Category: Healthy cooking pots

A Dutch oven is a very useful and flexible piece of cookware, you can cook different types of food in it like soups, stews, vegetables, and other slow cooking recipes. When it’s made from pure clay, it can change the taste, color, health and nutritional value of your food for good! Let’s see what special features make a pure-clay Dutch oven uniquely beneficial over its conventional counterparts:

A Pure-Clay Dutch Oven is Made From A 100% Non-toxic & All-natural Material

Have you heard of a material that is purer than the food grown today? The fruits and vegetables may contain contaminants like chemicals and metals from polluted land in which it is grown but pure clay is 100% non-toxic – tested and certified. It is free from contaminants like lead, arsenic, nickel, cadmium and other metals that can cause havoc in your body if ingested.

A Pure-Clay Dutch Oven Cooks With Unique Far-infrared Heat That Does Not Destroy Nutrients

While conventional cookware cooks with harsh heat that destroys delicate nutrients like complex carbs, phytonutrients etc., pure clay is the only one that cooks food with gentle far infrared heat that keeps nutrients intact. It is evident from the fact that on accidentally touching a pure clay pot while cooking, your fingers (tissue matter) won’t burn like they do in case of metal/ceramic pots.

A Pure-Clay Dutch Oven is Naturally Steam Locking Thus Preserving Water Soluble Nutrients

Ever heard of a cookware that locks steam naturally even if the lid is not fit tightly? Pure clay pots have this excellent way of handling steam – the steam release is delayed till the end of the cooking process (because of the gentle heat). When it is finally released it condenses on the inner side of the lid (lid is cooler than the pot) and falls right back into the food! Unlike conventional cookware in which steam pressure gets too much and the steam needs to be released through the vents. As a result, the water-soluble nutrients stay within the food and are there to nourish your body with each meal.

A Pure-Clay Dutch Oven is Super Flexible – Use on Both Stove-top and In the Oven

A pure clay Dutch oven is comparatively flexible than its metal counterpart. You can use them both on stove-top and in the oven – no need to buy two different pots for different heat sources – saves money! This handmade pot is a workhorse in the kitchen and can be used to cook a number of different recipes – a single pot for all your needs!

Wondering where to get these pots from? Searching for “pure clay Dutch oven” on Google will give you the answer but let me make it even easier – Miriam’s Earthen Cookware makes these awesome pure clay Dutch ovens in the USA with skillful hands using all-natural primary clay from within the USA. With all these excellent features, it is a must try! Head over to MEC Store to get yours today!

How to make yogurt at home? But not just any yogurt, how to make delicious, thick and creamy yogurt right in your kitchen? This question can tempt your taste buds any time but the process of making it might seem daunting, a lot of times. Some of the common problems are yogurt turning out watery, runny or too sour or yogurt not setting at all! This makes most people turn to the store-bought yogurt which tastes good for sure, but with consequences. 

The Additives in Store Bought Yogurt 

The store-bought yogurt gets its taste and texture from a number of additives and artificial sugars which may be good to the taste but is a lot less nutritious and even bad for health sometimes. The commonly used additives for thickening are gelatin (glue made from animal bones), pectin (a bio-polymer acid, lab-made ingredient), powdered milk etc. And it is usually loaded with unhealthy sugars and artificial sweeteners that can make things really bad for people who have type 2 diabetes. While real and all-natural yogurt is actually supposed to help with many health issues, this one with the additives does just the opposite. 

So, if one wants to take advantage of all the essential nutrients the yogurt can offer, it’s important that it is made at home using the natural method, which is actually quite simple if you know this secret: 

The Natural Method of Making Yogurt at Home 

The secret to making the thickest and creamy yogurt is making it at home in a pure clay pot!  Pure-clay pots are made from the highest quality natural clay (primary clay) that has no contaminants and is made by hands without using ANY additives.  These pots are Non-toxic — will make sure nothing leaches into your yogurt and contaminate it, and semi-porous — allow excess water to evaporate making the yogurt thick and creamy, naturally and WITHOUT any additives. 

