A Dutch Oven is probably the most flexible cookware in one’s kitchen. It can be mostly used both on stove-top and in the oven. You can cook a variety of dishes in it – like soups, stews, rice and other casseroles dishes. It’s convenient for a cook to have a single cookware with so many uses.
In terms of design, it’s a two-piece cooking utensil – a pot and a fitting lid. It typically has thicker walls than a regular pot. It is conventionally made from metals or ceramics.
Why Dutch Ovens Ones Can’t Be The Best?
When we buy a Dutch Oven, we want to choose the best. It should be non-reactive for cooking healthy and yet be multi-functional. Metal Dutch ovens are not multi-functional -they cannot be used in the oven and they are highly reactive! Metals are innately reactive and food is a biochemical entity – the reason they leach toxins while cooking. Similarly, ceramics are laden with a variety of chemicals that contaminate food. In fact, ceramics may be good for making showpieces and bath utilities, the presence of so many chemicals makes it unfit for cooking food.
A Non-Reactive Dutch Oven: Choose The Material Wisely
As metals and ceramics are reactive, it’s important to choose a Dutch oven with an alternate material that is non-reactive. Pure clay is a naturally inert material that is harvested from the earth’s surface. A pure clay Dutch oven is non-reactive and can be used on the stove-top and in the oven. It cooks food that is a lot healthier. Experienced cooks and bakers know how important it is to use the correct pot.
How Does It Cook Healthy?
As pure clay is inert, it doesn’t leach toxins while cooking. Also, the delicate nutrients stay intact and the cooked food has great nutritional value in the body. Metals and ceramics have harsh heat that even burns the tissues (touching a metal pan just 5 minutes into heating can burn the skin!). The delicate nutrients present in your ingredients barely survive the ordeal. To make matters worse, the water-soluble nutrients escape as steam, leaving your food deficient in nutrients. Even the best of recipes can end up with little nutritional value if cooked at too high a temperature.
The unique far-infrared heat from pure clay pots keeps nutrients intact and their excellent steam management properties naturally condense steam and send it right back into the food. As the body needs water-soluble nutrients on a daily basis, food cooked in pure clay saves you from this universal deficiency!
The convenience of cooking so many dishes on both stovetop and in the oven. And the health benefits of cooking nutrition rich food in a non-reactive and non-damaging (for nutrients) material, makes pure clay Dutch oven the best option.