CAST IRON COOKWARE: A NEW GENERATION MAKES IT “GREEN“

What do cowboys and your grandmother have in common? The answer is that they both used “green“ cookware, when it was a daily habit to make meals and not just environmentally friendly. Cookware pieces made of cast-iron, such as skillets, pots and pans, last decades—and now these classic cast-iron pieces have been rediscovered as the latest green kitchen necessities.

“It’s not just what you put into your pan that helps make your kitchen green, but the pan itself!” says Author Mara Reid Rogers of Cooking In Cast Iron: Yesterday’s Flavors For Today’s Kitchen (HPBooks). Below Rogers offers five reasons why classic cast-iron cookware pieces are as green as your kitchen can get.

The Top 5 Reasons Cooking In Cast Iron Is Green:

●          Energy efficiency: Cast iron cookware needs very little heat, and heats quickly and evenly, and is ideal for heat distribution, retention and energy conservation.

●          Alternative heat sources can be used: Cast iron cookware performs equally well—not just for cooking on a conventional stovetop or baking in a conventional oven—but also on a wood-burning stove, out on an outdoor grill or over an open fire when camping or a barbeque pit.

●          Healthy and chemical-free cooking: Cast iron cookware is a “natural” non-stick, non-toxic cookware (unlike newer materials that rely on the synthetic chemical Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)* (whether or not heated to high temperatures). These benefits make food taste better with no chemical residue or aftertaste when cooked or baked in cast iron cookware.

●          Environmentally friendly: Discarded cast iron cookware can be 100 percent recycled at some recycling centers (though our grandmas would pass the cast iron cookware on, thereby recycling the cookware in a figurative way).

●          Economical: Cast iron cookware is inexpensive, a great value for the money—and saves you some ‘green,’ too!