Here’s another reason to love your cast iron cookware — it’s good for you!  In fact, it may just be the healthiest way to cook. 

As anyone who regularly reads my blog will know, I love to cook with cast iron.  It heats evenly, quickly, consistently.  If properly cared for, it will last a lifetime.  Even if often abused, it can be restored to wonderful usefulness without much effort and will still outlast any other cooking vessel.  

But studies show that cooking with cast iron is also beneficial to your health.  As you cook, small amounts of iron seep into the food your cooking.  And that’s a good thing, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  They consider iron a healthy food additive. 

Iron is certainly something that everyone needs.  It helps the body manufacture red blood cells.  Doctors even recommend that those with anemia use cast iron regularly to help increase the amount of iron in their diet. Iron is especially good for women during their child-bearing years.  (I don’t think I really need to spell this one out for you.

Cast iron cookware can be used for any kind of cooking, and is naturally non-stick.  So when compared to the likes of Teflon, with it’s associated health and environmental risks, or even stainless steel–which is actually a mixture of several different metals, including nickel, chromium and molybdenum, which can also trickle into foods–cast iron is a safer, healthier alternative.

So the next time you bake up a pone of Southern Cornbread or roast a sweet potato or even sizzle a steak, remember, you’re doing it because it’s good for you.