Using cast iron for cooking presents a little known but serious health risk particularly for middle-aged men and menopausal women. How to avoid this issue and use safely! 
Given the amount of time I spend in the kitchen preparing meals for my family, you might be surprised to learn that I do not own any cast iron pans. What’s more, I don’t intend to purchase or use cast iron anytime in the future (I choose to cook in toxin-free, traditional clay pots).
This may seem like heresy particularly since cast iron skillets are almost universally considered to be a healthy and durable choice for the preparation of homecooked meals.
However, I have good reasons for my decision, and science bears out my serious concerns about using cast iron pans unless they also include a quality enamel layer to prevent contact of the food with the iron surface.
Excess Iron is a Health Hazard
My primary reason for opting out of cast iron revolves around the health problems caused by excess iron in the diet. Research has demonstrated that cooking with iron pots and pans significantly raises iron levels in food. Correspondingly, the iron levels of those who eat that food increase as well. (1, 2)
Women do not typically need to worry about this problem as long as they are menstruating. The monthly cycle is a protective factor against this condition. Growing children also are not particularly susceptible as growth obviously requires more blood and more iron.
Adult Men and Menopausal Women Most at Risk
However, for adult men (even fully grown young men) and menopausal women, cast iron can definitely pose a problem as the iron that naturally gets into food from the utilization of this type of cookware can result in iron rising to toxic levels. This condition is associated with a host of serious health problems.
Iron is one of the few minerals we cannot eliminate except through blood loss. Therefore supplements should never contain iron. Moreover, cooking with cast iron is a questionable choice for this segment of the population.
Most people view iron as a nutrient, and indeed it is. It is also a powerful agent of oxidation in the body. This means that excess iron increases the chances of cancer and can severely damage the heart, arteries, and other organs.
In addition, persons with an inherited condition called hemochromatosis, or iron overload disease, can be especially harmed from iron intake. If you have any family members with this condition (about 1 million Americans), you should be especially careful with sources of iron in your diet.
Iron Overload Symptoms
Unfortunately, the symptoms of iron overload are similar to those of other conditions. Therefore it may be wise to request a transferrin saturation test at your next check-up to eliminate iron as a potential source of your health woes.
Avoiding cast iron is particularly important if you suffer from any of the following conditions and/or are an adult male or menopausal female:
- Fatigue
- Joint or muscle weakness
- Mysterious stomach or other gastrointestinal pain/nausea
- Weight loss that cannot be explained
- Elevated liver enzymes
- Shortness of breath
- Early menopause
- Loss of sex drive
- Impotence
- Loss of body hair (this is also a symptom of adrenal fatigue)
Later stage symptoms of iron toxicity
If iron overload continues for extended periods of time, more serious symptoms can emerge such as the following.
- Greying or bronzing of the skin
- Blood sugar issues
- Irregular heartbeat
- Liver problems
- Arthritis
How to Resolve Iron Overload Quickly
If you’ve been cooking with cast iron for a long time and are an adult male or menopausal female, it might be wise to donate blood right away. This practice will reduce iron stores immediately. Remember, loss of blood is the only way to resolve iron toxicity problems.
Continue regular blood donation until you can completely switch over to another type of nontoxic cookware such as clay, enamel, glass, or titanium.
Anemia Usually from an Imbalanced Gut NOT Inadequate Iron
Believe it or not, there is plenty of iron in the diet of the typical American. Even those eating the horrific Standard American Diet need not worry about inadequate iron intake. In addition, there is almost certainly adequate iron intake for a person eating a diet based on traditional foods and also in the diets of vegetarians.
Therefore, if you are anemic or suffer from pregnancy anemia and feel the need to use cast iron to increase your iron levels, you may wish to consider an imbalanced gut as a more likely source of the problem. Common gut pathogens consume iron and are a frequent cause of anemia.  These pathogens include Actinomyces spp., Mycobacterium spp., pathogenic strains of E. coli, Corynebacterium spp., along with many others. Previous use of the birth control pill or antibiotics makes one especially prone to anemia issues.
Unfortunately, increasing iron intake with cast iron only makes these iron loving pathogens grow stronger. It does little to remedy anemia over the long haul. Therefore, rebalancing the gut with beneficial bacterial strains through diet and lifestyle changes rather than use of cast iron or iron supplements is the best approach to solving the root of the problem.
Using Cast Iron Safely
As mentioned above, using enameled cast iron is a safe option if you prefer the ease of use and heavy feel of cast iron pans. The enameled layer protects the food from contact with the iron portion of the pan and hence, offers an option that is both practical and safe. I recommend Le Creuset cookware as one of the best quality brands on the market if this is something you wish to explore.
