The lives of people have changed so much over past few decades and so have their choices when it comes to buying things. ‘Convenience comes first’ is the new rule when we do any household chore and cooking is no different. This is probably the reason slow cooking has become so popular these days.
Cooking in a slow cooker is very convenient because all you have to do is put in all the ingredients, set the right temperature and forget about it for the whole day. When you come back home from work in the evening, your food will be ready to serve.
No doubt slow cooking is convenient but is it healthy? If you have to compromise on your food’s health, would you still choose this cooking method just because it is convenient? I don’t think so.
Slow cooking affects your food’s health in two ways:
By leaching metals:
The metal or ceramic pot leaches toxins at cooking temperature like lead, cadmium, nickel, molybdenum etc. They react to food (which is biochemical) and form toxic compounds with the nutrients in your food.
These toxins that over time accumulate in the tissues, cells and organs contribute to causing diseases like Alzheimer’s, hepatic failure, renal failure, dementia, autoimmune problems and cancer. They cause detrimental changes in the cells, tissues and organs (kidney damage, liver dysfunction, muscle pain, psychosis etc.).
By destroying nutrients:
An immediate draw-back is the harsh near–infrared heat conventional slow cookers generate that destroys delicate nutrients during long hours of cooking like complex carbs, flavonoids, phytonutrients etc. Scientific research done on amino acid lysine found in peanuts showed these results (World Health Foods):
Twenty percent of it had been found to get cooked out after an hour and a half exposure to 150°F heat. After two and one-half hours, 40% was lost. According to World’s Healthiest Foods, the majority of vitamins have less heat stability than this amino acid. So higher percentage losses of many vitamins when cooked at 200°F over six to eight hours of time can be expected.
The water–soluble nutrients are lost as steam because conventional slow cooker does nothing to manage steam leaving the food. All these factors leave your food nutritionally depleted. Eating nutrition-deficient food may cause malnutrition, lack of stamina, weakness and cause diseases like anemia, rickets, goiter etc.
Thankfully, we can still switch to an alternative way of cooking that has stood the test of times: cooking in pure clay. MEC clay pots make slow cooking even more convenient (saves time and energy) than conventional slow cookers without compromising on your food’s health value:
The all-natural raw material — unglazed primary clay is 100% non-toxic and has no chemicals, glazes or enamels used while making and so the pot is fully inert, the opposite of reactive.
The food friendly far-infrared heat preserves delicate nutrients and their excellent steam management properties keeps water soluble nutrients inside the pot! The food cooked in MEC pure clay pots is rich in nutrition and free from toxins.
Would you like to try healthy slow cooking with MEC? Head over to MEC Store and order pure clay pots today!
Why Choose Healthy Cookware? 