Once you have the pot, the rest is easy: 

1. Heat the milk to just before boiling point (till small bubbles form on the surface). Turn stove off, and open lid and let it cool down for 30 mins or so, till you can put your little finger and hold it there for 5 secs. Now the milk is ready for the culture.
2. Add yogurt culture.
3. Set in the oven with the lid on and oven light on.
4. Let it incubate for 6-8 hours and the yogurt is ready. 

The whole process takes less than 10 minutes hands-on time and the yogurt left in the pot gets thicker and creamier within few hours after fermenting. Also, no additives or sugars are needed and there is no nutritional loss (because the heat from the walls of the pot is gentle on the food’s nutritional cells). By using this natural method, you will get healthy, delicious and creamy yogurt every time! 

Ready to make your own homemade yogurt? Head over to MEC Store and get a yogurt maker today! 

This an important question and we should all be aware of it looking at so many health problems people are struggling with today. No medicine can help if the root cause is not identified and taken care of. It is beyond doubt that what we eat greatly affects our health — While healthy, nutrition-rich food nourishes our body and improves body functions, eating toxic and nutrition-deficient food can be a disaster to the same body functions and the organs. 

Among the different factors, there is nothing more influential in determining our health like the food we eat.  And the quality of the food depends on two things – the ingredients we choose and how we cook them. We put in a lot of effort in choosing healthy and nutritious ingredients, like unprocessed & organic, but do we pay equal attention to how we cook them?  

In order to cook food in the healthiest way possible, we need the right cookware. While the market is flooded with cookware made from metals and ceramics, it becomes difficult to find the right one – a healthy and non-toxic alternative that cooks food while keeping its nutritional value to the maximum. 

Pure clay (unglazed, primary clay) is an all-natural material that is a viable alternative to metals. All metals are reactive and form toxic compounds with nutrients which then accumulate in blood, tissues, and organs to form the foundation for a compromised immune system and many health problems.  

Pure clay, on the other hand, is 100% non-toxic and inert in its pure and natural form. It doesn’t leach and keeps the nutrients in food intact by cooking with gentle, far-infrared heat. The pots made from pure clay have excellent steam management properties that keep water-soluble nutrients locked inside and doesn’t release them through vents like in conventional cookware. So, the food cooked in pure clay turns out to be completely non-toxic and rich in nutrition. 

As an added benefit, the cooking time stays almost the same or even less in case of slow cooking, and food cooks thoroughly with no need for babysitting the pot! This makes cooking more convenient and the food turns out to be delicious and tender – as reported by many who have used pure clay pots: 

Great For Roasts

February 11, 2018

★★★★★

“Cooking a roast in Miriam’s Earthen Cookware is a pleasure. A roast, potatoes, and vegetables are cooked in 1-1/2 hours on the stove top. Much faster than the all-day cook in a crock pot. All of the food is tender also. I recommend Miriam’s Earthen Cookware!”

– Irene Walther, FL USA 

These factors and many others explained throughout the pages of their website have established the clear connection between our health and the cookware.  Knowing this, it is important to be an informed cook going forward so your food can be healthy and so can you! 

Terracotta is a term interchangeably used for pots and pans made from low fire natural clay. Terracotta cooking pots have been used for ages by different civilizations not just because the raw material was easily available, but also because clay pot cooking was considered the healthiest method for cooking food (consider: Ayurveda & Sidha, ancient schools of plant-based medicine mandate clay cooking for its many health benefits).  

Terracotta cooking pots were good for healthy cooking in those times but with modernization, things changed drastically. Industrialization gave rise to different kinds of pollutants that became common in air, water, and land. Also, the manufacturing process was aimed at making pots on a large scale in the most convenient way possible… And with the availability of chemicals and toxic additives to makes things faster, look prettier, its real value in health was compromised. 

