I would be also, but Iâm not sure if the test results are available somewhere to be seen. This case has spurred some discussion there on reddit. Matfer didnât mention anything about the arsenic it seems, mostly just pointed out they had tested an unseasoned pan.
Iâve said it before, and Iâll gladly repeat it once again.
The argument, that people have been using raw cast iron and raw carbon steel pans for 100âs of years and noone seem to have been taken ill from using the raw pans is not an argument I buy since - to my knowledge - noone seem to have conducted any kind of tests regarding this subject, so basically we donât know if you in fact can get cancer/arsenic poisoning or other diseases from using such pans.
This is not an argument to say teflon pans are any better or worse - I just simply find it interesting, that noone seem to be interested in potential side effects regarding our health when using raw iron pans for daily cooking.
I use many carbon steel and cast iron cookware, but I agree your point. Just because something has been used for a long time, it only shows that it has no acute effect, but it cannot prove it has no chronic effect. I think the iron part is not likely the concern because we do have a decent understand iron. The effect of the âseasonedâ layer (polymerized oil/fat) is less known.
However, at the end, we can question almost all cookware materials like stainless steel, carbon steel, copper, Teflon and of course aluminum⊠I guess glass cookware is probably the known to be truly inert.
Itâs guys like the guy behind the Youtube channel âCook cultureâ who bashes teflon pans (and rightfully so to a degree) and then blindly recommends everyone to use raw cast iron and raw carbon steel pans that makes me wonder why he doesnât question how healthy it is to cook in seasoned raw iron pans on a daily basis.
Iâve posted questions to him several times regarding this subject, but he ignores my questions - so Iâve stopped watching his videos.
I think many people have gut notion of âhuman made chemicals are bad, natural substances are goodâ. Iron exists in nature - good, polymerized oil exists in nature - good. Teflon is human made - bad.
Iâm in the fragrance business and people have the same notion here.
If a fragrance contains a lot of natural ingredients, people tend to acknowledge it more than if the fragrance is made from a lot of synthetic ingredients.
The fun part is, that you can get even worse skin irritation from natural ingredients than you usually will get from synthetic ingredients, because the synthetic ingredients usually are tested far more in controlled environments than the natural ingredients are.
On the stovetop I use stainless, carbon steel and both raw and enamelled cast iron. In the oven mostly porcelain/ceramic, but also my darto n35 is there often, along with my eci and sometimes the food sits on parchment paper. Edit. On the rare occasion also in borosilicate glass and maybe I forget something. In any case, I believe using a variety is good.
I will continue to use my de Buyer carbon steel, even if Matfer, another French manufacturer has now been subject for recalls.
Not to mention the cookware choices are a drop in the ocean when it comes to health in general. Maybe its not so cool to read about arsenic in carbon steel pans of course, but nice that it was spotted. I donât know know how much tests like these are done, but wouldnât mind if there was âmore of thisâ.
Well, what we may be dealing with here is very low regulatory thresholds in Europe, where trace levelsâessentially ANY detectableâis too much.
In the old Chowhound days, there was argument about heavy metal levels in food-grade tin. Assays included with purchases usually show 0.0004% for lead, arsenic and cadmium combined. Is this enough to cause concern? Not for me. But perhaps for Euro regulators. 99.9996 pure is as close to perfection as possible.
Testing unseasoned steel seems a little unreasonable, just as testing cast iron fresh from its green sand mold in the foundry.
Yes, I donât know based on what amounts they listed the arsenic there, it could be very little, insignificant. And I wouldnât care about the other two.
Itâs an interesting case though, wonder if thereâs a chance it could be turned over still. As Matfer mentioned on Reddit, they are âworking with the requisite authorities to get his cleared upâ.
This 1935/2004 seems to be some kind of framework, setting safety princibles for materials to come in contact with food. I didnât find it directly setting any limit and Iâm not going to waste all evening trying to find out what it Could be.
According to a YouTuber called uncle scot. The case has bin cleared and the pans are perfectly safe.
It was caused by a new and apparently oversensitive way of testing the pans. The new testing was performed by boiling an acidic fluid(comparable to tomatoes) for 2 hours in a non seasoned pan.
Personally I have no fear using carbon steel pans, or raw cast iron for that sake. I never cook acidic food in them anyway but use stainless or ECI.
I try to avoid non stick coatings in any way. But that is mostly because. That I through my function in a workers union have bin presented with rapports documenting health issues combined with high pfas numbers in bloodsampless from a workforce that have worked with industrial pfas products in different industries.
But I will point out that nothing suggest that the workers got the pfas levels from manufacturing or using non stick cookware.
