This was the first video I ever shot, because my friend Law Cummer asked me, “What is the difference between cooking in cast iron, or cooking in non-stick?”
I actually did a real-time, side-by-side comparison for him, which was apparently so persuasive that several of my friends who viewed it went straight out and bought cast iron frying pans! Which is a great outcome. In a well-seasoned cast iron pan, you actually need LESS fat than you do in a non-stick pan; and food cooked in cast iron is higher in dietary iron (especially, if you are cooking tomatoes in cast iron).
Update: Health Canada releases it’s guidelines on metals and cookware. This is a great summary and confirms much of what I explained in the video.
Update #2: Thank you David Lindsay for posting these photos of a real sugar bush operation in 2015. I was a little worried that people would think my commentary was out of date because most sugar bush farms now use plastic tubing from tree to bucket – however as we can see from David’s March 2015 photos, they are still using cast iron to boil the sap! And the people who purchased that cauldron expect it to be in use for 100 years, or more.