Is eating rust unhealthy?

P

phwl

Joined
Sep 28, 2000
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Does anyone know if cutting food with a carbon steel blade that has surface rust poses a health problem?
 
Hmm... I don't really know, but I'd guess that health problems it might pose (if any) would be extremely minor.

You might not want to use carbon steel bladed knives with fruits though. You can taste the oxidation and sometimes you can even see black smears on the slices of fruit that you've cut.

Some chefs have claimed that they can taste if any food was prepared with a carbon steel knife (I personally cannot). These chefs are really anal about removing oxidation from carbon steel knives before they're used.

I don't know what Medusaoblongata was talking about, but he made me Google search to find this quote! :)
Prison is a treacherous place to live in. You miss one move, and you get stabbed. You've got to be aware of everything that goes on. There's nothing that you can overlook. You've got to be aware of your air and ventilator that you breath, because if you've got emphysema and a Ninja warrior gets in your air, he can stop your air.

So I'm in the shower area. They got some rust that's coming out of the pipes, and this rust is building up and it looks just exactly like instant coffee. If you take a spoonful of that rust and you mix it in with instant coffee and you give somebody a cup of coffee, you can burn their kidneys out, you can kill them.
Click to expand...
- Charles Manson, 1992 Parole Hearing
 
I have always used a carbon steel knife for food preparation and I don't have iron poor blood :). All the meat cutters that I know use carbon steel so it has to be GOOD for you :).
Actually, I think that you would probably breath more particles of rust, pollan, etc. out of the air that would be absorbed into your system than to worry about a little iron that could be beneficial to you.
Over indulgence of anything could cause problems (coffee-rust drink).
 
I'd hazard a guess that any excess iron in your diet would just get passed right through your system. Maybe a biologist or MD here as a better idea?

-Al-
 
Originally posted by cerulean
I don't know what Medusaoblongata was talking about, but he made me Google search to find this quote! :) - Charles Manson, 1992 Parole Hearing
Click to expand...
Good detective work there, as always, cerulean. I saw that parole hearing on TV and, for some reason, remembered it.
 
The body does not metabolize iron oxide to any great degree so it is unlikely to cause any trouble unless injested in huge quantities. It really tastes bad though, so I don't recommend it as a spice for food.
 
If you ever break open an iron capsule, you will see that it is full of rust. Iron is a nutrient will do you good unless you consume ungodly amounts. That however, is something you won't do from consuming a bit of rust from a carbon steel blade or even cooking in cast iron pots for that matter.
 
I read an article in a very old Time magazine about freedom fighters in one South American country placing a rusty nail in a glass of water over night and then drinking the water to make sure they had enough iron in their diet. (no sh*t, I kid you not) I forget what disease or medical condition is caused by lack of iron, but they seemed to think it was really important.
 
I could not find an MSDS for iron hydroxide (rust) but a few sources mentioned that extra free iron floating around your body is not healthy, it's quite reactive.
Humans have been using steel knives for quite a while without any problem and some regions have tastable amounts in the ground water and people still keep living. If something, I might be concerned about the nickel in stainless knives.

TLM
 
I often wondered this too. I was just thinking the other day, isn't it stepping on like a rusty nail or something that can give you a bad Tetanus infection? We grew up in an old house with lots of rust in thew water........I did have complete kidney failure in 99. Luckily I got a transplant a few months ago. Everyone else is fine, so I guess that it was just me.
 
A few years ago I heard an interesting tidbit about how people who cook with cast iron pans are never anemic. Don't remember the source however. I doubt very seriously that ingesting iron in this manner could do any harm. It's probably doing you some good actually.
 
Both kidneys went out at the same time? Man, that's rough! As a person who has had some health problems myself, I'm always interested when someone posts someting like this. I realize that this reply is not knife related (other than having to use one to just about cut you in half to install the new kidney), However (if you don't mind), did the kidneys go fast or slow? Did you have to wait a long time for a match? If you consider it "none of my business", I completely understand.

Will
 
I seriously doubt that the trace amounts of rust that you would get off of a carbon blade would do you harm. It seems to me that most iron supplements are themselves only iron oxide. It would be quantity that could do you harm. It seems to me that I read recently that the livers of certain marine mammals found close to the poles can be toxic if consumed because they contain lethal amounts of vitamin E to humans. As I recall, it is a result from the fatty fish that these marine mammals consume, fish oil being very high in Vitamin E.

[D]
 
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