Unfortunately, with the terracotta cooking pots available today, the quality of clay used is often questionable. It is mostly secondary or tertiary clay mixed with additives. The additives are chemicals added to the clay to increase elasticity, for uniformity in firing, and to add color (glazing) to the fired items. Certain chemicals are added for ease of processing and to increase manufacturing speed as well.  

In order to make healthy cooking pots from clay today, a company based in the USA, Miriams Earthen Cookwaretakes all the measures necessary to make the healthiest cookware in the world. MEC keeps the following things in mind to ensure the health of its cooking pots: 

1. They only use 100% Primary clay – pure and free from natural contaminants. It is harvested from non-industrialized and unfarmed lands (going back 200 years). To ensure its purity, several samples are tested in a state lab for contaminants like lead, cadmium, arsenic etc.
2. No chemicals or additives are used at any stage of making. As the mechanized processes demand the use of chemicals, MEC follows the good old-fashioned method of making pots by throwing the raw material (clay) on a potter’s wheel using skillful hands. The process may be a bit tedious but it is totally worth it when people’s health is on the line.
3. Use of glazes and enamels is a big NO! MEC believes that any kind of chemical and metal added to this pure material has the potential to leach into food while cooking. So they avoid even glazing (a mixture of toxic chemicals and oxides). The natural color of fired clay is pleasant to the eyes and when applied and burnished with the same clay it also makes the cookware naturally non-stick.  So, NO glazes or enamels are used. 

The clay pots made after following all these steps turn out to be the healthiest and make the most nutritious and delicious food. Interested in trying these healthy clay pots? Head over to MEC Store and order a cookware set for your kitchen today! 

We have evolved as a people with our cooking skills. And in this journey, some civilizations or groups of people have given it more importance than the others. We in retrospect see that those who have given it the deserving importance have thrived and lived long & healthy lives, not so much the people who have ignored it. Today, as we live in an age of always trying to make things better, how to cook delicious food, and also keep it healthy and nutritious is an unending quest for many, both scientists and cooks alike. 

In our attempts to make things better we have come almost 360 degrees with manipulating food. We have intervened into the core DNA of food (GMO) in an attempt to change it and have since drawn back seeing this may not be the right thing to do or yield the desired results (the advent of the organic crops). Sadly, though there is one aspect that has been almost completely ignored. The cooking pot! Believe it or not, the cooking pot makes a big difference to all these three aspects. The difference is so great that perhaps it may be the only thing that needs to be changed to yield the desired results. As expressed by this cook: 

Blown Away 

Verified Purchase DF-4 

April 7, 2018 

★★★★★ 

“I bought my pot pretty much for the health benefits. I was rather intrigued by the idea of cooking in a clay pot. Although it had been stated that food tastes better when cooked in clay, I didn’t really expect a great deal of difference. How wrong I was…I’m incredibly impressed by the difference… WOW!  

– Sam Oregon US 

We have dedicated this article to explain the unique connection. Of course, this is why Miriam’s Earthen Cookware came into existence — in an attempt to show the world, the power of a seemingly simple thing as the right cooking pot! We have experienced it, and today our experience is shared globally with other MEC cooks, and now with you: 

How to Cook Healthy Food? 

Healthy cooking cannot be done without healthy ingredients – choosing fresh, organic (if possible) and unprocessed ingredients is considered the best. And nothing says “healthy” as much as cooking from scratch does! While seemingly intimidating to some, cooking from scratch is really easy because of the flexibility it offers.  

Once healthy ingredients are chosen and we’ve decided to cook from scratch, the next thing is the cooking pot: 

The right cooking pot for healthy cooking should be 100% non-toxic! There is no better material that fully satisfies this condition than Tested and Certified Pure Clay.  It is the same earth, full of nutrients, that nourishes and grows our food, but of a very pure and un-contaminated kind. Among the many benefits it offers, one thing it does differently from conventional cookware is that it doesn’t leach metals and toxins into your food! That is the first step in keeping your food healthy. Metal ions and chemicals that leach into food and get assimilated into the body as pseudo-nutrients cause a ton of havoc to the system. From the hormonal system to the organs and tissues, these are all affected by these toxins that pose as nutrients.  

