Rice cookers are available in almost every family. For people who love rice, they should be used every day.
But recently, the emergence of a message has made many people doubt its security. The source said that “the World Health Organization calls for stopping the use of rice cookers or catalysts for liver cancer”.
How can the rice cooker that we use every day in our daily life suddenly become the “catalyst” of cancer? Can rice cooker really cause cancer? To find out this problem, we must first know what the electric rice cooker is mainly composed of.
The electric rice cooker is mainly composed of a shell and an inner tank, and the part in direct contact with food is the inner tank of the electric rice cooker.
What are the materials for the inner liner of rice cooker?
At present, the most common electric rice cooker liner on the market is aluminum liner. Metal aluminum has the characteristics of uniform heating and fast heat transfer. It is the preferred material for electric rice cooker liner.
In addition to the most common metal aluminum, stainless steel can also be used as the inner material of rice cookers. In recent years, with the development of science and technology, ceramic liners with higher thermal efficiency have also appeared in some high-grade electric rice cookers.
It is worth noting that the aluminum liner cannot be in direct contact with food, so there will be a protective coating on the surface of the liner. Therefore, the most common matching in the liner of household electric rice cooker is aluminum liner + coating.
Is the coating of the liner harmful?
Aluminum is easy to precipitate and enter the food under heating and acidic conditions, and excessive intake of aluminum will damage the human nervous system. Therefore, it is necessary to separate the food from the inner bladder with a coating. The coating used for aluminum liner is generally perfluorinated polymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene, which is known as “TEFLON” in non stick pot. The coating has both barrier and anti sticking effects.
Perfluorinated polymers have stable properties, strong acid-base resistance, non-toxic and difficult to decompose. The decomposition temperature of the coating generally reaches more than 250 ℃, while the internal temperature of the rice cooker generally does not exceed 180 ℃ during daily use. Therefore, when it is used normally and the inner tank coating does not fall off, the use of electric rice cooker will not cause harm to human body, let alone cancer.
Can the liner continue to be used if the coating falls off?
If our rice cooker is made of aluminum liner, when we find some white circles on the bottom and four walls of the liner, some small black pieces will fall off when we gently scrape them by hand, which indicates that our liner coating has been damaged to a certain extent. It is not recommended to continue to use the rice cooker for a long time.
If it is found that the black coating of the inner tank has fallen in pieces and there is an obvious silver white area in the inner tank, it indicates that the coating of the inner tank has fallen off seriously. It is recommended to stop using it immediately and replace the electric rice cooker.
Because the biggest function of aluminum rice cooker liner coating is to prevent direct contact between food and aluminum liner. Once the coating falls off more, it increases the risk of direct contact between food and aluminum liner. Long term use may cause excessive aluminum intake and harm to the body.
Some electric rice cookers with stainless steel liners also use coatings in consideration of anti viscosity. Although the chemical stability of stainless steel liners is much higher than that of aluminum liners and is more stable under acid-base conditions, it is easy to cause uneven heating of food in the pot after serious coating falling off, so it is also not recommended to continue to use.
The ceramic liner generally does not need additional coating due to the natural non viscosity, scratch and wear resistance and high thermal efficiency of ceramic materials, so there is no concern in this regard.
How to use rice cookers more safely and healthily?
Avoid using it for too long
The reasonable use time of electric rice cooker is generally 3-5 years. For electric rice cooker used for a long time, the coating of the inner tank will fall off to a large extent. At this time, we need to replace the new electric rice cooker in time to prevent potential health hazards caused by long-term direct contact between food and aluminum inner tank.
Avoid improper cleaning
When cleaning the inner tank of an electric rice cooker, if the inner tank is often scratched by hard objects, it is more likely to cause the coating to fall off. Therefore, hard materials such as steel balls should be avoided when cleaning the inner tank.
Similarly, when cleaning the inner tank, avoid directly cleaning the overheated inner tank, otherwise the sudden change of temperature may cause the deformation of the coating material, so as to accelerate the falling off of the coating.
Avoid frequent use of rice cookers to cook acidic foods
When using rice cookers, especially those with aluminum liners, try to avoid cooking foods with strong acidity for a long time and frequently. There may be some coating gaps invisible to the naked eye in the inner tank of the electric rice cooker, while the aluminum inner tank is easier to precipitate under strong acidic conditions, which will migrate to food and cause potential harm to health.
To sum up, when the rice cooker is used normally and the coating of the inner tank is intact, the electric rice cooker will not cause harm to the body. When using the electric rice cooker with aluminum inner tank, we should always pay attention to the coating of the inner tank. When the coating falls off to a large extent, it is recommended to replace it immediately.
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