If you are a healthy cook, I can safely assume that you are already educated on the importance of eating healthy. What makes food healthy? Yes, it’s the choice of ingredients, which is correct, but there’s a secret to healthy cooking that not everyone knows: it’s healthy cookware. Interestingly, cookware is what ultimately determines the health of food!
Conventional cookware made from metals is innately reactive and food is a biochemical substance consisting of nutrients found in the form of oxygen, hydrogen halogens, acids and bases. The heat during cooking acts as a catalyst, causing metals to leach ions that react with nutrients and contaminate food. Similarly, ceramics are full of chemicals and oxides in the raw material and in the glazes/glazes used for finishing. There’s an easy way to test this: yes, you can check what you’re learning from the cookware you’re using right now with a simple and reliable home test (information towards the bottom).
Once again, the choice of cookware determines the purity of the food. Your cookware also guarantees its nutritional value: must you have heard how people cooking say that food is nutritionally deficient? While that is true, little research has been done to find out why and if there is anything that can be done to prevent it. Actually, the problem is not so much with the cooking process as it is with the cookware. Metals and ceramics are cooked with strong, destructive heat that dissolves nutrients as they cook.
Steam is an essential water soluble nutrient, it is what the body needs to replenish every day. With the strong heat of conventional cookware, the steam of the food is almost lost, which makes them need one more way.
As we have seen here, for food to be healthy, your cookware must first be healthy, one that is non-reactive and perfect for keeping your ingredients free of toxins. And it should also cook with gentle heat and retain steam. While searching for a healthy option, I found a cookware that closely resembles the historical ways of cooking: pure clay cookware. All-natural clay is a pure gift from nature and, when done the right way, provides all of these characteristics.
Alkaline baking soda test to check the toxicity of a kitchen utensil
- Boil 2-3 cups of water in any pot, when it starts to boil add 2 teaspoons of baking soda, boil for 5 more minutes. Turn off the stove.
- Wait until cool enough to taste and then taste the water (take a sip). If you taste metals, that’s what you’re eating! If the water tastes like rubber/paint, it’s the enamel/enamel chemicals.
As a control, mix 2 teaspoons of baking soda in 1 glass of water and take a sip; you will only notice the taste of baking soda. Truly non-toxic cookware would not leach anything into the food.
If your cookware fails this test, it simply means that it is leaching toxins into your food.