How to cook Nutritious Food? 

A nutritious meal can be accomplished by making sure: 

It is rich in a variety of uncontaminated nutrients, and these nutrients must not get depleted during cooking. Edible plants and vegetables, beans, dairy, grains, meats are all loaded with nutrients like proteins, vitamins, carbs, minerals.  Have you wondered why so much of it destroyed by the end of the cooking process? Can something be done about this?  

Yes, Cook it in the right pot! 

While all conventional cookware’s materials generate harsh, destructive heat that damage nutrients, the right cooking pot keeps nutrients intact by cooking it with gentle heat! Pure clay, which is “earth”, generates the same life giving, gentle heat and your food cooks without any nutritional loss. This far-infrared heat penetrates deep into food cooking it from the inside, gently and without destroying its nutritional cells.

How to Cook Delicious Food? 

When you take care of the “healthy” and the “nutritious” aspects of cooking, it automatically turns out very delicious when cooked in pure clay.  And this is how: 

As food is cooked with absolutely no toxins, gentle heat, and with most of the steam kept inside, the taste and aroma are greatly improved. The food is perfectly cooked leaving no part of it uncooked or overcooked and this makes it taste great too! Regular cooking, slow cooking, cooking in the oven – all of them turn out great just by cooking in pure-clay! 

My Family And I Are So Grateful 

Verified Purchase SC-2 

April 24, 2017 

★★★★★ 

“My family and I are so grateful we discovered Miriams Earthenware pots. We were looking for a way to cook bone broth and other slow cookery meals without the potentially harmful effects of lead and other chemicals in crock pots. Their cookware goes beyond my wildest expectations. Besides feeling confident about the safety and health benefits of cooking with clay cookware, the dishes are incredibly delicious and richer and the cooking time is greatly reduced. I love the recipes they have on their website and can’t wait for a cookbook. The customer service is also amazing!” 

– Victoria Behar

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hi I am Sachin, I hope this article was able to answer some of your questions on How to cook delicious food that’s also healthy and nutritious.

Food is at its best in taste and nutritional value when cooked in a pure-clay pot.  The difference is so great that this might be the only thing standing between you and ‘healthy’ food.  If you’re already careful about what you feed your family, know the importance of choosing the right ingredients, then the only thing you need to change is your pot to start eating the healthiest food!

Food is a joy and a pleasure enjoyed by every person who has come into this planet.  People of different cultures, regions, races have always enjoyed cooking and eating from time immemorial. The interesting part is the significance of food does not end there… it is the one thing that strengthens and sustains life inside of us more than anything else. And is also one of the most important factors that determine our health. Amongst the different pots and pans available today, the best ones that fully cater to all these 3 aspects of food are clay cooking pots — they preserve the taste, nutritional value, and health of the food. To understand these benefits, we need to compare them to what is commonly used now and the difference clay cooking pots can make in each case:

Conventional Cookware, why is it toxic and unhealthy? 

Most conventional cookware these days are made from either metals or chemical laden clay called ceramics. All metals are reactive including cast iron, steel, aluminum, titanium, they leach metal ions at cooking temperature that react with food’s nutrients and form toxic compounds – they are of no nutritional value in the body and keep accumulating in blood, tissues, and organs to form the foundation for a sick body and weak immune system. The ceramic pots are full of chemicals that contain metal compounds that leach metal ions like metals do. On the contrary, the right clay pot would be 100% non-toxic as the raw material is naturally inert and doesn’t leach. It will keep the nutrients in food intact. 

How they interact with the nutrients in the food? 

The harsh heat from the walls of metals and ceramics destroy essential delicate nutrients like complex carbs, phytonutrients, and vitamins. The water-soluble nutrients present as steam is constantly leaving the pot. This leaves your food nutritionally deficient in more than one way.  

How are clay cooking pots different? 

With clay cookware, however, the gentle heat cooks food just the way it needs to be – no nutrients are lost and the natural taste and aroma of food stay intact. Most importantly, the steam can be managed well in an ergonomically designed clay pot – all thanks to unique far infrared heat that keeps the lid at a lower temperature than the rest of the pot. So the steam condenses on the inner surface of the lid and keeps falling back into food while cooking. This not only improves the nutritional value of your food but it also makes it taste better! 

How to Choose the right clay cooking pots for you? 

The food cooked in clay pot is a lot healthier than in metal or ceramic pots – with absolutely no toxins and improved nutritional value. But it is extremely important to choose the right clay pot because the market is full of clay pots that are made without its complete health value in mind. As the demand grows and the need to keep prices low, toxic additives are mixed to the clay.  this is done in order to expedite drying or for making in slip molds – a faster making method.  And the product is now being glazed with the same color as what the fired piece would have turned out to be without the glaze. (See why glazing is not good for healthy clay cooking). This is done in order to save time with the finishing, but the same color is used so consumers can think its unglazed. A fully unglazed piece takes longer to finish and require more skill to work on but yields great benefits to cooking.

The best option for healthy clay pot cooking is using pots made from unglazed primary clay or pure clay. They are truly healthy as no chemicals or glazes are used and are 100% green, unlike any other cookware. They are fully biodegradable and are equally good for the environment as they are for your health.

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AUTHOR’S NOTES: Hi, this is Sachin and I hope you liked my article about 100% healthy and green clay pot cooking. Choosing the right clay pot is very important if you want to cook healthy.  There are many that are glazed and made with toxic additives and while they may look good they simply don’t cook good!  MEC’s pure clay pots and pans are truly healthy and green because they are made with absolutely no glazes or chemicals and using the age–old method of throwing clay on a potter’s wheel and formed by skillful hands. That’s one reason they are my first choice and should be yours too! 🙂 

So many things are labeled “green” are actually quite far from being truly eco-friendly. The pots and pans labeled ‘green cookware’ are no different.  This disguise is so great that many of the pots and pans are painted green and therefore are even labeled “green” or eco-friendly (type eco-friendly pots in a search engine, the results include green colored pots) while the fact is the green paint itself has toxic ingredients unhealthy for the food and the environment in many ways. 

What determines the eco-value of a product is, in fact, what is inside it or what it is made up of. To summarize, there are mainly 3-4 aspects that determine a product’s planet-friendly worthiness:

What it‘s made of: 

The raw material plays an important role in making an eco-friendly product. If the raw material is toxic, the product can never be called green or eco-friendly. In case of cookware, the metals conventionally used to make cookware release many toxic by-products during mining, extraction, processing, and finishing. Acquiring the raw material calls for massive deforestation to create mines and quarries (for ingredients in ceramic cookware) affecting the wildlife and the lives of people living nearby. Can this be eco-friendly? No way!

How is it made? 

Even if you choose an eco-friendly raw material, the way of manufacturing may impact the environment if chemicals are used at any stage and if toxic liquid or gaseous wastes are released into the environment. It is important that the manufacturing process neither affects the environment nor the health of people working in it. 

How does it work?

Another determining factor is how it cooks? Most non-stick cookware release toxic fumes when heated poisoning the environment. Most metal cookware requires high heat to accomplish anything while cooking.  This is because metals heat and cool at the same time and a higher amount of heat is needed to cook the same food as compared to a truly eco-friendly pot (keep reading to find out which one is).  

Another aspect that’s also important is what happens at the end of their life cycle: truly eco-friendly cookware should be fully biodegradable. Treatment of non-biodegradable waste is a challenge the whole world is struggling with and if a product is non-biodegradable it is certainly not eco-friendly. 

The only pot that is green in all 4 aspects is cookware made from pure clay: 

The raw material is all-natural tested and certified 100% non-toxic. It doesn’t affect the environment while it is harvested or processed. In fact people working with pure clay have reported it has therapeutic effects on their health. So the raw material is truly eco-friendly – CHECK!