It’s not just cast iron that is a potential health hazard. Learning to use stainless steel cookware, aluminum bakeware, and other kitchen equipment safely is of paramount importance for the modern cook. It’s not just about the food. Preparation is very important too to avoid the introduction of unwanted toxins!
References
(1) Food prepared in iron cooking pots as an intervention for reducing iron deficiency anemia
(2) Iron Content of Food Cooked in Iron Utensils
(3) Excess Iron: A Health Risk?
(4) Gut and Psychology Syndrome
What about pregnancy supplements that have iron in them?
I never took any pregnancy supplements for my 3 pregnancies .. I just ate a nutrient dense diet. Prenatal vitamins are of limited value and in some cases, bad as they contain synthetic vitamins in most cases:
http://westonaprice.org/childrens-health/311-diet-for-pregnant-and-nursing-mothers
Ha! I guess there’s more than one way to cook an egg! I have great luck using a small stainless skillet with a heavy base (like All Clad or Emeril copper/stainless base). I heat it on super LOW heat and use homemade lard for the fat. It doesn’t stick at all — in fact, it practically floats right out of the pan. I fry farm-fresh eggs this way, low and slow, sunny side up, and it cooks the whites nicely while leaving the yolks less cooked, preserving their yummy goodness.
P.S. Nitrate-free bacon grease works well, too.
P.P.S. Speaking of enamel potentially containing lead, does anyone know if Rachael Ray enamel cast iron dutch ovens are lead free?
I heard that they are not lead free. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard she insists that EXTRA lead be added to her products.
Oh wow, speaking of iron, have you seen this video? http://potsnpies.blogspot.com/2011/03/ewwww.html
He shows how there are actual iron filings in fortified cereal.
I believe I read a study that green tea chelated free iron in the blood and this one of it’s key benefits for men and preventing prostate cancer?
I am anemic, probably wouldn’t be so bad for me. But I don’t have cast iron, I love love love our stainless steel pans. Didn’t love them at first, but with coconut oil, they’re as good as quality non-stick pans for performance! So glad we ditched non-stick a while ago, chemicals, blah.
I really want to impress upon people to do their own homework and not allow fear to guide them.. as even HHE admits there are no studies that show cast iron usage directly causes abnormally high levels of iron. Abnormal Levels in the body are an indication of Dysfunction in the body and the mechanism that shuttle iron out of the enterocytes and into the blood.
Just because your diet has iron in it from food or from cast iron…does not guarantee it is actually absorbed much less USED in the body. Prenatal vitamins that have iron in them often use an form of iron that is not good for the body and actually causes elevated iron levels. Iron from cast iron is not a significant source of iron in the diet… if you are consuming lots of greens…. they have quite a bit of iron as well…as do meats. So if you are allowing your fear to guide you…cut out meats, beans, veggies, grains….etc And go on an air and water diet.
I PAYS to understand how iron is absorbed….: http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/smallgut/absorb_minerals.html
Once you understand that the body actually controls it’s usage of iron… and it’s levels…. (unless there is a dysfunction present) you realize that if cast iron has been used for such a LONG TIME with out widespread excessive Iron levels… that it is pretty safe unless YOU, The individual, has a dysfunction that affects iron levels in some way.
Hi EM, again … iron used in the past was by people who did not have the guts that are in the terrible shape of modern people. Even folks like me who eat well have very poor gut function compared with the pre-antibiotic/ pre-baby formula age. Folks like me (who are the majority of people) have imbalanced guts despite all our best efforts because the gut wall was improperly populated from the get go. We manage it with good diet, lots of probiotic foods, etc, but the fact remains that our guts hold the key to our absorption levels and people without excellent gut function (almost everyone) can be more easily poisoned by metals than folks who have excellent gut function. You cannot compare the 2 populations as Traditional Cultures had no pollution, no antibiotics, no birth control pill, no processed foods etc etc to mess up their gut flora.
If the villi are as damaged as is supposed today… then you run into BOTH issues of poor performance in regulating absorption/usage AND the inability to ABSORB. If you are warning people about iron… you SHOULD have made gut health a major portion of your article… as such, you did not. You made it about cast iron…. not about the health of the individual and ended up spreading your own fear to others instead of providing the full information. I am not debating your intent… i am presenting the reality of one of the affects this article had. You only focus on the health of the gut being involved in the deficiency of Iron…when it is involved in both sides of the spectrum.
I appreciate your blog as do many people…and what i do not like is having to do damage control (not here but in other places) from the fear triggered by the incomplete article…. by providing the rest of the information that should have been provided.
I completely agree that we can not compare traditional cultures with modern…. and had you included this reply to my post in your original article…. you would have a lot less people focusing on cast iron… and a lot more people focusing on getting their gut health improved. 😉
You are correct .. gut problems are affected on both ends. Sorry you didn’t like the article. I stand by it regardless. It is what it is and I don’t apologize for what I write. I am glad the post has sparked debate nonetheless. I have found that no matter how I write a post, there is a segment of people that misinterpret what I write anyway. I do the best i can and don’t worry about the naysayers.
