Choose The Best Material For Your Cookware To Prevent Health Issues

You will come across metal, glass, ceramic, nonstick, enameled and a host of materials used to make cookware that you may use on a daily basis, sometimes twice a day. However, you may not know that all these materials affect your health, few in a positive way and most in the negative way. Therefore, it goes without saying that you will need to choose the right material to prevent the possibilities of any severe health issues.

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Things to know

Growing concerns over the dire consequences of metal contamination from the pots and pans, effects of plastic leaching toxins and the potentially deadly fumes emitted from nonstick cookware have forced manufacturers and scientists to come up with newer and better ideas. Here is a brief insight to a few popular cookware materials. Remember that this is not an exhaustive list but it is certainly a reasonably good aide to make that change.

•  Metal Cookware: This category includes aluminum, copper, stainless steel, and cast iron. These are durable, easy to clean, use and maintain. You will get these at a wide price range but the concern is regarding the leaching metal into the food, especially acidic food. Aluminum can cause Alzheimer’s disease, neurod egenerative disorders and affect the brain. Stainless steel may leachnickel and cast iron may raise iron levels.
• Enamel Coating: Cooking in enamel coated pots over metal may prevent the potential leaching but till the time this coating is not damaged or scratched.
•  Glazed Ceramics: Most slowcooking utensils are glazed but once again the problem is with the leaching of lead and cadmium.
•  Teflon Cookware: Often advertised as the best cookware, these are also not free from health risks. It is the PTFE content that releases toxic fumes when heated. This PFOA chemical also called C8 can cause serious concern though it needs less oil to cook.
•  Natural Material: There are a lot of inert natural materials used to make cookware that are safer but the problem is that these may not be a great alternative to other materials when you need to cook on a stovetop. Though some of these can be used in the oven, but for frying you will require something else.
• Clay: You will have to look for quality if you want to use clay pots just like those with ceramic glaze. Sometimes these are contaminated with heavy metals, other unwanted garbage and industrial runoff on the ground. If you buy these from a company that test for these things regularly, these should be fine to cook tender meat, stews, roasted chicken as well.
• Glass: This is the most inert material that will not leach anything to the food eliminating health risks but then are a misfit for stovetop cooking.

The long and short of the story is that, no matter what type of cookware you choose, make sure that you buy it from a reputed company that tests for toxic elements and does not have their factory in countries such as China that has very loose environmental laws.