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Healthy Cookware

Healthy cookware is non-reactive cookware. Cookware ratings show that ceramic cookware and earthenware get the best healthy cookware reviews.

Whether you’re stocking your kitchen for the very first time, or you’re just replacing a few pots and pans, buying healthy cookware has to be a priority. In the same way that drinking a hot drink from a Styrofoam cup alters the taste and contents, cooking out of reactive pots and pans will change the way that your food tastes and can release harmful toxins into your food.

Fortunately, you can get completely inert cookware that won’t react at all with your food, or you can choose from moderately reactive materials that will only react with some foods.

Completely Non-reactive Cookware
healthy cookware is non-reactive materials. These don’t necessarily have to be completely organic products, as you’ll still need the heat conduction of metals.

Completely inert cookware includes:

Ceramic cookware or earthenware cookware- These tend to be better for oven baking as they are excellent at retaining heat. They do take a while to heat up, but once hot they will continue to cook their contents once they’ve been removed from the oven. Their major drawback is that they are incredibly fragile.

Enamel coated pots - Enamel is usually used to cover cast iron pots, meaning that you’ll get completely even and very high heat retention. It’s worth paying more for the best cast iron cookware, as cheaper products will chip and break up, meaning that small shards will enter your food, and the metal below may contaminate your food.

A titanium and ceramic combination - Titanium is one of the least reactive metals out there, but it’s not great at conducting heat. You’ll be able to find aluminium cookware covered with a non-stick titanium and ceramic coating which is great for general day to day use. Titanium is not cheap, so this option is one of the more expensive ways of buying healthy cookware.

Moderately Reactive Cookware

While completely inert cookware can be of great help around the kitchen, you’ll find that a lot of the time it’s more suited to baking and roasting than every day stove cooking. If you cook more through frying and simmering, you may want to consider:

Stainless steel utensils - Apart from being another very unreactive metal, the best stainless steel cookware also gives you a classic modern look to your kitchen. They are deliberately not made to be non-stick, which means that you need to pay more attention to your food than normal. They also require a careful approach to cleaning. If anything does get stuck to the bottom, either leave it to soak, or add baking soda to vinegar to dissolve the dirt.

Cast iron cookware - When it’s looked after, the best cast iron cookware makes for very healthy cookware. They tend to be better for frying and sautéing food as they get hot quickly and will give an even heat all over. However, if they are allowed to develop any rust, non digestible iron can enter your food. The best treatment is to season your cast iron utensils after every use. This involves completely drying the cookware, applying a light coating of vegetable or sunflower oil and baking in the oven.

Above all, when set out to buy healthy cookware, try to avoid anything that contains any non-stick coating. When this gets too hot, or becomes damaged, it can degrade and release harmful carcinogens into your food. There is progress being made to make non-stick coating safer, and most manufacturers will put on multiple layers of non-stick coating for better protection. However, the main problem is the adhesive used to stick the coating to the pan which doesn’t stand up well to high temperatures.

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