dodgy at this point. You can see why they chose that strategy (to avoid a heat stress point around a bolt) but it can't be without its risks.
I cook in stainless, and after done just put it in the sink with water. After I eat the food, maybe a half hour later, just dump the water and wipe it with a rag.
Point is, why remove the grease, why remove the seasoned crust on pan. Do people take soap and scrub brush to their bbq too?
You don't need to soap wash, or scrub a frying pan.
This sort of behaviour likely keeps leeching to a minimum, compared to vigorously scrubbing and cleaning each use.
Ew! Gross, down you know,
Ha, right, up they sow,
Digust is truth's foe!
horrid, ew, sticks in my craw,
vote it down, hide the truth,
blocked from sight, show no ruth,
cause it's just so uncouth
This is affected by a number of factors including the acidity of the food, how new the pan is, and how the pan is seasoned
https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2...
If kids are low in iron, doctors still recommend cooking using iron pots & pans (in addition to supplements).
> Ethiopian children fed food from iron pots had lower rates of anaemia and better growth than children whose food was cooked in aluminium pots [1]
And to your point about Chromium, the type of iron leached by cast iron may not contribute to cardiovascular disease (the same way as heme iron) [2]
Did the authors somehow adjust for the fact that a high heme iron intake generally implies a diet high in red meat?
So what matters is the hierarchy of the materials from this point of view, i.e. which are better and which are worse.
The best material for food-contact is glass, but glass, while perfect for storage, is not suitable for most types of cooking (even if it is quite possible for someone to eat only food cooked in a microwave oven, in glass cookware).
The next best material is titanium (commercially pure titanium, not the frequently encountered Ti-Al-V alloy). Titanium cookware exists, but it is normally too expensive, unless it is used in some activities where its low weight can justify the high price.
After these 2 cookware materials, which unfortunately are not an acceptable choice for most people, comes the stainless steel.
Yes, stainless steel will leach a little nickel and chromium. However this leaching will be large only for new cookware and it diminishes a lot for used cookware. Even in the case of people with nickel sensitivity, most of which are women, the quantities of nickel leached from used stainless steel cookware are far too low to have any effect.
All the other materials that are used for cookware, including ceramics, can be sources of much more dangerous leaching than stainless steel (excluding glass & titanium).
Ceramics and plastics are the worst (this includes any non-sticking coatings), because, unlike for metals and glasses, their chemical composition is usually kept secret by their manufactures, so you never know what they may leach.