Knowledge Base > Deb Kennedy, PhD - Culinary Medicine: Ask Me Almost Anything

Deb Kennedy, PhD - Culinary Medicine: Ask Me Almost Anything
This event was on
Thursday, May 01, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Ever wondered how food can do more than just fuel your body—how it can heal, empower, and transform lives?
Join Dr. Deb Kennedy, founder of Food Coach Academy, for a live session … Read More.
Question:

When working with taste and flavor when cooking does the cookware play a role in the outcome?
— Eugene Johnson
Answer:
So I interpreted your question when working with taste and flavor, when cooking, does the cookware play a role in the outcome as can you get taste and flavor from your pot and pan? That's one of them. And the answer is yes to that question. If you use a walk, a seasoned walk or a seasoned cast iron pan, you know that the deeper, the richer, the more flavor that happens. I mean, if you're a cast iron pan looks something like this, oh my god, it's heavy like that. Every time I cook in that, whether it's eggs or you know, pasta sauce, I am infusing certain flavors into that. But those are the only two types of pans because you've seasoned them well enough and they have flavor within the coating. Then the second way I interpret your question is can cookware affect the taste and flavor of the food that you're cooking, uh, directly. And then we're getting into the distribution of heat and the conduction of heat. Those two elements will make or break how you are cooking a food. So what you want ideally is a, is a surface, whether that is iron or copper or stainless steel is you want that metal to be able to conduct heat, bring heat in, and you want it to be evenly distributed. With cast iron pans, it's a great conductor and it evenly distributes. Same with copper pans. When we look at steel stainless steel pans, it's not a good conductor and it's not a good distributor. So what happens is you might have noticed that if you go to sear something in a stainless steel pan, you'll get spots where you have searing and spots that you don't, where in a cast iron pan or a copper pan, you're gonna see an even Sr. So there's that aspect of it in terms of distribution and conduction. I do also wanna bring up a third point Eugene, which is, are some of these pots and pans covered with toxic material? And some of them are some I do not use non-stick surfaces. I do not use 'em because they can start to flake and they have what's, they have these toxic chemicals called heterocyclic amines, big word. But usually when you start using a non-stick pan and if you use anything meta, you'll see these pieces um, being sloughed off. Uh, and that's not healthy for you at all with cast iron pans and copper pans. What you're finding is that if you use a cast iron pan, you are absorbing and into the food some iron. And then when you eat that food, you're absorbing some iron. No big issue there actually, if there's a good way to get some source of iron. However, if you cook in your iron pan, acidic foods, like if you're gonna cook something for several hours, like you're gonna do a really good pasta sauce, you wanna make sure you don't do that in a cast iron pan 'cause you don't wanna be absorbing that, releasing that much iron, right? So then I would use a stainless steel, so I'm not searing anything. I would use a stainless steel pan there with a copper pan you can release some little bits of copper and that's fine for you as well. Uh, copper's a mineral that, that we need. So when you're using, there's another type of pan that is, uh, ceramic in the bottom and it's got the a cast iron and then it has this shellacked layer of like glass like layer. That pan also is not gonna release toxic chemicals, which is great 'cause it's more like glass if you start chipping the glass. And of course you'd want to either get a renewed layer put on it or you're most likely just gonna have to throw it out. So your pots and pans do provide a little bit of flavor. If it's cast iron or wok, they can provide a little bit of nutrients. If it's copper or iron, they, and if you are wanting to cook at a higher level and you know, versus the everyday chef that might not notice that something wasn't seared. You wanna stick to your, your cast iron and your copper. And if you're not searing stainless steel is totally fine as well. I did learn this one piece of information I had did not learn about and this was from Dr. Gregor. And there's a link that you might wanna look at Eugene when he looked at cast iron pans. If you want to deep fry something in a cast iron pan because it's a good conductor, it's gonna re it's gonna reach a temperature that's very high. And if you have, let's say you have peanut oil or canola oil that you're deep frying your food in, it's going to create trans fat, which is the no-no unhealthy fat from that healthful plant-based oil fat.
Links:
