Stainless-steel is found in every kitchen, but is it really safe to use?
Commonly, with more stable and less prone, stainless-steel has less risky concerns than aluminum or non-stick coatings, which can be risk from leaching of the essential minerals iron, chromium or manganese.
Still, stainless-steel is a compound metal that composed of iron, nickel and chromium. Moreover, some tools are multi-ply constructions or have some conductors, like aluminum and copper that can be leached to food. So, this might raise the question about food safety.
It’s considered Safe, with Precautions. According from WHFood.org, the alloy in stainless steel cookware is more stable than other cookware materials. It has less potential to leach of any metals, unless the pots and pans damaged by harsh scouring with an abrasive material like steel wool.
These elements are possible concerns about leaching issues:
Iron
The effect of iron issue is debating as it’s a substantial nutrient to build red blood. As the result, you may notice it’s added in most of baby formulas today. However, too much of it might be harmful.
The Verdict: Typically, Safe. In the fact that most people in North America are more likely get not enough iron, and iron-made cookware brings less than 20% of total daily iron intake, stainless and iron cookware are considered as safe materials to use.
Nickel
Probably, nickel toxicity is the most concern. Unless you’re using poor quality or have nickel allergenic condition, nickel will be solute in a very small amount that not in the poisonous level to human.
From Toxicological studies, the picture shows an amount of nickel intake, even from frequent cooking, that is still lower than tolerable intake limit for daily consumption.
The Verdict: Safe but Be Cautioned for Sensitive People. If you use quality stainless-steel tools — the research indicated grade 304 and 316 — that usually coated with nickel-resistance layer, even cooking acidic food will not have severely bad effect to your health.
However, for nickel allergenic or sensitive people, whom the small amount of nickel can be harmful, you might have to consider other materials for safer use. Or, you might pick the cookware that has smaller proportion of nickel/Nickel, like 18/0 or 18/8 instead of 18/10.
Like others, small amount of chromium is good for your health, as it’s an essential element for human, but not if higher.
From the same study above, daily chromium intake from leaching is under tolerant limit for allergic contact dermatitis. This similar to The Health Care of Canada, “the normal safe quantity to intake is average 50 to 200 micrograms daily but a meal cooking by stainless-steel cookware will contain 45 micrograms of chromium, which can’t be effectively harmful.”
The verdict: Safe but Be Cautioned for Sensitive People. Like nickel case, the leaching of both chromium for daily intake is unharmful but might be risk for sensitive people when receiving from other dietary sources.
The study concluded that “The amount of nickel and chromium leaching didn’t relate to tomato sauce brands they tested, but considerably depended on the grade of stainless steel, cooking time and cookware usage or seasoning of the stainless steel.” — this truly gives us big clues.
These are effective practices to reduce the risks: