What Is the Safest Way to Season a New Cast Iron Skillet?

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Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Bob Warburton from Instagram asks, what's the safest way to season a new cast iron skillet? I've seen recommendations to use flaxseed oil, but I've read it's not a good idea to heat the oil. Hey, it's JJ and I've got my pal, health coach and healthy chef Maru Davila here to answer this question. Margo was born in Mexico City and came to the US to go to Harvard. Not just underground, but B school too. A few of her many business ventures included co founding two banks in San Diego. And then she made this big career change when she realized she needed to turn her health around and started competing in triathlons and learned to cook at age 40. Now she's known as the Healthy Mexican Food Chef and her healthy Mexican food recipes are so delicious that you will literally feel like you're cheating. One of my favorites is her guacamole ice cream. Yes, seriously, it's a thing and you want it. Trust me. We'll be right back to answer this question. Stay with me. 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I really love cast iron skillets. I have many and I love everything about them. They just look so nice. They hang in my kitchen from the kitchen kitchen hood and I just use it every day. I cook with them, I serve things on them. I use them to go from stove to oven. Very convenient. Plus once you season them they will work similar to nonstick pans but without those nasty toxic chemicals. This is one of my favorite parts. Another thing is they're very easy to clean and maintain, which for me is a biggie. There is never the need like for scrubbing because once they are well seasoned, even when things get stuck, you just add hot water or simmer them on the stove and then you just scrub lightly and everything is gone in a few seconds. They also work great for roasting and cooking anything. They are my favorite, definitely go to pan whenever I'm cooking and of course when they're taken care of they will last you for a long time. Now let's get into what is the safest way to season or break into them. First I want to take a quick look at the way seasoning works. When the pan is new, you're supposed to cover it with some type of oil and bake it at some temperature above 300 degrees Fahrenheit. When you do this, polymers which are bundled molecules form and these polymers bond to the iron in the cast iron pan and give it a glaze. Then the surface of the cast iron which has very tiny holes that depend really see will fill up with as the glaze bakes. And this is what will provide a smooth nonstick cooking surface which will have rust proofing benefits and that is what you call the desired seasoning. As you probably know, before you can enjoy the benefits from this type of pan, you really need to build up that glaze by doing the initial baking we just mentioned. And then you will just need to continue using it to cook as often as you can with whatever type of oil you choose. And once you finish, you clean it again with hot water and then season it with more oil and so on. The type of oil is going to be the key decision to make for them to be safer. Which leads me to your question, what is the safest oil to use? Flaxseed oil is the most popular oil in the cooking blog world. They claim that at high temperatures it creates successful and resilient cure or layer. And this sounds great, but they don't really evaluate whether this layer is toxic or not or whether the layer is permanent or will just break down over time. The polyunsaturated oils like flaxseed oil oxidize very easily when heated and in the medical world, in fact it is very common to hear that you should never use them under heat. Oxidation produces highly reactive compounds that when consumed, are known to damage our cells and they're also associated with many horrible diseases like cancer, dementia, diabetes. So you don't want to consume oxidized oils. Even though flaxseed oil produces a durable coating in the pan, it is believed that through regular use and cleaning, its oxidized particles will break and leach into your food, which is not good. Oxidation also will degrade the quality of the oil and this will develop an undesirable rancid flavor and smell, which will not be good either as they will pass on the dishes you cook. And one additional problem is that flaxseed oil has the lowest smoke point from the oils, meaning you shouldn't be heating it up past 225 degrees anyway. It is also known that flaxseed oil can be damaged by light, so you would have to store your pants in a dark place and you wouldn't be able to do the initial baking at the recommended temperature of 350 or above. What this all means is that flaxseed oil will not withstand the initial baking or the ongoing seasoning needed. In addition to what I just discussed, some of the most known manufacturers of cast iron pans like Ludge, they recommend a wide variety of oils that you can choose from to season, except a few, very few, and one of the few ones they say that should not be used is flaxseed oil, probably for some of the reasons we just mentioned. So that leaves us with the question, well, what do we use? I said that from the oils that cast iron pan manufacturers recommend because they work. The ones that I prefer are first avocado oil, which is the one with the highest smoke point and highest tolerance for heat. With avocado oil you wouldn't have to worry about the high temperatures and it can withstand up to 520 degrees Fahrenheit. Second favorite would be extra virgin olive oil, but as long as you bake it below its smoke point of 375Fahrenheit. And I say last coconut oil, which would be an option, but it's my least favorite option. It is just harder to put on and it has a lower smoke point. I just really haven't tried it. But that's supposed another option among the healthiest oils foreign.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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