It is very easy to back seat drive a blogger. The information on this blog is free after all. You are not paying me for it, so just accept the debate it sparks and be grateful that someone is brave enough to at least broach the issue at all.
I should also add that the comments are a critical part of the post. The gut issues are well covered here. If I tried to cover every single angle about a post before I wrote it, it would take me 20 hours to write a single post and I would never write anything. Therefore, I write what I know about in a reasonable piece of time and the very amazing readers of this blog discuss in the comments and the back and forth completes the picture if I have missed anything. My blogs are not supposed to be research papers to be printed in a medical journal; they are posts about my opinion and other things I have discovered in my journey of wellness.
I would be careful about making these kind of statements about a mineral so basic to life as Iron. Where is your research backing this up? Dr. Weil? C’mon, you and I both NEED iron to survive.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999603/
Of course too much of anything is a bad thing.
Of course we need iron! But, it is easily possible to get too much especially with all the iron fortified foods these days and using cast iron can push some people over the edge of what’s healthy with this mineral.
I don’t own any cast iron (except an enameled La Creuset dutch oven), but I still found your facts about excessive iron quite interesting. My husband sometimes suffers from IBS and other GI problems, fatigue, and joint pain. We’ve been trying everything to help him out. This spring, he gave blood, and reported that he felt a ton better. His problems have been much less ever since. He used to give blood all the time, and didn’t have these issues then, so I wonder if it might be related!
Personally, I think men are given extra iron with the expectation that they would be injured more often while hunting or defending the tribe. In our modern, less violent and physical society, men aren’t shedding blood as often as they used to, so giving blood is a good substitute (and a very generous action!). I myself often have low iron, so I don’t worry about it so much, or for the baby either, but I think my husband would benefit from making blood donation a regular thing. Thanks for the info!
Wow Sheila. That is very interesting. I hope this post helps connect the dots for your husband.
Thank you, Sarah. I had very low iron levels until I started using cast iron daily, so there’s something to it. What scares me is that I’ve been cooking for a house full of men! Will be shopping for better alternatives for them now.
Just wanted to share my story about this.
I recently went to my MD because I have been exhausted constantly. He did a slew of bloodwork and found that my iron levels are elevated. All other numbers are ok, or so he said. I haven’t seen the results with my own eyes yet.
Just a little history though, I have 19 month old twins and during that pregnancy I became quite anemic as multiple moms tend to do. I refused to take their iron supplements and instead took a little floradix instead. My numbers came up just enough to go ahead with a homebirth and then I stopped taking it. But what I started to do and have continued doing is COOKING WITH A CAST IRON PAN. Then my numbers came back high.
I have become MORE tired over the past 6 months even though the babies sleeping patterns have improved. And I was cooking everything in the cast iron pans all along this time. So for the past month and a half or more I have stopped using my favorite pans and am due to go have my bloodwork repeated. I am even more curious now to find out if my levels went back down after reading this article. And as soon as I can find the time to escape my house and two of the cutest crazy babies, I’ll get to the lab! I can say that I have been feeling a little bit better the past couple of weeks but we’ll see if it’s related to this or not.
I have never cooked in glass or enamel (yes, lead free, I know…) or even heard of titanium pans. Unfortunately, they would require an investment that I probably can’t make since I am not working right now. I’ll just keep scraping my stainless.
Thank you for sharing your story, Elizabeth. I was greatly encouraged by my midwife to switch to cast iron when I was pregnant to ensure safe iron levels, but I never would do it. She said she never saw a pregnant woman cooking with cast iron that had low iron levels .. I’m sure that was an exaggeration and there are exceptions to that, no doubt, but it goes to show that cast iron in her experience (many years as a midwife testing hundreds of ladies for iron levels) cast iron has a significant impact on iron levels.
I have one cast iron skillet that I love very dearly. I use it several times a week to fry eggs and bacon. I love reading everything you post Sarah, but for now, I’m sticking with my beloved cast iron skillet from my Mema. The rest of my cookware is Al-Clad. I paid a lot of money for good sturdy cookware and I hope that as long as the ingredients that are going in it are healthy that the leeching will be minimal.
My husband and I once were invited to this dinner party where the guy was selling cookware called “Salad Master” the price of this cookware made my Al-Clad look like I got it from a thrift store! The theory was that this awesome “salad master” cookware was not supposed to leech ANYthing into the foods. They did a horrible taste test with baking soda but the entire presentation felt like a huge sham to me. Maybe there was something to their skillets, but then again, it might have been all smoke and mirrors. We did not purchase anything that night and I’ve been happy with my cookware!
Thanks for keeping us thinking!