Pure clay pots are made without using any chemicals. They are made in an old-fashioned way on a potter’s wheel with skillful hands and that sure isn’t harmful to the environment. This time-honored method of making pots from pure clay makes its manufacturing process absolutely green or eco-friendly – CHECK! 

When the pots made from this healthy material cook food, they neither leach toxins nor destroy nutrients. On the contrary, they cook food with gentle, far-infrared heat that keeps the nutritional value of food intact. Also, at the end of their useful lifecycle, they can be disposed off anywhere – they will go back to the same earth from where they came from causing no harm to the environment, making them fully biodegradable and thus, eco-friendly –CHECK!

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 Hi I am Sachin, I hope you found this article useful. Using an eco-friendly cookware like pure clay pots is important not just for our family’s health but also for that of the planet’s because, in this fast-moving, modern era, every creature is facing the consequences of the polluted environment. Choosing truly green cookware, because it caters to a very basic need, will help us bring a significant change in the right direction.

A pure clay Dutch Oven is a great piece of cookware and a very useful one. It consists of a cooking pot with a lid – both made from unglazed primary clay (or pure clay). It is quite popular probably because it’s versatile and can cook a variety of dishes. Let’s find out the pros and cons of this uniquely healthy cookware that is becoming very popular: 

Pros: 

1. 100% Non-toxic Raw Material – Tested & Certified

The raw material used is pure clay – a naturally available material that is tested in an independent lab (the makers have even shared the results – cool!) for chemical contaminants and metals like Lead, Cadmium and Arsenic – which are mostly found in conventional cookware even if in small amounts. But this cookware is 100% metal and chemical free – a great place to start especially since its marketed as healthy. The makers DO NOT use any chemicals or glazes in the raw material or for the finishing of the product. Needless to say, this natural clay because nothing is added to it or taken away from it, is 100% inert or non-reactive. 

2. Multi-functional & Versatile

 Metal and ceramic Dutch Ovens are not multifunctional but thankfully this one is. You can use it in the oven or on the stove-top. It is probably the most versatile cookware in the kitchen – one can cook a variety of dishes in it like soups, stews, rice and other casseroles dishes. It’s pretty convenient to have a single piece of cookware with so many uses. 

3. Food-friendly Far Infrared Heat 

While metals and ceramics radiate harsh heat that destroys delicate nutrients like complex carbs, phytonutrients and water-soluble nutrients, a pure clay Dutch Oven is quite a contrast. The unique far infrared heat from its walls penetrates deep into each grain and cooks it thoroughly even at just medium heat AND without destroying nutrients. This not only keeps the nutrients intact but also saves energy. All your favorite recipes will cook in about the same time as they do in any other cookware but will be far more nutritious. 

Also, all the heat is conserved inside the pot — thank goodness as your fingers won’t scorch even if you were to accidentally touch the pot while cooking. 

3. Excellent Steam Management 

Most conventional cookware let steam escape during cooking. But this cookware handles steam very intelligently. The steam rises from food and condenses at the inner surface of lid (which is cooler than the rest of the pot) and falls back into the food. What a great way to save all of that essential water-soluble nutrients! 

4. Better Heat Retention 

Pure clay pots are great retainers of heat so food stays warm for a long time after cooking is done. There is no need to re-heat the food every time you have to serve it. This is a great advantage especially in winter when food is likely to get cold pretty quickly. 

5. Food Tastes Great! Much Better than in metals: 

With all these features that pure-clay cooking offers — lack of toxins, gentle heat, abundance of nutrients, semi-porous surface of the pot that lets oxygen pass through it while cooking or all of these – the food tastes a lot better when cooked in pure clay. The people who are used to cooking in pure clay don’t even want to serve in any other material – this is how much they like the experience of pure clay cooking! 

Cons: 

1. Fragile 

There is only one – pure clay cookware can break if not handled carefully. But having said because of their great design that they are extremely versatile and their breakage rate is so low. 

