Choosing the Right Cookware for Health and Taste

In this episode of 'Monday Minutes' from the 'Reality of Health' podcast, I discuss the importance of selecting the right types of cookware for both health benefits and enhancing the taste of food. Highlighting the drawbacks of non-stick cookware due to its unhealthy coatings, I recommend alternatives like carbon steel, earthen, enamel-coated, and glass cookware for a better cooking experience. Special attention is given to carbon steel for its non-toxic properties, durability, and ability to cook food evenly. I also cover the proper ways to season, use, and clean this type of cookware. Additionally, earthen cookware, specifically Japanese donabe, is praised for its beauty and functionality. Tips on finding affordable high-quality cookware and a disclaimer about my lack of affiliation with any brands mentioned are also included. The episode emphasizes the impact of cookware on food's taste and health implications, advising listeners to choose wisely to avoid toxic chemicals and enhance their cooking.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

00:25 The Importance of Cookware in Health and Taste

00:45 Exploring Different Types of Cookware

01:31 How to Acquire Quality Cookware on a Budget

02:07 Deep Dive into Carbon Steel Cookware

04:51 The Art of Cleaning and Maintaining Your Cookware

07:17 Exploring Earthen Cookware

09:14 The Pros and Cons of Glass and Enameled Cookware

10:23 Understanding the Impact of Cooking Methods on Food

12:24 Conclusion: Making Informed Choices in Cookware

 Welcome friends to Monday minutes. This is the reality of health podcast.

Do you like to cook? Boy do I like to cook? Love it. Have for the last. I don't know, 25 years or so. Taught myself watching.

Emeril Lagasse. 📍

So today let's talk about your cookware. You've heard so many times how bad it is for you. If you don't use really good stuff. But what about using good stuff to make your food taste better? Not just.

To not harm your health.

If you do care about your health, you're going to want to worry about the types of cookware you use. The best.

Is carbon steel. Or earthen or enamel coated. Or even glass.

If you really do like to cook.

These are really fun to use. And we'll make much better tasting food than your standard non-stick type cookware that is unhealthy. There's a thousand different coatings and different pans out there. I'm sure there's a lot of really good ones. I'm just going to talk about four.

I think these four are the basics.

I think these four, if you went to a professional kitchen, you're going to find them. You went into their homes. You're going to find him.

They cost a little more initially, but they almost all come with lifetime warranties.

And generally will last forever.

If you want this type of cookware, but you can't afford them. It look for imperfect items on their website. It's usually a huge discount. It doesn't affect how it works, just how it looks, or you can shop online or even garage sales, vintage shops. believe or not. You can also ask people, you know, Hey, do you have any cookware that you don't use?

I'll buy it from you. They'll probably just give it to you and less, they don't like you. Just kidding. Quick. Disclaimer, I am not paid to talk about these brands or these types or anything at all. I have no affiliation with any of them.

There's a lot of good brands out there for carbon steel. But. One of the best carbon steel brands you can use. And they're gorgeous. Is called. Creatives. B L a N C creatives. They are beautiful. I mean, Seriously, beautiful and fully handmade. Even have pictures on their website of their shop.

Small shop, Virginia. I mean, it's just gorgeous stuff.

But they're made right.

They're also used by professionals.

You see carbon steel is not cast iron. It has less carbon in it. So it's less brittle and more duct tile. That just means it's able to be formed without losing its toughness. So they're lighter. They're more pliable than cast iron, but they basically do the same thing. Cast iron is way heavier. And with those short handles, you know, It's not as user-friendly.

But those are good for the oven. Not necessarily for the stove. You know, if you flip your food, move it around a lot, you know, like the. The flashy way of cooking.

But top quality carbon steel is much thinner, so it's easier to use. And then, because it's more malleable. You can have longer split handles. Which distribute the heat. From the handle. So you're not grabbing on to a hot handle.

Because it's thinner. It also reacts to changing the temperature of your pan much faster than cast iron.

And also because the lower carbon content, the surface is actually smoother than cast iron.

So why carbon steel? Many of the really high end restaurants actually use carbon steel. Because of the durability and heats evenly. They're more versatile. Non-toxic. And they're super easy to clean.

Because this is a health podcast. The reason I

brought up these pans is because of the non-toxic attributes.

You don't have to worry about. Carbon steel releasing anything bad to you. Food also tastes better, cooks more evenly and thoroughly. Sure you can cook food. And just about any vessel you can think of, but some vessels make the food taste better than others. That's one of the reasons. Why when you go to a restaurant. And the food just tastes better and you can't really create that at home.

You know, sometimes it's the tools. It's not just the person.

And I'm not even talking about just the maillard reaction.

It's how it cooks it. By imparting the energy into the food. That's a whole episode unto itself. I think.

Seasoning your pan. First thing you do super easy. They show you on the website, how to do it. There's lots of ways to learn how to season a pan, you know, oven or stove, top ovens, probably the easiest. Super good conductor of heat. It'll heat up quickly and evenly. So be careful cooking with it. So you don't damage your food or your pan.

You know, start low and then low to medium kind of heat and just kind of get adjusted to it as you, as you're cooking your food.

