In fact, cooking spray aficionados like to point out a multitude of uses, many of which have nothing to do with eating. Need to remove smashed bugs from your windshield? Use some cooking spray. Is your bicycle chain getting squeaky? Cooking spray can solve that problem too. But, perhaps consumers should be less concerned about these novelties and more concerned about a much more significant question – is it good for your health?
Commercial cooking sprays are adored by cooks for their ability to create a non-stick cooking surface and make clean-up a cinch. Dieters and nutritionists love them because they add fewer calories and less fat than traditional cooking oil. Organic and sustainably minded consumers, however, propose that the purity and integrity of your food has far more impact on your health than counting calories alone. And, a glance at ingredient labels will tell you that cooking spray is anything but pure or natural, even if you opt for an organic variety.
If cooking spray is a staple in your kitchen, here are five reasons to consider tossing out that iconic aerosol can:
1. Cooking sprays contain unhealthy additives
Home cooks typically don’t intend to add dubious ingredients like soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, dimethylpolysiloxane, dimethyl silicone, or artificial flavors to their carefully selected meals, especially since the long term effects of these chemicals are still unknown. Nevertheless, many varieties of cooking spray contain exactly these things, especially when opting for artificially flavored varieties, like butter.
2. Cooking sprays contain genetically modified ingredients (GMO’s)
While things like soy, corn, or rapeseeds (canola) in and of themselves may not sound bad, the problem lies in the origin of the crops. Sadly, the vast majority of these foods (over 90 percent according to GMO Compass) are derived from genetically modified seeds, which have been altered so that growers can use more pesticides (without killing the plant itself) and therefore yield more crops.
According the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, animal studies have repeatedly shown serious health risks including infertility, auto-immune disorders, diabetes, and changes in major organs including the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM even went so far as to ask physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods.
To further compound this problem, GM foods contain markedly higher levels of pesticides than conventional crops, increasing the risks of these already dangerous chemicals.
3. Cooking sprays contain soy
Although soy is typically viewed as healthy, people are consuming more of it today than at any other time in history. This is namely because it is an additive in just about every processed food available, leaving many experts fearing that there could be unintended health consequences to such overconsumption.
A Harvard University study, for example, reported that eating as little as one half serving of soy per day resulted in problems such as infertility in males and increased breast cancer risk in females. Other experts propose that the soy laden diet of today may also be a contributing factor in the increased incidence of soy allergies, which have increased by 50 percent since 1998, according to Nexus Magazine.
4. Cooking sprays may negatively impact lung health
In 2007, Seattle PI conducted studies on 22 leading cooking sprays. They found that even small amounts of the sprays, when heated, released high concentrations of diacetyl, a chemical that causes serious and even fatal respiratory disease under repeated, long-term exposure. Although manufacturers have since removed products containing diacetyl from the market, some health advocates fear that using aerosol products is still risky since the long-term effects of inhaling the particles and vapors of other artificial ingredients isn’t known.
5. Cooking sprays are bad for the environment
Cooking sprays are environmentally unsound on a couple of fronts. First, all of them contain unspecified propellants, usually nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas and, accordingScience Daily, “the largest ozone depleting substance emitted through human activity.” It also doesn’t break down easily, so nitrous oxide released into the environment now is expected to continue to do damage for decades to come.
The second problem is the amount of unnecessary waste created by the packaging. If every household in the U.S. used just one can of cooking spray per year, this would amount to 115 million cans that end up in landfills annually. While one could argue that they are recyclable, one must keep in mind that the recycling process also requires a great deal of energy, in the form of heat, electricity etc.
So what is the solution? Do what your grandmother did and simply wipe down your pots and pans with organic, cold-pressed cooking oils such as olive, canola, or grape seed. Or, if you simply must have a spray, most home goods stores sell hand-pump spray bottles designed to fill with any cooking oil you choose. You won't get that disgusting buildup on your cookware, and your body and the environment will be better off. And believe me, there are plenty of other ways to clean your shower.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/5-reasons-not-to-use-commercial-cooking-sprays
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