Cooking: High Quality Cookware

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Here’s a really funny story on the first “real high-quality cookware set” that one of our readers bought. Read it, enjoy it – and if you have thoughts on cookware or a story to tell for yourself, simple write down a comment below. Thanks!

Due to limited funds, my first set of cookware after I got married was an inexpensive set from a discount store for about $50.

Several years and a couple more sets of cheap cookware later, I decided it was time to upgrade and maybe splurge a bit on a good set.

I bought a $75 set this time. As you may have already gathered, that set didn’t last any longer than the $50 sets.

By that time however, our finances were a bit more secure and it was time to get a “really” good set. I did my research and of course, the prices about knocked the wind out of me. I decided to host a kitchen show to be able to purchase the company’s cookware sets (with a lifetime warranty) at half price.

I remember sweating bullets as I wrote my extremely large check, at least it seemed larger than life at the time. I couldn’t believe I was spending that much on cookware. A couple weeks went by and the cookware was finally delivered. I looked at it for a few days in the box. #

After having spent that much money on it, I was terrified to use it.

Eventually I did work up the nerve to actually cook a meal with my new pots and pans. Now that I tackled my fear of my new expensive cookware, I got it all cleaned up and made a nice spot for it in the cupboards. Of course that presented a new set of problems, scratches! I stacked all the pots and pans in the cupboard and separated each of them with kitchen towels.

Some might say I was a bit overprotective of my cookware those first couple of years and admittedly, I probably was.

Since then, I’ve even gotten rid of the towels separating each piece. Even though the price tag scared me half to death, it was one of the best purchases I have ever made and the investment was definitely worth it.

High quality stainless steel cookware is a great choice for save cooking. Many kinds of cookware react with the foods, either changing the taste of the food or even releasing harmful materials into the food that can cause imbalances or diseases. Many non-stick coatings like teflon are save – but once they get scratched or overheated they can start to leak chemicals in the food that are according to some scientific studies dangerous and possibly carcinogenic.

Stainless steel cookware is very save. Stainless steel is a mix of different metals: iron, chromium and nickel. Iron, as you are probably aware of is not a dangerous metal for the human body – one of the healthy aspects of spinach for example is that it has a lot of iron.
Chromium also is healthy for humans – between 50 to 200 (microgram) mg per day are recommended. Studies have shown that when you cook one meal in a stainless steel pan or pot it releases about 45 mg of chromium into the food – so that’s even less than what’s recommended daily, a very save amount of chromium. That means even if you eat four meals a day that are all cooked in stainless steel pots and pans you would still be in the save range, since 4 times 45 mg equals 180 mg (less than the daily 200 mg that are totally fine).

About nickel – nickel really isn’t something that you want to put in your body. Fortunately when you cook with stainless steel cookware there is very little nickel leaking into the food – so little that scientists and medical professionals consider it absolutely save. The only people to whom the nickel might pose a threat are people who have nickel allergies. If you have a nickel allergy I suppose you already talked to your doctor about that. Since stainless steel cookware is used in so many public places (restaurants etc.) I suppose that it still is normally not that big of a threat, but again, check with your doctor.

To some this might all sound a little weird and they might be surprised that when they cook part of the cookware also gets into the food. But this is really normal, it’s the world we live in. You drink from a can and some tiny amounts of the can material will get into your drink. You drink from a bottle and some tiny amounts of the plastic get into your drink. When you cook there is heat involved which enforces reactions between different materials. This is nothing bad – remember that we human beings are designed to live in this world and to handle these kinds of things.
When you buy high quality cookware you can be pretty sure that it is save to use – cause all these big brandname manufacturers have a reputation and they don’t want to risk lawsuits. Of course if you buy cheap noname cookware that’s a different case – which is one of the reasons why I always choose high quality cookware.

I hope you found this article insightful – if you have questions or comments, just write something by clicking on comment – I’d be glad to hear from you.

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