Digestion Tip Number Five... and Public Health.

Becca's Digestion Tip Number Five: Cook with a cast iron skillet.

Research has shown that cooking with a cast iron skillet can add more iron to the diet. This is especially helpful in treating and preventing anemia (i.e. chronic low iron levels). If you don't eat a lot of iron rich foods, cooking with a cast iron skillet can be helpful as it can increase the iron content of your meal up to twenty times!

Two recipes I am eager to cook in my new skillet: one and two. And of course, there is the classic skillet cornbread.

When cooking with a cast iron skillet, make sure it is first "seasoned" (coat the entire (inside and out) skillet with a high temperature-resistant vegetable oil (like safflower or peanut) and then place the skillet in the oven at 300F for one hour. This will leave a protective coating on the skillet, helping to preserve it long-term. When cleaning the skillet after use, add water to the dirty pan and bring to a boil. Boil off the remnants of the meal, drain, then wipe with paper towel or a dish cloth. No soap required!
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In other news, I started the last of my new classes today: Public Health. This class is going to be light and fun, yet interesting. For instance: today we watched a video and played a game to test how much we know about the Canadian Public Health Care System. It's going to be a very interactive class with lots of self-directed learning via online assignments. Interesting tid-bit from today: a country's health care system is primarily evaluated on the quality of their neonatal/maternal health care and their family planning programs (e.g. birth control).