Liquid iron danger free#

Out of all the micronutrients, iron may be the riskiest to supplement with, due to a higher chance of overloading. But for others, especially those who regularly eat red meat, it doesn’t take much to push yourself into excess iron territory. There’s a couple groups of people who don’t have to worry quite as much about iron overload though: menstruating women and vegetarians/vegans.

Too much iron has been linked to a wide variety of conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and colorectal cancer to name just a few.

Liquid iron danger free#

Iron is one of the few nutrients that a doctor will ask you about, and iron even takes up one of the coveted nutrient spots on the US nutrition label! But the same property that makes iron so useful in the body, its ability to give or receive electrons, makes it potentially harmful when you ingest too much, due to increased production of free radicals.

So when most people think of iron, they think of getting enough iron. But iron-deficiency anemia in the US is much less common, with 5 million people having iron-deficiency anemia.

Some will see this as a good thing, especially considering that 1.6 billion people around the world are anemic, with iron deficiency being the main cause. And cooking on a cast iron pan can transfer some of that mineral from the pan to the food to your body. Other than being such an important material for making pans and skyscrapers, iron is also an essential dietary mineral. Our discussion also applies to carbon steel cookware (such as woks), which is made up of 99% iron.Ĭast iron and carbon steel pans are very similar in their makeup and kitchen use, so potential health concerns from cast iron pans also apply to carbon steel pans, which are also known as “blue steel” or “black steel” pans. But still, around 97-98% of a cast iron pan is plain ol’ iron, which is why we’re so interested in its health effects. And it's actually pretty soft, so not great for making pans without adding in some carbon for hardening. Pure iron is rare and mainly comes from fallen meteorites. You can’t just dig up pure iron from the ground. So let’s start by talking a little bit about iron. Not like the more complex pans, which have multiple layers or man-made coatings. Paying the iron priceĬast iron is relatively easy to analyze, as far as health effects go. This provides evidence for its lack of obvious harm, but doesn’t necessarily mean it’s totally safe. What exactly is cast iron? Are there any plausible mechanisms by which it might harm health? What does the research say?Īside from stone, iron is the oldest cooking surface still in use. And not without reason: just because cast iron’s been used for years, by many people who lived long and healthy lives, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the healthiest option for your frying pan. People are starting to question the healthiness of everything, including the venerable cast iron. Actually, it's been used since the appropriately named “Iron Age”, roughly 2500 years ago.įast forward a couple millennia, and we’ve been thrust into the “Spend all day on the Internet Age”. For well over a thousand years, cast iron has been used as a reliable cooking surface.