Is the stainless steel nonstick coating safe and toxic?

The pot can be said to be a must-have kitchenware for every household. It can be divided into: wok, steamer, boiling pan, frying pan, etc. in terms of function; in terms of material, it can be divided into: stainless steel pot, ceramic pot, iron pot, aluminum pot, glass Pot and so on. However, there are recent news on the Internet that stainless steel non-stick pans: stainless steel pans have excessive manganese standards, ceramic pans lead excessive standards, use of aluminum pans will cause Alzheimer's, and the coating of non-stick pans is toxic.

It sounds like all kinds of pots commonly used in our lives have problems! You know that the pot is something that you use almost every day, so many harms, it's too scary, is it true? With so many pots, which one is better and safer?

First of all, no matter the iron pan, aluminum pan or ceramic pan, stainless steel pan, they are all used to cook food. Therefore, they all belong to the category of "food contact materials and products". The country has a series of special management standards for such products, including the national food safety standards "General Safety Requirements for Food Contact Materials and Products" (GB4806.1), "Ceramic Products" (GB4806.4), "Metal Materials for Food Contact and Products" (GB4806.9), "Food Contact Paints and Coatings" (GB4806.10), etc.

Regardless of the material of the pot, it is necessary to follow the general safety requirements: "The level of substances that migrate into the food should not endanger human health when it comes into contact with food under the recommended conditions of use." In addition, the specific standards for each material provide more detailed regulations for the safety issues that the material is prone to. Therefore, the safety of qualified cookware products that meet national standards is guaranteed, and consumers do not need to worry.

Stainless steel pot with manganese

Evaluating whether a certain ingredient in food contact materials has health hazards depends not on its content, but on whether it can migrate into the food and how much it has migrated. Qualified stainless steel pots have high stability under normal use conditions, and the amount of various metal elements that can migrate out is very low.

Secondly, manganese is one of the essential trace elements for the human body. The national authority has specially tested and evaluated the migration amount of manganese element on the stainless steel pan products on the market in the early stage, and the results showed that it will not exceed the human body tolerable dose.

Aluminum pan

Because aluminum pans are light and have good thermal conductivity, many people prefer to use aluminum pans. However, aluminum has poor strength and stability, especially under acidic conditions, it is prone to chemical reactions to precipitate aluminum ions. Therefore, the national standard stipulates that aluminum and aluminum alloys that are not covered with organic coatings on food contact surfaces shall not be in contact with acidic foods.

For the pot, the pitted pure aluminum pot that was once seen by every household has long been eliminated. Now the aluminum pots on the market are all composite materials with better performance and safer, and the food contact surface is covered with a protective layer. Avoid direct contact of aluminum with food, and avoid the migration of aluminum ions into food.

Non-stick pan

The so-called non-stick pan is that the inner surface of the pan is covered with a coating with a very low friction coefficient and surface energy, which makes it difficult for food to adhere, so it is not easy to stick to the pan. The non-stick pan products currently on the market mainly use PTFE coating. The coating has stable physical and chemical properties, corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance and other properties.

The safety of non-stick coatings has also been debated many years ago. The core is that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and its salts used in coating manufacturing are considered to be carcinogenic. However, since 2012, non-stick coatings on the market no longer use this substance, consumers can rest assured. In addition, there is also the heavy metal problem of ceramic pots that everyone is worried about. The standards also have corresponding regulations. For example, GB4806.4 stipulates the migration index of lead and cadmium for ceramic products in contact with food.

In short, no matter what kind of pot material, as long as it is a regular qualified product, there are strict controls on those substances that are known to be harmful to health, and consumers can use it with confidence.