You can use metal utensils, but really they should be carbon steel utensils. That way you don't scratch it since they're the same hardness level. You won't ruin it. If you scratch it, just doesn't look as good. So use wood utensils. Silicone even like plastic nylon, but of course the whole point is to not use those two synthetics in your cooking.

Make sure you clean them properly. Warm. Hot water. Non-abrasive sponge or brush. Void using soap or other harsh cleaning products as they can damage the seasoning on the pan.

If you end up leaving some cooking material on your pan it's okay. It helps create, maintain the seasoning. So try not to scrub excessively hard. You don't want to soak it in the water that can ruin the seasoning and start to rust. Can either just wipe it out with a rag or paper towel, or you can rub with salt and some oil that'll pick up. You know, tricky patches of food, because it provides a little bit of abrasion, but it doesn't scratch the pan or remove the seasoning. Another method for like large chunks of food.

That's hard to get off is just put some water in it and bring it to a simmer. Then you can lightly scrape it off with a. Wooden spatula or something similar. So easy to clean, no reason to be afraid of using carbon steel or even cast iron.

Of course, make sure it's completely dry when it's done being cleaned. And don't forget to season it. Really important to season properly. It's not hard to do. We're going to have to do it a couple of times, probably when you first own it. And after that, if you handle it properly, never have to do it again.

Of course you're never used citrus fruits or berries or vinegar or tomatoes. Wine pickled foods. On these types of pans or any cast iron pan. It'll strip the seasoning.

Not the first time, but after a few times you start to lose that seasoning.

The next best one is earthen. Like, as in clay. Clay pots. You know, we've been using them since the Dawn of man.

The best are made by Japanese called donabe. D O N a B E.

They can be used for just about any way of cooking you can think of, but especially for soup. And stews. Rice, any slow cook dishes that you can. Also serve right in the vessel. You can also sear with them. If they're glazed. If it's unglazed then you don't want to sear with it just doesn't have that ability.

You do need to season the unglazed.

So don't forget to do that. Not only are these absolutely beautiful, but they work extraordinarily well and food again, tastes better. If it's glazed. Then it also cooks not only slowly. From normal, let's call it heat. But it also uses infrared heat as well, transmuted by that glazing. So you can sear. Your food.

Best brand probably made right now. That is not an arm and a leg to purchase is called Toiro kitchen. T O I R O kitchen.com. These are glazed. So you can use them every single day for just about anything from baking to stove top to the grill, to your smoker. Again, you know, they're going to cost a little bit more, but their lifetime use, you're going to hand these things down, you know, buy once cry once.

The best way to spend your money is to use it once. Not yearly for garbage non-stick cheap pans that make you ill with forever chemicals and plastic and probably other chemicals. They don't even tell us about.

So you get better tasting food and no cancer sounds like a winner to me.

Glass. Is another. Quite popular version of cookware. That is non-toxic. It's probably the least toxic of all of them. Because it's so hard. You know,

You just need to make sure it's lead free problem with glass is it's good for baking or slow cooking only. So the food's just going to taste the way the food's going to taste when it softened from cooking. Won't really taste better than it could have.

Enameled cookware. You've heard of Le Crueset probably your whole life. Very good as well. But it can chip really easily and it's super heavy.

If you know how to take care of it properly. You'll have it the rest of your life. You can sear your food in it, but you can't control the temperature as quickly as you can with carbon steel. As with any cookware using acids like. Citrus or vinegar or tomatoes, these kinds of foods, they can help leech heavy metals out of it.

Or whatever's in the glazing of any kind.

I don't care what it is into your food. And when you add heat to that pan and food, you can create toxic compounds. Maybe some that no one's ever even found before.

There's not a ton of research being conducted on a food interactions with coatings. On the cookware.

So I'm sure there's probably something. You know, no one's done it yet. The other thing you have to be careful of is using fats of any kind and heating them up too much. That will then create toxic acrylamides plus it just restructures the fat in a negative way. Some people experienced digestive upset. When oils or fats have been heated to high.

If you're that person try lowering the amount of fat that you eat, that's been cooked.

Since most food needs to be cooked.

You just need to evaluate for yourself what you want out of that food. The longer you cook it, generally speaking, the less nutritional value leftover. And some cases, the nutritional value will increase by cooking it slowly over a longer period of time. Some nutrients are locked in structures within the food.

Plus some foods are hard to digest. So the longer you cook them, the easier it is on your gut.

There are many reasons. Why you should use one cooking method over another, and yes, of course, you're going to get toxic chemicals from your food because everything is made out of chemicals. When you heat or burn or smoke or sear, any number of ways that you cook it. You just want to minimize them as much as possible. Does that mean you. Should become a raw food person. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just simply stating that you should be careful on how you cook your food. Based on what food that is.

You don't want to burn salmon.

All those good fats are now.

Acrylamides. Those cause cancer. I think I'm going to do an episode on how to cook your food in the future. Let me know if that's something you're interested in. We can get into all the details on why you shouldn't fry your food all the way up to is sous vide really healthy. Hm. There's no such thing as perfect cookware.

And maybe you should think about the type of utensils you use, you know, those plastic and silicone ones. You know what I'm talking about?

Thanks for listening. Now go make something delicious.