If using your cookware with a little care is not a deal-breaker for you then this cookware is the best option you have for truly healthy cooking. It’s ability to cook 100% non-toxic, nutrition-rich and delicious healthy food makes it an ideal cooking pot for your kitchen.  

If you want to experience what it is like to cook in a pure clay Dutch Oven, head over to MEC Store and order yours now! 

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Hi I am Sachin, a passionate health enthusiast and I hope you found this article useful. 
Healthy cooking is need of the hour looking at how common it has become for people to fall sick and face health issues starting at a very young age. While pure clay Dutch oven demands a little more care than metal cookware, it is worth the effort looking at so many health benefits you are missing out without using it!

‘Faster slow cooking’ – what an oxymoron! How many times did we wish the food cooked a little faster? And sometimes the reality is very different: come back from work expecting your slow cooked food to be ready-to-serve but just to find out the machine burned your food, or is defunct, or only part of the meat is cooked or potatoes did not cook properly! Then you have to put it back on the stove to finish cooking. The whole experience of cooking becomes irritating and painful… This is where MEC comes to the rescue.  Hearing from customers with these experiences and some more (for example, lead & cadmium leaching into the food in slow cookers), MEC improvised their already amazing cooking pot to suit on-the-stovetop-slow-cooking, actually, faster than regular slow cooking, without nutritional compromise. 

Let’s admit it, we gave into this long 12-18-hour cooking method for a couple of reasons including convenience and also because the salesperson said the nutrients in the food stay intact. On the contrary, slow cooking in metal or ceramic inserts actually does just as much damage to food as with regular cooking in pots made from these materials.  Here is scientific proof of this fact: How slow cooking destroys your food’s nutrients. 

MEC pure clay pots can go on both stovetop and oven and cook in superfast time with no compromise on the nutritional value of food, no additional gadgets – just a simple pot and lid made from an all-natural, tested and certified non-toxic material that is time-honored and safest for cooking. This healthy way of cooking takes a lot less time and cooks by retaining all the nutrients! Here are some model recipes that can help you adapt any slow cooker recipe to MEC’s fast slow cooker: 

Beef Stew 

It takes about 6-8 hours to cook in a conventional slow cooker but with MEC you can cook the same recipe in less than 2 hours with little to no oil. Just put a tbsp oil into MEC pot and add chopped onions, tomatoes, carrots, bay leaves, thyme, beef, and water. Start on low and let it stay there for 5-10 minutes, increase to medium after and let it cook at that heat for 45 mins of cooking & boiling. Reduce back to low and check for doneness at 1.5 hours. Turn stove off when meat is cooked to your satisfaction.  You will find beef tenderly cooked and the stew very savory. 

Thai Chicken Curry 

This recipe usually takes 6-8 hours in a conventional slow cooker but with MEC, it’s a 1.5 hours process: pour 1 tbsp oil, coconut milk, Thai green curry paste, chicken thighs, chopped aubergine, ginger, lime leaves, brown sugar, into MEC pot. Start on low and let it stay there for 5-10 minutes, increase to medium after and let it cook at that heat for 30 mins of cooking & boiling. Reduce back to low and check for doneness after 50 mins to 1 hour of cooking. Enjoy the fast cooked and better tasting Thai Chicken Curry! 

Vegetable Curry 

The cooking time for this recipe is 6 hours in a conventional slow cooker. Here’s how to cook it in less than an hour or so in MEC: put 1 tbsp oil, coconut milk, sliced garlic, green chilli, chopped ginger, coriander, vegetables into the pot, stir well and let it cook at low for 5 mins, increase to medium after and check for doneness 45-60 minutes. Treat your taste buds with the rich taste and nutritionally dense vegetarian curry. 

The reason these recipes cook faster with MEC is because of the unique far infrared heat that radiates from the walls of pure clay pots. It is a food friendly heat that penetrates deep into every grain and gently cooks food evenly and thoroughly, in a faster time but without nutritional loss. Unlike metals and ceramics, MEC doesn’t leach toxins or destroy nutrients, so the food is completely non-toxic. This makes MEC the preferred cookware by health enthusiasts and enlightened cooks who care about the nutritional & real health value of their food. 

