I’ve heard that cooking with cast iron adds it to your food, but how? And how much?
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Acid can react with bare iron. This applies to acidic foods, e.g. tomatoes, vinegar, etc., so you wind up with iron *in* the food.
> An American Dietetic Association study found that cast-iron cookware can leach significant amounts of dietary iron into food. The amounts of iron absorbed varied greatly depending on the food, its acidity, its water content, how long it was cooked, and how old the cookware is. The iron in spaghetti sauce increased 845 percent (from 0.61 mg/100g to 5.77 mg/100g), while other foods increased less dramatically; for example, the iron in cornbread increased 28 percent, from 0.67 to 0.86 mg/100g.[18] Anemics, and those with iron deficiencies, may benefit from this effect,[19] which was the basis for the development of the lucky iron fish, an iron ingot used during cooking to provide dietary iron to those with iron deficiency. People with hemochromatosis (iron overload, bronze disease) should avoid using cast-iron cookware because of the iron leaching effect into the food.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast-iron_cookware#Health_effects
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