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A shallow two-handled stainless pot of red stew simmering on a portable butane burner on a wooden table, two Saero soju bottles behind it
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KOREA TESTED 56 RAMYUN POTS. The uncoated ones gave up **thirteen times** more aluminium. Here is the number — and the one habit that turns a safe pot into an unsafe one.
A gold anodised aluminium 양은냄비 (yangeun naembi) with two side handles and a black lid knob, lit against a dark background — the yellow pot Koreans actually picture
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The name says nickel silver. The pot is aluminium.. 양은 (洋銀) means *Western silver* — copper alloyed with zinc and nickel. **This gold pot contains none of it.** It is anodised aluminium. The material changed decades ago and the name never did.
Rabokki — rice cakes and ramyun noodles in red broth — in a plain metal pot
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56 pots sold in Korea, boiled with acid. The Gyeonggi Institute of Health and Environment ran the test that English-language advice never cites. **Most pots on the market are the uncoated kind.**
Kimchi ramyun cooking in a metal pot with a Korean noodle packet behind it
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The coating is the whole decision. Not the shape, not the brand, not the price. **A coated pot leaches about a thirteenth of what a bare one does**, and it costs a few thousand won more.
Baechu kimchi in a brown ceramic bowl with metal tongs resting in it
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Acid plus salt, not heat. Four dishes were measured. **김치찌개 came top at 9.86 mg/kg** — pH 4.6 and 0.98% salt. Pickles 2.86, kimchi ramyun 2.34, doenjang jjigae 1.64. Water and plain noodles barely register.
A Korean table with a shallow metal pot of stew and a brown earthenware ttukbaegi of soup beside it, Korean spoon and chopsticks
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A bowl of kimchi ramyun is roughly 1.4 mg. 식약처 puts the safe daily intake near 17 mg. Even the worst dish, at a 300g serving in a bare pot, is **about a sixth of a day's figure**. The honest answer is conditional yes, not panic.
A Korean restaurant table with a square stainless griddle pan of seafood and glass noodles, banchan bowls, tongs and glasses around it
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A steel scrubber strips the coating in one pass. That turns a 1.78 pot into a 23.90 one, and nothing you cook afterwards undoes it. **Soft sponge only. Don't long-simmer anything acidic in a bare pot. Replace it when the film goes.**

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KOREAN KITCHEN · THE POT

KOREA TESTED 56 RAMYUN POTS

The uncoated ones gave up thirteen times more aluminium. Here is the number — and the one habit that turns a safe pot into an unsafe one.

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