If the idea of faster slow cooking intrigues you, head over to MEC Store and order a pure clay pot for your kitchen! 

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Author’s Note: Hi, my name is Sachin and I am a passionate health enthusiast. In my research I have seen that slow cooking in conventional metal and ceramic pots is not only time consuming, it also reduces the nutritional value of your food by destroying delicate nutrients with harsh heat and leaching metal toxins that react with nutrients to form compounds that are toxic or of no nutritional value. Cooking in MEC is not just faster but also a lot healthier as the raw material is all-natural and tested to be 100% non-toxic – so you won’t have to compromise on the nutritional value anymore!

Healthy cooking is the need of the hour – with people facing so many health problems and nutritional deficiencies, it’s imperative to pay close attention to what you eat and how you cook it. It is particularly a challenge in summer because cooking causes the whole kitchen and house to get so hot. But with pure clay pots, healthy cooking in summer can be as easy as any other time of the year and you can continue to cook healthy for your family even in the hottest days.

Let’s understand healthy cooking first, starting with the fundamentals, it is two-fold: Choosing healthy ingredients and choosing the healthiest cookware.

Choosing healthy ingredients is a great first step towards healthy cooking, and choosing a healthy cookware is equally important. Cooking your carefully chosen, nutrition-rich ingredients in the wrong cookware not only destroys the delicate nutrients, it contaminates your food with metal and chemical toxins. Keeping this in mind, it is critically important to choose cookware made from naturally inert and 100% non-toxic material like unglazed primary clay or pure clay.  Here are some important reasons why cooking healthy in Summer is important and why pure clay pots make it easier and enjoyable:

1. They Don’t “Cook The Kitchen” Up

Metals & ceramics (the common materials for cookware) have the tendency to heat and cool at the same time and so higher amount of heat is needed to cook the same foods.  Also, as the pot cooks, a lot of the heat is given out into the kitchen or living space (as the pot is constantly cooling also).  A pure clay cooking pot, on the other hand, is an excellent retainer of heat so does not need too much heat to cook.  Most foods can be cooked just on medium heat or lower. And taking just about the same time!  This amazing feature helps you to cook in a pleasantly cool kitchen.

2. They Complement Your Healthy Living Practices

Let us admit – the cold keeps us inside and all our resolutions of exercise, going out, walking come into effect only in summer. Healthy clay pot cooking perfectly complements this change – now you can cook with little to no oils or fats, steam food and get the most out of your daily workout regime. And best of all – Food tastes far better when cooked in pure clay.

3. It’s A Great Time To Learn And Enjoy New Recipes And Cooking

It is always a good time to start something new but summer is even better for learning and trying out new recipes. It’s easier to search for new healthy ingredients, fresh ingredients are more easily available.  Farmers Markets are an enjoyable place to look for them. In winter, you’d prefer to have established your tastes, sources of ingredients etc. and stick to trying what you have learned to cook in summer, so why not try cooking some delicious new and exotic recipes this summer?

4. They “Season” Much Better in The Summer

A pure-clay pot can be seasoned anytime following the instructions but they somehow seem to like the heat of the summer better than the cold of the winter.   The summer’s heat lets the pot dry out more quickly and thoroughly after each cooking and this lets it season better – isn’t that great? Cleaning and cooking in a well-seasoned pot is so easy it is almost magical!

These are some great reasons why healthy cooking in summer is enjoyable with pure-clay cookware.

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WRITER’S NOTE: Summers are a great time to start cooking healthy! And I love cooking in my MEC pure-clay pots especially in the summer because they don’t “cook” my kitchen up.  With Miriam’s Earthen Cookware, there’s nothing I cannot cook in them that I enjoy in the cooler seasons.  And food tastes AMAZING!  You should try them too… Visit MEC Store to get yours today!