10 Cooking Utensils in India Ranked from Worst to Best

Which utensils do you use for cooking. Are you using a non stick pan or aluminium vessels to cook your food or a pressure cooker is a part of your daily cooking. If yes then might be you unknowingly invite serious health issues like hypothyroidism, PCOD, Loss of memory, complications of the heart kidney and even cancer. So which is the safest cookware in the Indian market? Coming up the other side cookwares in India ranks from worst to best. 

Most people now days well aware of importance of eating healthy. How ever not many know that the cookware just you use is just as important. Cooking utensils is much more than what might you thinking to be. When the cooking utensil is heated definitely some part of it reaches into the food. Even healthiest of diet can be done serious health complications of your pots and pans are toxic. So to make things simpler for you I examine the most commonly available cookware in the Indian market and on the basis how safe they are for cooking I have divided them into 5 categories. 

Category#1-NON STICK COOKWARE 

Over 90% of urban Indian homes used Indian cookware. Go to a shopping complex and you will find that most of the cooking utensil lying there have non stick coating. Obviously it is very convenientto use. But did you know that It is the most dangerous. So that once a German man had sued a non stick company because the toxic fumes produced from that had killed his parrots. Most non stick pan are coated with poly tetra fluoro ethylene. A plastic polymer also known as Teflon. When you cook in Teflon and you see that smoke coming up out of the pan, if you want to trap that smoke and have it lab tested, you will find so many toxic chemicals in it including heavy metals like mercury and cadmium. These toxic fumes have been proven to do the serious damage to the body specially to the brain and the lungs. Some cheap non stick cookware may also have a chemical called PFOA which is polyfluorooctanic acid, it is life threatening and tends to stay in the body for long. After numerous researches it has been linked to various types of cancers. It is sad that non stick cookware is still not banned in India. Basically if you are looking for a healthy lifestyle non stick cookware should not enter your kitchen. You will not need to wait till chip off waste them right away and if you thought that the granite cookware is many better because they are marketed that way, you need to think again. These two are coated with the same toxic PTFA. 

Category#2-ALUMINIUM COOKWARE

Again one of the most commonly used cooking utensils are made of aluminium. Aluminium rose to fame because it is abundantly available cheap, strong, lightweight, versatile, good thermal conductor and recyclable. Today aluminium has become the most commonly used commercial cookware utensils. But unfortunately aluminium is toxic. The problem is that when we cook in an aluminium vessels it slowly leaches in the food. In fact you can do anything experiment, buy a new aluminium vessel and do it's weight. Start using it for daily cooking and after three years weight again. You will find a considerable decrease in the weight of the vessel. This is because most of the aluminium enters the food which was cooked in it. Aluminium is a thyrotoxic metal which gets deposited in the body. Today doctors clearly apprehend that the upward search in the thyrocases could be the excessive use of aluminium utensils. Not only this using aluminium vessels for cooking can lead to serious complications of the heart, kidney and brain. These days in the market you will find all aluminium source of vessel. 100% aluminium vessels, some alloy of alluminium, aluminium vessels with non stick coating, hard anodised aluminium vessels so on. Avoid all these can do a serious threat to your health. 

Category#3-STAINLESS STEEL COOKWARE AND CERMAIC COOKWARE

Another common option in the Indian market is stainless steel cookware. 100% stainless steel is definitely a better choice than we discussed in the previous 2 categories. Although it too have hidden dangers. You might have came across stainless steel cookware with copper bottoms, haven't you? No doubt copper is a good conductor of heat, but it is generally not recommended for cooking as it tends to react with oils and acidic food which may prooved detrimental. Stainless steel cookware have excessive amount of nickel to provide extra shine. It should be a avoided as nickel is highly toxic metals. Ration of Chromium:Nickel decides the so called grade of stainless steel. The first number represents the percentage of Chromium while the second number represents nickel. The lesser the amount of nickel the safer it is. Talking about CERMAIC cookware no doubt 100% ceramic cookware is safe, but the problem is that it is so hard to find and be very expensive. Most so called ceramic cookware in a market is not more than coating over aluminium. So do not waste your money on them. 

Category#4-CAST IRON COOKWARES-BRASS COOKWARE-GLASS COOKWARE-BRONZE COOKWARE

These are among the safer options available in the market, however they do have certain limitations. For example cast iron is very heavy and needs much care as it is prone to rusting and if you are cooking in a rusted vessel you are allowing to enter toxins into your body. But if you are ready to take care of cast iron it is definitely recommend. 

Brass cookware is another great option. According to Indian tradition brass utensils were retint naturally before it's use. When food is cooked in such brass utensils it retains almost 93% of nutrients. Aluminium on the other hand only retain 13% of the nutrients. The only downside of brass is that it needs a little more care while washing. 

Glass cookware are another safe option and ideal for microwave cooking. 

Bronze cookware another alloy metal commonly known as Kansa metal is best in this category. It retains almost 97% nutrients. It was widely used for cooking in India in yester years but unfortunately it is rarely seen in the market now a days. If you can get it go for it.

So which is the best cookware in the Indian market? 

Category#5 CLAY COOKWARE 

This category include none other than that clay pots. Earthern pots are by far the most scientific and healthiest cookware ever made. The porosity and natural insulation properties of clay causes the heat and moisture to circulate evenly through out the clay pots due to which there is hardly any nutrients loss. Yes it only in the clay pot that you can retain 100% nutrients in the food. Because it is made from earth it's composition is exactly what is need by the human body. Having over the 18 essential minerals in their right quantities earthern cookware is better than any cookware in the market. Not only the food prepared in the clay pots is healthiest but also the tastiest. This is not just the theoretical concept but having using a clay pot for a while now I can bet on it. The only downside of a clay pot that you might feel is that it cook slowly. If a dal is prepared in non stick container in 15 minutes, in a clay pot it would be prepared in 25 minutes. In fact thats how food should be cooked, slowly. Considering the more flavour full and nutritious dish that clay produces in the end I think it's totally worth the efforts. Prefer local vendors to get them at cheap prices, these are also available online. So if you want to pamp up your healthy lifestyle start using clay pots. 

To sum up, Clay pots are the far best cookware.

Brass, bronze, glass, castiron are good.

Stainless steel is ok.

Aluminium and non stick cookware the worst and should be avoided at all costs. 

So next time when you go to buy a cookware make sure to choose it wisely.